Shakespeare comes to Company Carolina

BY FAITH MCELROY I The Daily Tar Heel

You’ll never look at Othello the same.

Company Carolina will be presenting “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)” on Saturday and Sunday in the Great Hall in the Student Union.

Every year Company Carolina, a community-inclusive theater company at UNC, puts out a call for proposals to everyone in the area.

“Graduates, undergraduates, people in the community—-if someone comes to us with a really good proposal, we’ll take a look at it no matter what,” Clare Shaffer, the theater’s producer, said.

Catherine Arvay, the play’s director, submitted the satirical drama to Company Carolina earlier this year. “Shakespeare” is the theater’s major comedy piece for the year, Shaffer said.

Senior Brandon Lanning and sophomores Roger Burton and Alexander Thompson star in the three-man show. With over 20 costume changes throughout the night, the actors will have to be thinking one step ahead said Shaffer.

“It’s one of the most actor centered shows there is because you have to be spot-on with everything,” Shaffer said. “You have to have great improv skills and perfect comedic timing.”

The two hour play is split into two acts. Act One features parodies of every Shakespearean work except one. Act Two fills the gap by presenting three versions of Hamlet.

The Shakespearean histories (Julius Caesar, King Lear, etc.) are included in the show through an on-stage football game—with the British crown as the ball. “Macbeth” is performed with kilts and thick Scottish accents. The entire cast of “Romeo and Juliet” is played by only two people. And “Othello” is rapped.

Act Two gets even more outlandish, said Shaffer.

“Hamlet is performed once, then again, faster, then an even more condensed—and backwards. Even the words are backwards.”

See the show Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 to $10.

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