Preshow occupational health and safety: A gong for an audience member to strike when they feel drunk actor is unsafe; a bugle for an audience member to blow when they feel drunk actor is sobering up; a bucket in case drunk actor needs to vomit. Not in a manual, anywhere.
When the show begins and the actors appear, everyone is searching for a clue to find the drunk in disguise. It doesn’t take long. Wet lipped, smirking and swaying, we’ve found our clown, a modern day representation of the court jester.
Hamlet (Lion King) begins and we’re launched into Shakespeare, getting our ear attuned to his verse and beginning to understand the plot, but what the audience is really waiting for is … the drunk (who tonight is Orphelia and Horatio). She starts out trying to maintain composure, with the merry band of players keeping their wayward companion on track, but as the show progresses this is made increasingly difficult, and actors compete with the drunk to hold their spotlight in the scene.
A little drunken action at Shit-faced Shakespeare
The ensemble is strong at their game, and their best moments are their ability to improvise around the loose mind and loose mouth of the drunk. They pick up the blanks in the story expertly and wittily spin ramblings made by the drunk into phrases of verse.
We take comfort in their great care of their companion, ensuring her physical safety at all times. Perhaps this is in part because they know all too well that they might be in her shoes tomorrow?
The scenes without the drunk actor lack the same frenetic energy and at times these scenes fall a little flat. We want her onstage. By the end of the show the play is a chaotic, hilarious spiral. We’re at loss with the plot but does anyone care? We’re laughing and that’s all that matters.
This show was a true fringe experience, mixing the supposedly high-brow Shakespeare into a low brow performance for us, the tent and folding chairs riff raff. For all we know this intoxicated version of events could have been closer to what Shakespeare’s performance at The Globe was like! This is what the audience at the fringe loves, entertainment that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and Sh!t-faced Shakespeare delivers what we love.
Performing at the large May Wirth venue in Gluttony until the 15 March.
Tickets can be purchased from the Adelaide Fringe website:
https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/shit-faced-shakespeare-hamlet-af2020
