Ophelia (Krissy Garber) and Horatio (Elohim Pena) discuss strategy in horror comedy LIVING DEAD IN DENMARK (photo by Sue Nordstrom / courtesy John Capo Public Relations)
Gene Frankel Theatre
24 Bond St. at Lafayette St.
Through April 21, $25-$35
www.justkiddingtheatrecompanyinc.org
Buffy meets the Bard in Just Kidding Theatre Company’s playful mashup, Living Dead in Denmark. Riffing on Shakespeare and George Romero, Qui Nguyen’s low-budget romp pits Ophelia (Krissy Garber), Juliet (Kimberly Nordstrom), and Lady Macbeth (Jessica Randell) against Titania (Ivy Hong), Puck (Jesse Turits), and a mysterious masked figure (Matthew Mollenkopf) as the undead battle during the zombie apocalypse. Intestines get pulled out, brains are devoured, and blood splatters into the audience during the two-act show, running at the tiny Gene Frankel Theatre through April 21. There are also appearances by Fortinbras (Stephan Goldbach), the three witches (Hansen Wetsel, Jesse Turits, and Jesse Gabriel), Horatio and Laertes (both played by Elohim Peña), and Rosencrantz (Wetsel) and Guildenstern (Gabriel), who, indeed, are dead.
Director Kathleen Kelly, who helmed Just Kidding’s 2012 debut, Dog Sees God, keeps it all extremely tongue-in-cheek, as do fight choreographers Rick Sordelet (Kelly’s husband) and Christian Kelly-Sordelet (the couple’s son). If you get seats in the first two rows, appropriately called the Splash Zone, you’ll have to don ponchos to cover up, because, yes, there will be blood (although we could have used a bit more, if we do say so ourselves). There’s also free beer and pink whiskey punch, which turns out to be rather killer itself. The play was originally produced in May 2006 by the Obie-winning Vampire Cowboys, cofounded by Nguyen, who has written such other works as She Kills Monsters, Alice in Slasherland, and Aliens versus Cheerleaders, titles that, as with Living Dead in Denmark, pretty much tell you what you’re in store for. And what you’re in store with Just Kidding’s revival of the latter is a whole lot of silly, self-referential fun.