I had no idea what to expect from Drunk Shakespeare. What kind of show, or event, was it? Was it even reviewable? All I knew was that whatever it was, it went on upstairs at Quinn's Bar on 44th Street.
Drunk Shakespeare turns out to be (or not to be) a raucous, high-spirited and indeed drunken mashup of Shakespeare – Macbeth, the night I went – and improv, bedizened with singalongs and shoutalongs, crude ethnic jokes, dancing, rounds of shots, and assorted (and sordid) hilarity and chaos. Go armed with two things: a rough familiarity with the stories of Shakespeare's most famous plays (so as to know what's going on and what's being sent up), and a willingness to get pulled into the action.
Drunk Shakespeare is indeed performed in a bar in New York City. You can order drinks and snacks before or even during the show (and it would be churlish not to imbibe). After some lengthy preliminaries, Thursday night's show began, and the Scottish play – or at least the highlights thereof – unfolded before us with much comic derring-do, many planned and unplanned interruptions, and an underlying hum of good-natured (if not denatured) alcohol-fed chaos that continually threatened to overwhelm the action. Cracking up, reading lines off a smartphone, sucking face, stripping down, battling by dance-off, and so on, the cast of five staggered through what was certainly the funniest Macbeth I've ever seen, though that's a phrase I never thought I'd be writing.
Audience participation is a given here. I and several other spectators were armed with Christmas tree-shaped car air fresheners and enlisted to represent the oncoming Birham Wood. Others spectators lent phones to the action. Still others embodied Banquo's Ghost by waving around laminated headshots of company member Kate Guntham, who'd played him. Orange segments were thrown, lipstick was abused, and beer was spilled (no, sorry, that last one was just me). And a good time was not merely devoutly to be wished, but indeed had by, it seemed, all.
The cast of five wielded an impressive arsenal of Shakespearean acting ability, improv skills, and the charisma and charm that are absolutely necessary to pull off this kind of mingling-with-the-audience stunt theater. Each show will be different – even two performances (or "performances") of the same play will be different – but if the Drunk Shakespeare gang maintains this level of creative energy and high spirits, a sloshing good time is almost guaranteed.
Drunk Shakespeare is for those age 21 and up. Click here for tickets and info.
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