To make a long story short… We give you the Reduced Shakespeare Company, America's premier purveyors of pared-down precision.

Give these boys something long-winded, and they'll suck the oxygen out of its sails, pronto.

Next to their tough-love editing philosophy, Cliff's Notes looks like Marcel's Notes (as in Proust, unabridged).

And Reader's Digest looks like the Fat Lady at the circus sideshow.

You've heard of "less is more"?

With the Reduced Shakespeare Company, less is law.

Violate it, and they'll whack you down to size - into itty-bitty, heavily-edited, bite-sized pieces.

In the troupe's quarter-century history, they've subjected not only the Bard to their Weight Watchers aesthetic, they've liquidated the literary ("All the Great Books, abridged"), dehydrated the historical ("The Complete History of America, abridged") and shrunken the scriptural ("The Bible: The Complete Word of God, abridged").

All in the name of reducing us, too: to sniveling fits of laughter.

That's precisely what Reduced Shakespeare Company overlord Reed Martin is hoping will be the net result of their minimalist mirth when it's set loose across the stage of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. April 19.

Like a school of hungry piranhas stripping flesh from bone, the boys from the RSC will flay the flab from one of their most recently targeted subjects: around 100 years' worth of cinema history.

Hence, it's moniker, "Completely Hollywood (abridged)."

According to Reed, around 175 movies, from the silent era to the present, will get short-changed over the course of less than two hours. They include such long-winded long-distance runners as "Lord of the Rings," "The Godfather," "The Ten Commandments," "Apocalypse, Now," "Gandhi" and "Gone With the Wind."

Each one of those might clock in at three or four hours untended on a big screen. But in these Reduced circumstances, they'll be lucky to get in all of three or four seconds edge-wise.

Gone is their wind, indeed.

This is somewhat uncharted terrain for the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which was born during a pass-the-hat act that played a string of California Renaissance Faires in the 1980s.

In the several decades since, the troupe has graduated to slightly tonier venues like, oh, the White House, the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center and assorted theaters in London's West End.

The troupe's central creative tenet, says Reed's partner, Austin Tichenor, is that the RSC embodies a uniquely American approach to the world at large.

"It's the approach that says, 'let's get on with it and reduce it to a manageable size. We all have short attention spans and we're less reverent of tradition. We do things our way. That's why the company has been so successful internationally: We're playing on a truth about American stereotypes."

Specifically, Tichenor says, "It's a succession of cheap skits - fast changes, walking through open doors as a completely different character each time, getting through it fast. The subtext is: here are three straight white guys who think this can actually be done. We want the audience to sit there and think, "Hell, I could do that.'

"And we want it to feel cheap. Definitely, we want it to feel cheap."

Tichenor made those remarks to us the last time the RSC passed this way, back in the late '90s, when they were introducing Central Illinois for the first time to "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)."

Instead of offending true believers and the devoutly religious, "God (abridged)" was a smash, winning rave reviews, including one penned by a nun in Virginia for a church publication.

Sister sayeth: "It's wacky, it's zany, it's a little profaney."

Followed by the minister in Scotland, who decreed: "It's better than the book!"

Speaking of which: Along with the Bard and American history, the Bible completes what the RSC calls "the unholy trinity." Accordingly, "we get right to the sex and killing," says Tichenor. "It's the perfect show, complete with eternal punishment."

One problem with that unholy trinity, laments partner Reed: they're all rooted in the written word.

"For better or worse," he notes, "people don't read as much as they used to, so we thought, what would be the modern equivalent? Well, movies, of course. People don't talk about books around the water cooler anymore; they talk about movies, because it's a fun thing to do."

The concept was formulated two years ago, and had to be worked out in front of audiences along the way, until the script by Reed and Tichenor found the best way to slenderize a century of cinema.

As it stands, the show opens with a first act that sets up the second act.

The three-member cast plays would-be moviemakers who "decide to make our own indie picture into the greatest movie of all time, so we come up with the 12 lessons you need to know to make a hit movie."

Adds Reed: "We thought it would be appropriate to cover the history of Hollywood through a 12-step program."

Then comes Act II, "in which we make our epic."

Over the course of that epic, 175 movies are presented, some fleetingly, some semi-fleeting, none more that a few seconds apiece.

From A to Z.

Well, actually Z comes up short, with the buck stopping at Y, courtesy "Yentl." But there are plenty of A's to get the ball rolling ("Alien," "Airplane!," "The Apartment," etc.).

Along the trajectory, "Driving Miss Daisy" crosses gears with "Taxi Driver," while "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" matches septets with "The Seven Samurai."

Then there's the scary interfacing of "The Wizard of Oz" with "The Empire Strikes Back," with a bearded man playing Dorothy in her gingham dress toting around a basket containing a one-foot tall Yoda.

It's not that the Reduced Shakespeare Company is bloated with sexism, says Reed, a former Barnum & Bailey and Ringling Bros. Circus clown; it's just that laboratory tests have proven that audiences find men in skirts funnier than the opposite gender in same.

Oh, yes, and one more thing, warns Reed.

"We do like to involve the audience," if you know what he means, and we think you do.

