A
one-act comedy from a series of comedies titled "
All In The Timing", by
David Ives. It is a
farce due to its
improbable plot,
comical situations, and
exaggerated character acting. This play opened in 1994, and pushed David Ives into instant fame. "Words, Words, Words" depicts
three monkeys in an experiment where they are attempting to write
Hamlet without having ever read the play. The monkeys,
Kafka,
Milton, and
Swift, have different feelings towards their
imprisonment and the purpose of the
experiment. Swift hates
Dr. Rosenbaum, the guy running the experiment, and plans to take his revenge by setting an
elaborate trap for the doctor.
Milton is fairly
indifferent; he accepts the fact that he is
encaged, saying that "
The sooner we write Hamlet, the sooner we get out of here." He doesn't mind
performing tricks for cigarettes, either. All three of the monkeys are
confused about their purpose, raising questions such as "How will we know if it's Hamlet if we write it?" They constantly quote Hamlet and
allude to themes within it. Kafka, at one point, reads what she has typed, " 'K k k k
k, k k k!
K k k! K ... k... k.' I don't know!
I feel like I'm repeating myself!" Swift questions Dr. Rosenbaum's purpose by asking "What's Hamlet to him, or he to Hamlet..."
The entire play is
hilarious, even for those of you who don't remember Hamlet very well.
See also: Everything loves monkeys!
Note: This is all from memory, so the quotations are
probably wrong, and I
might've switched the monkeys' names around.