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Bard Attack City Lights Theater Company condenses the classics with 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare' By Heather Zimmerman DON'T DESPAIR if you missed out this year on the annual ritual of outdoor summer Shakespeare festivals: at Tapestry in Talent, the festival that heralds the unofficial end of summer, City Lights Theater Company will cram the entirety of all of the Shakespeare fests in the tri-state area--and then some--into a 90-minute performance of all of Shakespeare's works. Not content to send off the summer performing one measly Shakespeare play, City Lights reprises The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) from its 1999-2000 season, a comic literary extravaganza that should give audiences the eminently scholarly feeling that they've been soaking in the Bard's verses all summer long. Well, more or less. Of course, the San Jose-based City Lights, which favors experimental and alternative plays, is hardly going to allow its groundlings a passive role, so just because this crash course in Shakespeare saves people from hitting the books, that doesn't mean that audience members might not be strutting the boards--at least a little bit. In addition to audience participation, expect some rather broad interpretations of these classics--part of the shtick is that even the three-actor ensemble tackling the Bard's entire body of works hasn't completely brushed up their Shakespeare, shall we say. This Elizabethan theatrical blow-out is capped off by a breakneck rendition of Hamlet. "To be or not to be," indeed. That sulky Danish prince better make up his mind pretty quick. City Lights Theater Company performs 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)' at Tapestry in Talent on Saturday (Sept. 2), at 1pm and Sunday (Sept. 3) at 2:30pm on the River Park Stage. Free. (408.494.3590) [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]