Shakespeare's Sports Canon: Transforming the Complete Works of William Shakespeare into a Hilarious Hybrid of Improvised Sporting Play and Spectacle Theatre!

Ian C. Nelson, Librarian Emeritus, former Assistant Director of
Libraries (University of Saskatchewan) and dramaturge (Festival de la
Dramaturgie des Prairies).

A cheeky promotional description of the work of Chris Coculuzzi and Matt
Toner goes like this: “It took Shakespeare 25 years to create his
legacy of 38 plays and five years for Coculuzzi and Toner to destroy
it.” Coculuzzi is a highly respected Toronto-based educator with an
antic obsession with the Bard. Toner is a video-game developer, a
filmmaker, and the author of a half-dozen produced plays besides four of
the five pieces in this anthology. In the guise of Bill Shakespeare,
Chris Marlowe, or Tom Middleton, the two also performed in the Toronto
International Fringe Festival premieres of these shows, which introduced
enthusiastic audiences to the Upstart Crow Sports Network (UCSN). If you
were part of those Fringe phenomena (as audience member or part of the
large cast), you will welcome the canon collected here: Shakespeare’s
Rugby Wars (the Wars of the Roses tetralogy), Shakespeare’s World Cup
(the famous four tragedies), Gladiator Games (Roman and Greek plays),
Comic Olympics (the comedies and romances), and Shakespeare’s NHL
(National History League). The iconoclastic fun of those original live
sporting events is dashingly captured in each of the published scripts.

The innovative low-budget, large-cast spectacles borrow liberally from
the First Folio and combine with theatre sports to make the Bard’s
language accessible to all in a series of games and competitions, each
running slightly over an hour. Shakespearean quotations and pastiche
aside, the UCSN-commentated sports events still require considerable
familiarity with Shakespeare’s characters and plots in order to be
understood. Clever touches, such as Duncan LeRoy from the Scottish play
being “unable to play in today’s match,” are occasionally followed
by a high dive into possible confusion: What is one to make of
Claudius’s pouring poison into Banquo’s ear? Fortunately, tabular
lineups of players help to keep the jerseys straight and the abundant
stage directions make both the Elizabethan and contemporary allusions
clear and the play-by-play easy to follow.

Fringe-goers and performers will likely name the first piece (Rugby
Wars) the overwhelmingly nostalgic hometown favourite. Others,
especially those contemplating a production, will likely find the Comic
Olympics the most accessible and clearly set out.