William Shakespeare’s Reservoir Dogs
Theatre Works until 15 August (Tuesday – Saturday 7.30 pm)
Tix
Hark! For glasses of the sun, swords of steel, and barbarous acts hath seized the stage at Theatre Works. Lend thine ears, good gentles, unto a tale wherein the sacred quill of Master William Shakespeare hath been yoked unto the bloody mischief and foul-tongued knavery of one Sir Quentin Tarantino. Yet, whether this marriage of noble verse and wicked deed shall prove a triumph most magnificent or a folly most lamentable, dear gentles, shall soon be revealed by this humble scribe.
Just kidding. I’m not going to write this entire review in Elizabethan; the novelty would almost certainly outstay its welcome, rendering the piece tedious, interminable, and only marginally intelligible… if thou catchest my drift.
Presented byTheatre Works and The Ghostlight League, William Shakespeare’s Reservoir Dogs is exactly what it sounds like: an Elizabethanised take on Tarantino’s 1992 cult-classic heist film that trades guns for rapiers, profanity for iambic eloquence, and cinematic grit for theatrical absurdity. The production marks the final – tragic – instalment of an inventive, anachronistic trilogy, following the history play Shakespeare Aliens and the comedy Shakespeare Ghostbusters to complete a trifecta that playfully mirrors the most recognisable genres of the Bard’s catalogue.
Marked by verbal excess, darkly comic yet unabashedly gruesome violence, and an escalating cycle of betrayal and brutality, Reservoir Dogs shares a certain stylised theatricality with Shakespeare’s tragedies that should, in theory, lend itself to an adaptation of this kind. For those unfamiliar with Tarantino’s dark, dialogue-driven directorial debut (although, if you choose to watch this production, I’d recommend you brush up), the conceit is simple. After a diamond heist goes terribly wrong, a group of strangers known only by aliases such as Mr White and Mr Pink (Sir White and Sir Pink in this Elizabethanised tale) suspect a police informant is hidden amongst them. As they try to identify the “rat” from the pack, a story of masculinity, honour, loyalty, and betrayal unfurls – this time, with hard-to-parse English accents and pirate-sleeved medieval tunics.
Weaving in jokes and memorable phrases that any Shakespeare aficionado would recognise with a chuckle, Steven Hopley’s impressively adapted (if occasionally impenetrable) script transforms the gritty, profane source material into elegant prose fit for The Globe. Moments of levity – such as the much-appreciated “I need thee to be cool” – ensure the ornate language and lengthy soliloquies are balanced with a knowing wink. The live band’s archaic musical accompaniment and lyric changes (including the expected yet nonetheless amusing “Stuck in the Middle with Thee”) likewise help avoid a self-serious tone that could sully a concept so inherently absurd.
Where the script for William Shakespeare’s Reservoir Dogs falters is not in design but in delivery. The heavy Cockney accents used by most of the cast masked much of the language’s lyricism, rendering an already elaborate Shakespearean script unnecessarily difficult to follow. Rob Lloyd takes a minimalist approach to the direction, with the static set comprising a mostly bare black space decorated only with wooden planks and a round table representing the tavern to which the play continually returns. This minimalism, though, grows stale relatively quickly. With no visual spectacle and little lighting or sound to accompany the violence on which Reservoir Dogs made its name, and only a bare stage and projections to differentiate between scenes, the action becomes infected by stagnancy: a fate that could have been easily avoided with more dynamic staging.
With the exception of Seon Williams’ expertly calibrated Sir Pink, whose articulation is clear and motivation embodied, the performances of the ensemble cast are often so presentational that they veer into the unnatural. When partnered with slow pacing that feels at odds with the plot’s escalating urgency – especially in iconic scenes such as the aforementioned “Stuck in the Middle with Thee” – the performances fail to compensate for the direction’s inertia, leaving the increasingly violent narrative strangely lifeless. I can’t help but feel that leaning into the cinematic edge of Reservoir Dogs, merging the gritty with the theatrical, could have breathed life into what is an undoubtedly interesting concept and remarkably well-realised script.
But alas, ‘twas not to be.
If you’re a Tarantino fanatic and a Shakespeare enthusiast, however, this amusingly absurd piece of independent theatre may just be the ink to your quill. It’s certainly not something you see every day.
