Play a Day: Riot and Dishonor

Luke Brett

For Saturday, I read Riot and Dishonor: A Tale of Teenage Falstaff by Luke Brett and available at New Play Exchange.

Everyone makes Shakespeare references. Just last week Bob Dylan released a fifteen minute song abou the Kennedy assassination called Murder Most Foul, a line from Hamlet and I should know, I said it.

Then there are the many plays divined from the works of Shakespeare, prequels and sequels and stories retold from the point of view of other characters, completely abusrd or deadly serious. Some of them are even okay.

Lisa Ortenzi, Kelly Elliott,
Leah Smith, Tyler Collins
Reading at Nighttown (February 2018)

Writing in the voice of Shakspeare is a trick and challenge. You are, after all, setting yourself up for a harsh comparison. On the other hand, take it too lightly what have you done? Set your standards lower than you might otherwise? What self-respecting writer would choose to do that?

Well, Luke Brett would. Riot and Dishonor is an origin story for Sir John Falstaff. We meet young Jack as a kid, with his trusty sidekick Bardolph, and follow him as he becomes the cowardly, alcoholic rake Harold Bloom called "the greatest personality in all of Shakespeare."

Brett joyfully mangles English, creating absurd metaphor, and laugh out loud abusive language. This Pythonesque insanity set to imabic pentameter put me in mind of the works of Kirk Wood Bromley, whose delirious forays into verse were nearly psychedelic.

I had the pleasure to hear a reading of this play a few years ago, and it was a non-stop riot, indeed, from beginning to end.

Who should I read tomorrow?