From the groom whose paranoia leads him to have his best man test his wife's fidelity, to the wacky-pathetic actor parents who show up unexpectedly to stage the play, to the bad fairy of a sister who seems to exist only to say nasty things that are then shouted down, they are all about as far from Shakespearean characters as they can be. It is, barely, possible that this is the playwrights' intent: that they want us to see that, given how neurotic and self-absorbed and materialistic our culture is, even Shakespeare himself could not have created real humans in such a setting.
Wedding crashers
Modernity collides with Elizabethan sensibilities in 'Cardenio,' a play at the ART based on a lost Shakespeare work
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If that's the point, so noted. But it's also worth noting that Shakespeare's time also featured some fairly monstrous behavior, and that he drew from it to create unforgettable characters and vivid plots. He did not foist tedious caricatures on a fine company of actors; he did not mistake self-indulgent musings, soliloquies about vibrators or Italian wines, and inside jokes for an engaging story; he did not amuse himself at the expense of his audience.
He did not, in short, write anything like this "Cardenio." And don't let anyone tell you he did.
Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.
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