`The Complete Word of God Abridged'

The Reduced Shakespeare Company:
Pondering questions like "Did Moses
really look like Charlton Heston?"

hen members of the
Reduced Shakespeare
Company talk about the Ten
Commandments, they don't celebrate
the words carved out in stone. It's
funnier, they say, to explore what was
left out.
As Moses carried the tablets down
the mountain, according to the
troupe, he announced that he had
good news and bad news. The good
news was that he negotiated the num-
ber of commandments down to 10,
while the bad news was that adultery
remained forbidden.
"We. make fun of the stories, but we
don't make fun of religion," says Reed
Martin, performer, writer and manag-
ing partner. "I believe our audiences
have a rollicking good time."
The irreverent take on the Bible rep-

'Mostly Sondheim'

arbara Cook, who premiered the
roles of Marian the Librarian in
The Music Man and Cunegonde
in Candide, extends the celebration of
Stephen Sondheim's 70th birthday from
2000 to now
That seventh-decade milestone is well
understood by the lyric soprano who, at
74, also has kept up with her New York-
based career.
When Cook takes the stage 8 p.m.
Friday, June 21, she will repeat a show
she has taken to New York's Carnegie
Hall, Washington's Kennedy Center
and the London stage. Wally Harper,
her longtime musical director, joins
her in Michigan.

B

"Singing Stephen Sondheim songs is
like being given a great scene to play
that's beautifully written and something
you could do again and again without
tiring of it because there's so much to be
found there," the vocalist told the

Washington Post.
Cook, whose program includes. "You
Could Drive a Person Crazy" and "Send
in the Clowns," takes her selections
from both the Sondheim songbook and
songs Sondheim has said he wishes he
had written.
The Sondheim shows available for her
to draw on include West Side Story,
Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the
Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle,

"I try to make the
show lots of fun and
edgy," says Maven,
who performs 8
ax Maven won't reveal
p.m. Monday, June
his real name, which he
17, at Mendelssohn
says is the Jewish equiv-
Theatre.
"One rou-
alent of Smith, but he gets willing
tine
puts
a member
members of the audience to reveal
of
the
audience
lots about themselves as he uses
behind me as I
some unique, psychological ques-
work, and another
tioning, dappled with comedy, for
Max Maven:
involves an imagi-
a mind-reading presentation.
Playing
mind
games.
nary
game of
If his looks are familiar to people
poker."
who haven't ever seen his stage
The entertainer, who uses what he
show, that has nothing to do with men-
calls
"psychological steering," remembers
tal telepathy. He had the starring role in
getting
interested in mind games while
on
the
Count DeClues' Mystery Castle
playing Old Maid as a youngster and
Fox network and has been a guest on
then becoming aware of the dialogue
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and General
that goes beyond words.
Hospital.

'Max Maven'

Ivic

resents an encore Ann Arbor perform-
ance for the company, which presents
its show at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June
19. Troupe members were in town
with The Complete Millennium

Musical ... Abridged.
"We write about what's funny to us,
and we write so we can insert local ref-
erences," says Martin, whose 21-year-
old group also has toured The
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
... Abridged and The Complete History
of America ... Abridged.
When the troupe was doing the
Shakespeare piece in Israel, for
instance, they did Hamlet's "To be or
not to be" speech with some Hebrew.
The RSC, which developed its style
at Renaissance fairs in California, has
created four stage shows, three TV
programs and numerous radio pieces

In addition
to Sondheim's
compositions,
Barbara Cook
will sing
songs from
other Jewish
composers,
including
Harold Arlen
and Irving
Berlin.

Company, A Little Night Music, Follies
Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along,
Sunday in the Park With George, Assassins
and Into the Woods, which recently
returned to Broadway and earned a
Tony Award for Best Revival of a
Musical.

"I always was interested in spooky,
mysterious stuff— science fiction and
magic tricks," says this baby boomer
who graduated from Brandeis University
with a major in American civilization. "I
taught in college and kicked around
with different jobs before going on the
stage."
Although there is nothing Jewish
about his act, Maven thinks his intellec-
tual approach results from his Jewish
upbringing. His family lived in Israel for
a year while his father was a guest
physics professor.
"I worked in clubs in the 1980s,
moved into television and appearances
in other countries in the 1990s and
now have gone into theaters," says
Maven, who travels the world to per-
form on stage and TV and was chosen

as it toured the world with as many as
four different productions on three
continents at the same time. The
Shakespeare and American history
pieces are London's longest-running
comedies, staged at the Criterion
Theatre since 1996.
"All our theater pieces are work-
shopped in front of audiences,"
explains Martin, who worked as a cir-
cus clown before he joined the RSC.
"Our newest project has to do with
world literature's best writers, includ-
ing Dickens and Longfellow. We'll
even tell whether Longfellow was real-
ly short." ❑

Reduced Shakespeare Company
performs The Bible: The Complete
Word of God ... Abridged 8 p.m.
Wednesday, June 19, at the Power
Center in Ann Arbor. $20-$30.

Sondheim's talents were nurtured and
mentored by lyricist Oscar
Hammerstein, a neighbor of
Sondheim's mother after his parents
divorced. Like Hammerstein,
Sondheim has written some pop songs
and worked a bit in films but always
returns to the stage.
"No one sings theater songs with
more feeling for the music or more
understanding of the lyrics than
Barbara Cook," Sondheim told the
Washington Post. ❑

Barbara Cook appears in Mostly
Sondheim 8 p.m. Friday, June 21,
at the Power Center in Ann
Arbor. $27-$40.

among 100 of the most influential
people in the field of theatrical magic
by Magic magazine.
• The entertainer, who has been a sen-
ior research consultant to the Center for
Scientific Anomalies Research in
Michigan, is a member of the board of
Advisers of the California ScienCenter
in Los Angeles, where his interactive
material is featured in the exhibit
"Magic: The Science of Illusion." The
exhibit will tour museums across North
America through 2007. ❑

Mind reader Max Maven per-
forms 8 p.m. Monday, June 17,
at Mendelssohn Theatre in Ann
Arbor. $20.

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2002