There&squo;s a battle going on in the Tryon Little Theater&squo;s totally insane &dquo;The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged),&dquo; to play the Workshop November 12 to 15 and November 19 to 22. Actually, a bunch of battles, considering we&squo;re dealing with warring kings, heads being lopped off, poisonings, stabbings, and lots of other fun stuff.

Come on, we&squo;re dealing here with King Lear, Romeo, Juliet, Othello, Titus Andronicus, King John, Richard II, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and similar charmers.

And then there&squo;s Hamlet, and his sword fight with Laertes. Director Neela Mu˜oz gives interesting directions to her actors, such as telling them to ad lib during their frenzied duel, &dquo;Swish swish ha, ting, ting, ha ha, swish swish, ting.&dquo; And to find out what on earth all that&squo;s about, you need to see a performance.

Let&squo;s just say that as the duel wears on, Hamlet gets tired of the whole thing and says to his still-battling opponent, &dquo;Laertes, yo! Reposte, coupe, coup d&squo;´tat, caf´ au lait, disarmez!&dquo; (Cut him some slack ‐ Hamlet didn&squo;t do all that well in French at school.)

The actors in this whole foolish business ‐ Nathan Bartlett, Connie and Elvin Clark, Hamilton Goodman, Linda Roberts, and Nancy Winker ‐ spend rehearsals laughing themselves silly as they watch each other cavort in this show, with more stage business than any of them has ever had in any show in their lives.

The TLT box office is open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Workshop, 516 South Trade Street. Telephone reservations may be made at any time at 828-859-2466 by leaving a message; your call will be returned to confirm your reservation.

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