On the Birth of the Bard

Last year I wrote a reasonably well-prepared post about William Shakespeare and his plays in celebration of his birthday on this very blog. Alas, this year, well, I’ve been a bit lax in gathering data and thoughts and such, so I may be a bit doddery (Lear creeps in already) in these scribblings.  I will now stop procrastinating, for as Will said, “In delay there lies no plenty.”  Or Good’n’Plenty.  Off we go.

The thing about Shakespeare is that we go to hear the words.  We see the same plays over and over again because the same play can take a different path when someone new directs it or acts in it or designs it or thinks about it and puts it all together to communicate their interpretation to us, the willing audience.  And if we disagree, we get to argue about it.  Who could ask for anything more.

We will see their spiffy production values and costumes and themes and such, but still we go to hear.  Hear the same sentence sound remarkably different because a different actor is saying it to yet another actor.  Let’s take King Lear, for example; it’s a year for Lears.  There’s your Lear, and there’s your Lear talking to your Regan.  Or your Goneril.  Or your Cordelia.  And your Lear has different feelings about each of these daughters depending on the actor playing Lear, the actor playing Goneril, the actor playing Regan, the actor playing Cordelia.  So many dynamics to play with, so many possibilities.  And each time we hear this Lear we haven’t seen before speak the same lines another Lear did to his daughters, the words are new and fresh.

Everyone wants to do Lear — the play has very fine male roles, of course, but also two excellent female roles and one possibly impossible female role — so there’ll be plenty more to come and to compare.  All of this applies to many of the plays, of course.  Lear is an easy example this year. 

Diana Rigg as Regan

Last month I saw Theatre For a New Audience’s (“TFANA”) production of King Lear in which Michael Pennington undertook the role of Lear under the direction of Arin Arbus.  His Lear was a pretty angry fellow in full control of his faculties when he makes all the foolish assumptions and foolhardy decisions of his first scene.  Later he goes a bit dotty and becomes softer and more understanding.  He notices things then — things like there were subjects (people) to be cared for, to be protected, in his kingdom, and he hadn’t done his job well.  It was a very socially-aware Lear.  I’m told, although I didn’t see it myself, that Frank Langella’s Lear performed the month before at BAM, started off that same first scene practically doddering and then became clearer in his madness.  Utterly different men, utterly different choices, utterly different relationships.  In the TFANA Lear, my favorites were the Regan (a marvelously sharp and cynical Bianca Amato) and her husband Cornwall (a delightfully perverse Saxon Palmer).  I decided to re-view a Lear still in my memory from the 1980s for its fabulous Edmund and Edgar pairing of Robert Lindsay and David Threlfall.  The Lear was Olivier.  The Fool, oh the Fool, was John Hurt!  Next week I’ll be seeing a live broadcast from London of a production directed by Sam Mendes in which Simon Russell Beale takes on Lear.

But I digress. 

In the past year I saw some splendid productions of Shakespeare plays, including —

• London’s Donmar Warehouse’s production of Julius Caesar¹ set in a women’s prison transferred handily to St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.  Directed by the fabulous Phyllida Lloyd, Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus and Frances Barber as Julius Caesar led an all-female cast to the heights and depths and yes it worked.  This was the perfect example of familiar lines carrying all new meaning based on the interpretations of different direction, actors, genders, and styles.

Harriet Walter as Brutus

• TFANA’s inaugural production in its new home in another part of Brooklyn was of A Midsummer Night’s Dream² directed by Julie Taymor.  It was as magical and delectable and high-flying as you might expect from Ms. Taymor.

Tina Benko as Titania

• In addition to more snow than we’re accustomed to, winter brought us two plays in repertory³ from Shakespeare’s Globe, not in its usual visiting venue in lower Manhattan.  Rather, these two gorgeous (costumes, set, music, everything), all-male Globe productions traveled to Broadway. 

-         Twelfe Night starred Mark Rylance as Olivia in what might be the most extraordinary performance I’ve seen him give yet, and he’s always remarkable.  Stephen Fry’s Malvolio was also delicious.

