The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s 1987 script The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Jess Winfield, Adam Long and Daniel Singer was one of those seminal works that was clever, irreverent, and undeniably entertaining. In our market economy, it is the artist’s desire to franchise and sequel-ize success (think Nunsense), and so it is with RSC, who then performed the same abridgement to American history, the Bible, all the great books, Western civilization, and Wagner’s Ring cycle. The Bible (Abridged) and American History (Abridged) (I’ve seen both over the years) have their appeal, but one of the crucial elements of RSC’s parodying is to take stuffy, self-important topics and making mock. This is why the choice of turning the process of abridgement on Hollywood appears not to be as perfect a choice. True, Hollywood is definitely stuffy and self-important, but, as opposed to the Shakespearean canon or the good Book, it also has enjoyed lampooning itself many, many times over in very successful ways (a short list would include Sunset Boulevard, The Player, Swimming with Sharks, and Ed Wood). Like a lampoon of the James Bond series, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’sCompletely Hollywood (Abridged) feels like traveling over familiar ground. Even more, as the process of abridgment has become a template, anyone who has seen any of the prior works (both have been done by Actors Theatre in previous seasons featuring local talent) will be struck even more by the sense of déjà vu.

The difference between previous productions and AT’s current offering is the performance of the work by the actual Reduced Shakespeare Company players, featuring Tichenor, Dominic Conti, and Jerry Kernion. By bringing in a package rather than recreating it with locals (as they did with the prior (Abridged)s, Gray’s Anatomy, and Spic-o-rama, among others), the company appears to have become a touring house for one production, an odd (though probably budgetary) choice for a normally vibrant and edge-cutting troupe.

The script of Completely Hollywood (Abridged) has a lot of cleverness and offers interesting lessons and observations about the business of show. The central conceit of the first act, a twelve-step program to convert the audience into potential movie moguls, is inspired. However, some of the steps are rushed, several are not terribly surprising, and the second act, involving the creation of a movie based on the desires of making art and making money is a convoluted and sprawling mishmash that loves to bring every memorable quote into the mix. Like its predecessors, the script comes across as an attempt to make every joke, pun, and sight gag possible about the subject, hoping most work. A lot do, but a lot also don’t.

Even stranger, the acting is as unbalanced as the second act. Tichenor is in control, yet his and sometimes the entire show’s pacing feels inconsistent. Conti is the most energetic and funniest of the three while Kernion’s smugness and deadpan is a good counterpoint, but the three sometimes seem at cross-purposes. When they’re connected, the show rolls, but this is not as often as you’d expect.