By Rose Sopko

From high school students to businessmen, everyone has an opinion on Shakespeare, but Michael Anderson chose to share his on the stage.

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, “Anderson’s Freestyle Shakespeare: Riffs and Rants, with No Holds Barred,” was performed at Jimmy Tingle’s Off-Broadway Theater in Somerville.

The show is a complete deviation from the way Shakespeare is usually performed. Written almost entirely by Anderson, a full-time union lawyer, with a few exceptions, the show presented various anecdotes and interpretations of numerous works of Shakespeare.

The show included 10 unique “rants,” with eight out of 10 written by Anderson. Each rant could almost stand alone as a story itself. Some of the most thoughtful were: the “Tomorrow and tomorrow … ” speech from Macbeth as set to the 1986 Red Sox World Series disaster; a professor’s grammatical critique of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 with classmates and fellow poets Keats, Browning and Dickinson; and a claim that Shakespeare’s plays could have actually been written by the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Sir Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford.

Another interesting fact mentioned in the play, was a 1999 study that revealed traces of marijuana in Shakespeare’s pipes .

The players included Anderson, Elizabeth Appleby, Brother Blue, Kevin Brooks, Libby Franck, David Ingle, Glenn Morrow and Laura Packer. Many of them have prominent backgrounds in storytelling, and all are friends of Anderson.

When Anderson was asked why he decided to put the show together he said, “I had done a few solo pieces, but none dealing with Shakespeare. Someone asked me, ‘Why haven’t you done Shakespeare?’ I originally thought it should be a solo show. [But then I realized] Shakespeare isn’t meant to be solo.

“[Performing] keeps me sane,” said Anderson. “You can say things on stage that you could never say in court.”

Anderson was thrilled with the response of the show.

“We only expected 100 people at all three shows, and over 150 people turned out,” he said.

The crowd responded positively as well.

“The show was simply excellent, insightful and inventive,” said Melissa Blass, a Somerville resident.