-         Richard III starred Mr. Rylance again in the title role, but the play showed itself as it is — so much about Richard that the other characters and the story are short-changed.  Not by the actors, however.  For just one example, Samuel Barnett (a fine Viola in the Twelfe Night) was a fabulous and powerful Queen Elizabeth in Richard III.

At a movie-house I saw the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Coriolanus⁴ broadcast live from Covent Garden, London, to Kew Gardens, Queens.  The live broadcast was almost as exciting as being there live to see Tom Hiddleston’s performance as a youthful and disdainful Coriolanus.  It was an interesting production of a problematical play.  And, to follow up, I also watched the Ralph Fiennes film version.  Two views of Coriolanus in one year is quite unusual.

The long-awaited Joss Whedon black-and-white modern day Much Ado About Nothing⁵ opened on a rainy night last summer.  It was fun, and there were some delightful performances, but the mores and manners of Much Ado do not lend themselves well to modern settings, in my opinion.  Viewing that film did, however, inspire me to re-view Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film of the same play, which was a polar opposite to the Whedon film.  It’s all a matter of interpretation, not to mention mood.

How far afield can one go in interpreting Shakespeare’s words?  From The Tempest played on an Elizabethan stage in which the sea and sand and cave are all artfully explained in poetry because they cannot be physically brought into the old Globe, all the way to a science fiction film that introduced Robby the Robot as a sort of Ariel and Dr. Morbius as Prospero, with Anne Francis — in remarkably skimpy outfits for 1956; there is clearly nothing new under the sun — as Miranda on the planet Altair IV instead of a desert island.  Shakespeare:  Passport to the Universe.

Among my theatre goings this year, I saw an interesting new play that echoed themes of A Doll’s House, which I also saw this year in an excellent production directed by Carrie Cracknell with Hattie Morahan as Nora. But I won’t be seeing either of those plays again.  It’s Shakespeare that bears repeating, that we go to year after year, wondering how will that director show it, that actor interpret it, what will it look like to an audience that can never get enough of Shakespeare.  How will it sound this time?

Right now, for mood music, I’ve got a DVD of “Theatre of Blood” playing in the background — the story of a Shakespearean actor who decides that first he must kill all the critics, all by methods found in the Bard’s plays.  Vincent Price, Diana Rigg — full of Shakespearean quotes and plots and a cavalcade of British actors of stage and screen.  Such fun.

By the way, Michael Graves, an old friend from my acting days, moved down to New Mexico, and he is right now rehearsing his first Lear for a reading at the Aux Dog Theatre.  Anyone anywhere near Albuquerque, please go see him on Thursday for me and continue this Lear year (http://www.auxdog.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=60&products_id=502 ).

Happy Birthday, Will.  Many exciting returns of the day.  And thank you for your never-ending gifts.

¹ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-donmar-st-anns-warehouses-all.html

² http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-dream-opening-for-tfanas-new-home.html

³ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2014/01/in-repertory-twelfe-night-and-winter-of.html

⁴ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2014/02/coriolanus-at-donmar-or-live-theatre.html

⁵ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/search/label/Joss%20Whedon

~ Molly Matera, sending you off to another site where lots of people are wishing Shakespeare a happy 450^th Birthday:  http://birthday2014.bloggingshakespeare.com/

In Repertory: Twelfe Night and the Winter of Our Discontent

Shakespeare’s Globe is in town, and instead of performing one play at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University downtown as they usually do, they brought two to perform in repertory for a few months on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre.  The Belasco is gorgeous, but with this company, it’s difficult to appreciate the beauties of the interior because as the audience enters the theatre, the actors are onstage dressing and being dressed.  Watching this fascinating process is riveting — observing the way period costumes are built, layer upon layer, onto the human body; some actors are sewn into their costumes; and seeing men turned into women. 

As in Shakespeare’s time, the female roles are not played by women, but rather by men.  Each man playing a female has a diverting way of walking, almost gliding across the stage, sometimes mincing, swinging the heavy skirts to their best advantage.  Watching them before the play even starts is mesmerizing.

