Artist: → Histeria!
{Breakdown:Kid Chorus, World’s Oldest Woman, Mike Tyson, (Fetch)}
A play by William Shakespeare always stimulates your thought
Because you spent two hours trying to figure out the plot
He wrote famous lines and phrases for his dog like «out, damned Spot!»
(I’m a victim of circumstance!)
So who is this guy the critics praise
Who’s famous for his turn of phrase
Wrote thirty-seven different plays
And lived in Elizabethan days
And made Lawrence Oliver’s career?
Lend me your ear!
{Intro: Kid Chorus, Miss Information}
He lived in Stratford von Avon apartment 2-B
Was it 2-B, or not 2-B?
I really don’t know, it’s confusing to me!
How do you understand Shakespeare with all of thе
Harks and the hoes and the flowеry prose that he writes?
For men wearing tights!
So bring up the lights
And let’s meet the bard!
{Interlude: Father Time}
Ladies and gentlemen, Histeria! proudly presents the plots of all thirty-seven plays by William Shakespeare!
{Verse: Kid Chorus, Joan of Arc, Pepper Mills}
Hamlet’s real father is killed by his brother
Who now becomes king and then marries his mother
It ends up with everyone killing each other
And that is the story that’s told by the bard!
Hey nanni nanni na, tra la la, fa la la la la la la!
King Henry V is a play about war
And so is King John and King Henry IV
While Falstaff laughed, and fell on the floor
So Henry VI went back to the gore
King Lear, Shakespeare’s
Tragical ruler who casts out his daughter
The story is sad, ’cause then he feels bad
And then he goes mad, and both of them die!
Hey nanni nanni na, tra la la, fa la la la la la la!
At Romeo and Juliet, everyone cries
At Titus Andronicus everyone dies
Don’t you just love these Shakespearean guys?
*laughs maniacally*
{Bridge: Kid Chorus, Jefferson}
You go to the theatre and pay all that money
To see all these actors who dress really funny
You say to your date, «Are you getting this, honey?
‘Cause I’m really lost, so explain it to me!»
Hey nanni nanni na, tra la la, fa la la la la la la!
{Verse: Shakespeare (Lydia Karaoke)}
MacBeth is a guy who is really ambitious
And that’s why the king soon sleeps with the fishes
Then he kills others, it’s really quite vicious
Until in the end, he gets stabbed in the duff!
(Oh, no-no!)
By MacDuff!
(Better!)
{Bridge 2: Kid Chorus, Girls, (Boys)}
He wrote comic romances with laughter and dances
Where everyone prances while taking their chances
With love, love, love, love, love!
(make gagging noises)
Like The Comedy of Errors and Pericles too
Then Measure for Measure and Taming the Shrew
Two Gents from Verona and then Much Ado About Nothing
Then he’d write
The Tempest and Twelfth Night
The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, and Cymbaline
Love’s Labours Lost, A Winter’s Tale
And also Midsummer Night’s Dream
{Verse: Kid Chorus, ,Marc Antony,, ,World’s Oldest Woman, Cassius}
In The Merchant of Venice a debt is entangled
As Coriolanus where soldiers get mangled,,
Othello’s a fellow whose wife ends up strangled
And that is the story that’s told by the bard!
Hey nanni nanni na, tra la la, fa la la la la la la!
Troilus and Cressida: there was a pair
They were in love but she had an affair
It’s not a great play so we really don’t care…
Hey nanni nanni na, tra la la!
{Bridge 3: Richard Nixon, Chit Chatterson}
King Richard II’s the guy that went dumb
King Richard III is the guy with the hump
Timon of Athens, he was a chump
‘Cause all of his money was lent
Now it’s spent
And he can’t
Pay the rent
So he has to go live in a tent!
{Verse: Kid Chorus, Julius Caesar, World’s Oldest Woman}
Julius Caesar’s about an attack
All of his friends put a knife in his back
And then a great play that would come after that
Is Anthony and Cleopat…
Tra la la, tra la la, tra la la la la la la la la!
King Henry VIII has six different wives
He’s faithful to each ’til the next one arrives
Most of them ended up losing their lives
They’re wedded and bedded, and then they’re beheaded
It’s something that later he kinda regretted
{Outro: Kid Chorus}
But Shakespeare’s plays are the places to be
For violence and killing and murder you see
You really can’t show it on children’s TV
But that is the story
Though it’s bloody and gory
Yes, that is the story that is told by the bard!
All’s well that ends well!