BATS Theatre’s The Stage is packed for the final night of the New Zealand Improv Festival, and the first show of this evening’s celebrations. The Royal Fakespeare Company is to be performed by a selection of improvisers from Ōtautahi’s Court Jesters: Brendon Bennetts, Jeff Clark, Riley Harter, Hannah Beatrice and Crisstian Grueber.

We’re presented with the titles of three potential Shakespeare plays – given by the audience before the show. A Midsummer Night’s Scream (Shakespeare’s dark phase), The Witch Queen (submitted by my theatre-going companion, who deafens me with a shriek of delight as Brendon, on the stage, makes a wry quip about the video game Destiny 2 – no, you don’t need to understand this reference), and The Framing of the Shrew.

With applause and cheers, the audience makes our decision, and we’re flung back in time to see a production of one of Shakespeare’s forgotten works: The Framing of the Shrew.  

A quick interstitial – I know some of the actors in this show decently well. Such is the interwoven web of the New Zealand Improv Festival. This won’t affect my review of the piece.*

We begin in a framer’s shop. Prince Resene (Bennetts) arrives to retrieve a half-framed portrait of himself for his fiancée, Lady Dulux (Harter). However, the framer (Clark) tells him that it’s not yet done, and he’ll have to return. This is where we lay our scene, and it is with this flavour that we continue. 

A story blossoms in front of our eyes; one of murder, mistaken identity and many character names tangentially related to arts supplies (“Common Crayola, thy head is much blunted from overuse”). Hannah, as the stagehand, literally builds the scene with her body, running a purple ribbon around the players to symbolise love, flitting about the stage as a bird, and similar. Criss, too, is roped into the story more so than providing just the show’s soundtrack – he becomes a suitor in this multi-layered tale and is one of the many characters to get married off in the end.

Oh yeah, did I mention the entire piece is performed in Early Modern English – as close to – as well?

I am ever in awe of improv that is note-perfect like this. The idea of performing a forgotten Shakespeare play is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a show I, and others in the audience, would happily see many times over with different plays and titles. The cast has an enviable immediacy and is so on top of their performance, not just as highly-skilled actors, but in their technical knowledge of the genre they’re satirising. Good satire comes from a place of truth and this show is some of the best.

Holding together a multi-layered narrative such as this one is no mean feat, and while the artifice of this meta-narrative allows for time jumps – we ‘skip a few scenes’ forward in the ‘play’ once or twice – the control over where things are going is admirable and well-practised.

To step outside my nerdy scholarly adoration of this show – it’s just really, really funny.

All of these performers are deeply talented, witty artists with tons of confidence on stage; who spice the show up with ridiculous puns and a covetable ability to make fun of themselves.

If you get the opportunity to see a Royal Fakespeare Company show in the future, do. They are such stuff that dreams are made on, and you would be a fool to pass the moment up.

*[Indeed, peer-reviews by participants in other shows has become a valued hallmark of the Improv Festival, encouraged by me and facilitated by Emma, for which much thanks – Ed.]

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