Because of that, "Um, don't arrive late," he says.

"Because we'll stop what we're doing and talk to you about it. We'll ask where you've been and why you're late. If you say, 'we were having dinner,' we'll say 'we live in California and we made it on time.'"

In short, they'll brook no windy excuses.

So suck in your breath before they personally take it out of you, reducing you to part of their act.

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Abridged too far

Besides Hollywood, following are the other huge subjects that have been drastically cut down to size by the Reduced Shakespeare Company since its founding 27 years ago:

• "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)": In which the Bard's 36 plays get to be and not be in 97 minutes flat.

• "All the Great Books (abridged)": Described as "a little Dickens … a short Longfellow … reduced Proust."

• "The Complete History of America (abridged)": In which 600 years of history are dusted off "in 6,000 seconds!"

• "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)": In which abridge does NOT rhyme with sacrilege, we're assured.

• "Western Civilization: The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged)": Nothing more or less than a quick sprint "from 'Beowulf' to 'Baywatch.' "

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This story sounds as if it could be a movie

By Dan Craft | dcraft@pantagraph.com

There are 175 movie references, characters and/or situations crammed into the roughly two-hour running time of The Reduced Shakespeare Company's "Completely Hollywood (abridged)," coming to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts April 19.

We've taken 53 of those very same movies and reduced them to fit the narrative of the following short story. Can you locate their titles?

Hint: We've numbered the nine paragraphs to make locating the answers at the end of the story easier.

1. Once upon a time, around 10 years ago, it happened one night, or was it the day after tomorrow?

2. To be frank, there are those who claim it occurred at high noon. One witness went so far to say that it had gone with the wind and, as a result, wound up somewhere from here to eternity.

3. Then there's Ray over there who says it took place suddenly, last summer. Meanwhile, Shane, a taxi driver over on Sunset Blvd., says he has absolute proof it transpired 9½ weeks ago, or, in a pinch, 8½.

4. Regardless of the exact time and date, all parties agree that the general direction was north by northwest, as the birds fly. And weather-wise, there was a perfect storm brewing with tons of rain, man.

5. In fact there was even singin' in the rain, courtesy the sound of music emerging from that somewhat rocky sister act over at the Top Hat club, the one on the waterfront, two blocks over from Chinatown.

6. That's when Harry met Sally and made their splash, kindling some real body heat, inspiring one flushed eyewitness to quip, "some like it hot - at roughly Fahrenheit 911, I guess."

7. In the end, though Harry and Sally found the places in the heart by simply being there. Despite the risky business, it was safety last and love first, actually. All the signs were now there for an apocalypse, even though the couple was hoping for the best years of their lives.

8. Alas, Sally's psycho boyfriend, a real reservoir dog named Jerry M. Guire, burst in with a cry in the dark ("You're dirty, Harry!") and pummeled his rival with an estimated 400 blows. One witness cried, "Watch it! That's karate, kid! Stay footloose, Harry, or you'll get the shaft!"

9. After the dust had cleared, it was all quiet at the western front of the Top Hat club. "Big boys don't cry," whimpered Harry, nursing the fresh scar on his face. "But, oy, my left foot!" Then, he added, "Sally, I realize there are only a few good men out there … but I think I may be the wrong man, not the right stuff, for you. I'll be going home alone, thanks."

Answers

1. "10" (1979); "It Happened One Night" (1934); "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004)

2. "High Noon" 1952); "Gone With the Wind" (1939); "From Here to Eternity" (1953)

3. "Ray" (2004); "Suddenly, Last Summer" (1959); "Shane" (1953); "Taxi Driver" (1974); "Sunset Blvd." (1950); "91/2 Weeks" (1986); "81/2" (1963)

4. "North By Northwest" (1959); "The Birds" (1963); "The Perfect Storm" (2000); "Rain Man" (1989)

5. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952); "The Sound of Music" (1965); "Rocky" (1976); "Sister Act" (1992); "Top Hat" (1935); "On the Waterfront" (1954); "Chinatown" (1974)

6. "When Harry Met Sally" (1989); "Splash" (1984); "Body Heat" (1981); "Some Like It Hot" (1959); "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004).

7. "Places in the Heart" (1984), "Being There" (1979); "Risky Business" (1983); "Safety Last" (1923); "Love, Actually" (2003); "Signs" (2002); "Apocalypse, Now" (1979); "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)

8. "Psycho" (1960); "Reservoir Dogs" (1992); "Jerry Maguire" (1996); "A Cry in the Dark" (1988); "Dirty Harry" (1971); "The 400 Blows" (1959); "The Karate Kid" (1984); "Footloose" (1984); "Shaft" (1971)

9. "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930); ""Boys Don't Cry" (1999); "Scarface" (1932, 1983); "My Left Foot" (1989); "A Few Good Men" (1992); "The Wrong Man" (1957); "The Right Stuff" (1983); "Home Alone" (1990)

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At a glance

What: The Reduced Shakespeare Company's "Completely Hollywood (abridged)"

When: 7:30 p.m. April 19

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $18.10 to $28.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541