Complete Works

Hulu’s Web Comedy Series about a Shakespeare Competition

Reviewed by Jenny Lower

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Lili Fuller and Joe Sofranko in “Complete Works”

Complete Works, a new web comedy series in five half-hour episodes, follows a young male competitor from Indiana through a high-stakes collegiate Shakespeare competition. The show is clever, funny, and packed with a young, good-looking cast. All five episodes of the show recently debuted on Hulu in time for the Bard’s 450^th birthday, and just a couple of weeks before this report found — quelle surprise — that teens today read less than they used to. For Millennials, it begs the question: to stream, or not to stream?

Perhaps the medium is both the problem and the solution when it comes to making Shakespeare relevant. Could this show, which feels a bit like Glee but with fewer misfits and more cutthroat competition, introduce Shakespeare to the latest crop of web-savvy not-so-literati? Could a desire to get the in-jokes motivate media-hungry youngsters to put down their phones and learn to navigate iambic pentameter with the same adroitness as their Facebook privacy settings?

I don’t know, but I found it engaging and entertaining.

Produced by Joe Sofranko, Lili Fuller, and Adam North, and directed by Sofranko and North, the series stars Sofranko as Hal, a Midwesterner paying his way through state technical college. Hal’s also a die-hard Shakespearephile ever since an infant encounter with the Riverside edition. On a lark, he enters the regional American Shakespeare Competition, until an accident bumps him from runner-up status to the finals in Italy. There, he falls in with his competitors, a hodgepodge of recognizable types that include the bitchy gay guy (Ben Sidell), a former child star (Chase Williamson), and a New Yorker with a resting bitch face (Fuller). For reasons not entirely clear at first, Hal gets singled out by the resident villain/ veteran competitor (Kevin Quinn), who decides to coach Hal in order to settle an old score. The cold readings begin, and we’re off.

Joe Sofranko and Chase Williamson (on the platform), and the back of Adam North

True to its name, the show offers a catholic embrace of Shakespeare’s oeuvre. There are plenty of highlights from the AP reading list (Macbeth and Othello figure heavily), but they occur alongside references to lesser-known works such as Coriolanus and Troilus and Cressida. Hal’s geek-outs allow for plenty of educational side-tours, and as the competition progresses, we delve into sonnets, soliloquies, and fight choreography. The show assumes a more-than-passing knowledge of Shakespeare, but that gives it some tooth for viewers who want to turn every episode into a spot-the-reference game. Entry-level viewers who miss some allusions will still have no trouble following the plot or the jokes, and may find their appreciation deepening along with their education.

But that’s the serious stuff. Hal makes an appealing if slightly bland protagonist, and it’s easy to root for him amid his many humiliations even when, mid-season, he rediscovers his inner Kenneth Branagh and turns into an insufferable git. We can see from a mile off that he’ll fall for Fuller’s Lady Macbeth act, but that doesn’t make their mild flirtation any less enjoyable. Apart from some fantasy sequences that extend too long, the direction keeps the action moving and the comic timing spry. In one especially delicious scene, Vicki Lewis guest stars as an acting coach determined to mine (or implant) her students’ traumatic memories for creative potential.

In targeting the show to Millennials — which, it’s worth noting, may or may not be Complete Works’ intention — the bigger question might be whether the show’s conceit works against it. We’re clearly occupying rarefied territory: Hal’s passion for all things Shakespeare is cast as extreme even by his cohort’s standards. Viewers, especially young ones, may be more likely to identify with the bored drone of his high school scene-partner than Hal’s dorky earnestness. Early in the competition, Hal is even admonished to pick material his fellow students (and presumably the organizers) know. He loves not wisely, but too well.

But those viewers probably won’t stick with the show anyway, which ends on a partial cliffhanger that clearly sets up a second season. Only giddy fortune’s furious fickle wheel will determine if Complete Works returns for a second season, but if it does, maybe the show will develop a cult following among Shakespeare’s younger acolytes.

And if they don’t get a reference, perhaps they’ll google it.

Complete Works, Kingdom for a Horse Productions, directed by Joe Sofranko and Adam North. Available on Hulu.com

Mayank Keshaviah’s profile on the making of Complete Works is on Stage Raw