CAP UCLA Presents Forced Entertainment's COMPLETE WORKS: TABLE TOP SHAKESPEARE: AT HOME

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) will present Forced Entertainment's Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare: At Home from Thursday, September 17, through Sunday, November 15, 2020 on YouTube. Each one of the 36 plays, starting with Macbeth and ending with The Tempest, will be free to enjoy with an RSVP.

The performances in Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare: At Home explore the dynamic force of narrative in relation to Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies and histories. What follows are absurd and strangely compelling lo-fi, home-made puppetry shows. These Shakespearean plays come to life vividly - just in miniature. Each play is intimately retold by one actor, sitting alone at a table alongside shelves lined with everyday products which become the play's characters. A Salt and Pepper shaker are used for the king and queen, a vase for the prince and so on.

"We're really delighted to share this new version of our Complete Works project - an 'at home' edition conceived and performed in the time of the coronavirus lockdown and its aftermath - telling the stories from Shakespeare's plays as a series of inventive, intimate and playful presentations direct from the kitchen tables of the six Forced Entertainment performers," said Artistic Director Tim Etchells.

In 2016, CAP UCLA presented Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare, condensed versions of all 36 of Shakespeare's plays, over six days on the Royce Hall stage. Each performance was limited to a maximum of 100 people. This year's online format allows more people to be reached. For the 2020-21 Season, CAP UCLA is pleased to once again share all 36 plays -only this time the dramatis personae of household objects return to a domestic setting, restaged directly from the performers' kitchen tables.

Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare: At Home is a Forced Entertainment production. Funds are provided in part by the following partners: UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance; Kanuti Gildi SAAL; Kunstfestspiele Hannover; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm; PACT Zollverein; Romaeuropa Festival and Shakespeare Festival Neuss. Also presented as part of Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's TBA:Festival.