Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Ever considered throwing all of the Great Books into a blender just to see what would happen? How about attempting to speed-read and reenact every issue of Cliffs Notes ever published? Me either, but then Im not a mad comic genius like Reduced Shakespeare Company performers and co-playwrights Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor. The Northern California natives have come home to perform their All The Great Books (abridged) and The Complete History of America (abridged) with Walnut Creeks CenterREPertory Company, and the results are simply hilarious.

In All The Great Books, the theatre becomes our classroom where the teachers task is to remedy our remedial knowledge of the worlds best-known literature. Coach Martin, Professor Tichenor, and young teacher-dude Domenic Conti deal with late-comers (word to the wise, be on time!) before leading the pledge of allegiance to get things started. In less time than it takes to say Once upon a time, every imaginable library book from Ulysses to Green Eggs and Ham becomes fodder for the trios madcap antics and sharp political wit.

Martin and Tichenor demonstrate their years of experience not only in improvisational theatre but in sharing the stage. They effortlessly play off of each others lead, react to the audience, and find new riotous moments in the mishaps that are inevitable with countless costume changes and twice as many wacky props. Conti, the newest member of the group, is green only in comparison. He holds his own on the rollercoaster ride of literary lunacy, bringing down the house when reacting to an extended improv tangent. You guys wrote this. We can go wherever you want.

And go they do. Dickens and poetry get the zany blender treatment, while Little Women is laid out by Coach Martin like a football playbook. Then its on to retellings of Don Quixote in Spanish with side-splitting English translation by Conti, followed by Homers classics combined as the brilliant Idiodity. Just when we think intermission is a chance to catch our breath after these first act highlights, its time for mid-terms. However, before we can earn our diploma (yes, we actually get one), Coach insists on summarizing Tolstoys War and Peace with cameos by Tichenor and Conti as Dracula, Long John Silver, and Tom Joad.

From silly wigs to horses posteriors, the costumes are one sight gag after another while remaining functional for warp speed changes. Not since Laverne & Shirley has a hoop skirt been so funny. The sound design is equally clever whether offering James Joyce-esque inner monologues or perfect pre-show and intermission ditties. Technically, the gents have come a long way from their humble beginnings at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, but the heart and soul of their work remains as fresh as ever.

In traveling the world with their condensed works, Martin and Tichenor have honed not only their spot-on dialects but their craft, and Conti is cut from the same cloth. The humor ranges from juvenile to intellectual, ridiculous to sublime, so theres no excuse for not laughing yourself to a longer life at All The Great Books, even if you havent read a word of them. The Complete History of America undoubtedly offers more of the same life-prolonging laughter. Both productions alternate performances at the Lesher Center for the Arts through March 3. For tickets or information, visit www.dlrca.org or call (925) 943-SHOW.