Comedy Of the classics

The timing couldn’t be better for “All the Great Books (abridged)” at the Actor’s Repertory Theatre. You can brush up on your Dickens, your Dostoevsky and your “Divine Comedy” just in time for fall term.

This slapstick look at serious literature is the first show in ARt’s fourth season as a resident professional theater.

The same hyper-kinetic playwrights who brought us “The Complete Works of Shakesepeare (abridged)” and “The Complete History of America (abridged)” have turned their comic machine gun on the literary canon.

Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company (the “bad boys of abridgement,” as they call themselves) will race you through 100 books in under 100 minutes.

The “Great Books” syllabus is particularly wide-ranging. You’ll see “Don Quixote” and “Dianetics”; “Plato’s Republic” and “Harry Potter”; “Beowulf” and “The Bridges of Madison County.”

“But you don’t have to be a literature major to get the jokes,” said Michael Weaver, ARt’s artistic director.

Whew. So we don’t have to read the syllabus in advance.

Both the “Shakespeare” and “History” shows have enjoyed successful runs in Spokane. Those who caught them here – or have seen them on PBS – know exactly what to expect: lots of crazy wigs, prop swords, goofy hats, quick changes and frantic entrances.

And you might actually learn a nugget or two about literature. The pratfalls and silly hats have a basis in actual literary knowledge.

Critic Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe said the show “darts from satire to silliness to sophisticated irreverence.”

“It’s silly stuff for an intelligent audience,” said Weaver.

This show, like the others in the “(abridged)” series, should have the feel of comedy improv. Yet these are actually scripted works developed through plenty of workshop performances and refining.

When the three actors in ARt’s version – local favorites Patrick Treadway, Reed McColm and Carter J. Davis – sink their teeth in it, they’ll leave their own dental impressions. There’s plenty of freedom for inspired physical comedy and for various high-energy hijinks.

Director Wes Deitrick, who directed “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)” for the Spokane Civic Theatre three years ago, presides over this evening of controlled chaos.

It’s worth noting that this show will be the first in ARt’s three-year history in which Weaver is neither an actor nor director.

Weaver is marshaling his energy for “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” which will open on Sept. 21.