reviewvancouver: The Complete Works of William Shakespare (Bard on the Beach)

Bard on the Beach
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]

When & Where July 1 to September 20, 2025 | Vanier Park, Vancouver

Director Mark Chavez Choreographer: Amanda Testini Fight & Intimacy Director Sam Jeffery Set Designer Ryan Cormack Costume Designer Alaia Hamer Lighting Designer Jeff Harrison Composer & Sound Designer Anton Lipovetsky Stage Manager Rebecca Mulvihill. Purchase tickets online here.

Reviewer Christian Steckler

When one sees such a title as this for an evening of entertainment, one can hardly expect full theatrical productions of every play and sonnet that the bard wrote. The evening does deliver, as promised, a passing reference to all published works of Shakespeare, so the promise is kept. Some references pass with a whisper, a wink, or a nod, but references they are.

The task is set for the performers to draw attention to every single play and sonnet that Shakespeare published within a strict time limit of ninety minutes, not including an intermission. The threatened penalty is particularly distasteful (excuse the pun) for the three performers charged with the feat. With 30-something pieces to go through, the prospects are daunting.

Mark Chavez’ direction of the three boisterous performers must have been a challenge, but one that worked out well. The performers rotate through roles on different evenings, so names mentioned here are the actors at play when this reviewer attended. I say, “at play” because the joy and fun abandon with which the actors behaved was exactly that. Their antics were rambunctious, their panic, compelling, and their choices and takes on the scenes they played out, hilarious. Craig Erickson, Tess Degenstein and Arghavan Jenati kept the audience in stitches as they wove (excuse the pun) their ways in and out of the countless characters they played…and in and out of the performance, itself, with personal interjections that further delighted the audience.

Sets were simple, minimal, and functional. Costumes - some bizarre - were visibly shelved for clumsy access in harassed states of mind, adding to the fun. Lighting and sound effectively added to the performance. Of note was one performer in sound only, who dictated the terms and rules of the evening, and who interjected new challenges as the time ran out…increasing the suspense and the delightful raucous laughter of the audience.

This production is not, by any means, typical heady Shakespeare. Those who’ve been exposed to the bard’s works will recognize the references, and those who are less familiar will get a nibble of some of the plots in his works. Everyone, though, will have a rollicking good time. See it.