Philip Austin

Anythynge You Want To: Shakespeare's Lost Comedie Philip Austin

More than just a rousing send-up of Shakespeare, ANYTHYNGE YOU WANT TO is a full-length theatrical entertainment, written and re-written continually throughout The Firesign Theatre's long performing career. This volume collects every iambic double entendre and silly soliloquy into a surreal comedy opus, complete with Firesign's "scholarly" introduction, tongue-in-cheek footnotes, diagrams, and even recipes! Firesign has infused the classic Shakespearian scenes of hurricanes at sea, witches capering about a cooking pot, apparitions on the battlements, graveyard passion and mortal combat in ANYTHYNGE YOU WANT TO with their notoriously twisted political and social humor - a devastating oil spill, alchemical terrorism, sleezy politics and Hollywood shenanigans are all part of the laughs. As Firesign tells it, the legendary writing/acting quartet has been around, writing and performing plays since 1600 when they collaborated with the Bard on ANYTHYNGE before taking their act on the road to the New World. Reborn in the Old West as "Dr. Firesign's Theatre of the Plains," these fighting clowns have since worn many disguises and had countless high adventures on stage, in movies and over the radio. The tales told here fill in the comic mythology of Firesign's most popular recorded worlds, connecting Nick Danger and George Tirebiter to Hemlock Stones, The Electrician, and "Everything You Know is Wrong." Bonus scripts include 1967's radio saga "The Armenian's Paw" and an early club-act favorite, "Waiting for The Mount of County Crisco." Filled with photographs from performances, along with graphics by Bruce Litz, ANYTHYNGE YOU WANT TO is truly Firesign's major work of high comedy.