Twelfe Night deserves its own glowing review.  Alas, I bubbled over with praise of it to friends and didn’t write down a word, so its mentions here will essentially be comparative.  I saw the plays a month apart — Twelfe Night (as named in the First Folio and printed in the program) on Friday the 6 December and, to start the new year off right, Richard III on Thursday the 2 January (yes, the night of the first snowstorm of 2014, nicknamed “Hercules”).  Perhaps we should have seen the Richard in this program first, so our expectations for the next play would not have been so high.  The Twelfe Night was deliriously funny, a pinnacle for all others to attempt.  As it was, the near perfect Twelfe Night left us with high expectations that were dashed the night the snow fell outside the performance of The Tragedie of King Richard the Third. 

 

Sebastian and Olivia, Orsino and Viola in Twelfe Night.  (Photo Credit: Joan Marcus)

What is it about Richard III?  I am often dissatisfied with productions of the play, no matter who excels in the leading role.  Is it just poorly written?  Well, with all due respect to the incomparable Bard, compared to other plays, it is, rather.  (He had to be careful, of course.  The late-arriving protagonist/hero of the play, Richmond, would be the great grandfather of Shakespeare’s Queen, so the War of the Roses had to end on a particularly redeeming note for the ancestors of the ruling monarch.)  This production from the Globe is well cast but that isn’t enough — especially not with someone as strong and magnetic as Mark Rylance prancing about the stage as Richard of Gloucester.

 

Rylance as Richard and Samuel Barnett as Queen Elizabeth

Once costumes are donned and the musicians applauded, Mark Rylance as Richard seduces us immediately.  Rylance found every hint of humor in the play, and made us as guilty as Richard by making us laugh with him throughout the evening.  The problem — and it may be the play as much as director Tim Carroll — is that the good actors working with Mr. Rylance fade in his aura, with two exceptions:  Samuel Barnett (a fine Viola in the Twelfe Night) as Queen Elizabeth (mother of the princes in the tower, wife of the sickly then late King Edward IV) gives as good as he… she… gets and is marvelous and powerful, every inch a queen; and the Buckingham as played by Angus Wright (last seen in one of the most delightful performances of Andrew Aguecheek I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience) could more than hold his own with Rylance. 

Often we see a star turn in a play like Richard III, and often we just think we got the second string touring cast in all but the lead role.  This time, though, we have very recent evidence of the finely honed skills of this company of players.  Which leads back to the play, which needed some judicious cutting, but perhaps not the cutting it did, in fact, receive.  More on that anon.

 

Joseph Timms as Lady Anne and Mark Rylance as King Richard III.  Photo Credit:  Joan Marcus.

Let’s look at the actors in this company.  Peter Hamilton Dyer’s Catesby was better than his often incomprehensible Feste, but Liam Brennan’s Clarence partook in one of the longest and dullest death scenes (and very poorly staged, Mr. Carroll) in Shakespeare despite his sexy turn as Orsino in Twelfe Night.  Paul Chahidi was a marvelous Maria in Twelfe Night, but his Hastings seemed stock and his Tyrrell seemed… well, rather mad.  As if he were speaking in tongues, his delivery rang through the theatre without cohering. 

Colin Hurley’s King Edward IV and his Lord Stanley were well defined and differentiated.  After his wild and woolly and hilarious Toby Belch in Twelfe Night, he was happily not a disappointment in Richard.

Joseph Timms was an unusually good Sebastian in the Twelfe Night. Generally a rather thankless role seemingly cast because of a resemblance to the Viola, his Sebastian had verve and vigor. Timms’ turn as Lady Anne (one of the most difficult roles in Shakespeare since her actions make no sense at all) in Richard III was interesting in large part due to his physical behavior.  That the character is ultimately unconvincing based on the famous wooing scene is the fault of the playwright more than the actor.

Kurt Egyiawan was not as interesting a Valentine in Twelfe Night as he was in his two roles in Richard III:  His Duchess of York (that is, King Richard’s mother) was basically cranky, but his physical work was good.  In the second half of the play he was Richmond, quite believable as the virtuous prince, a just man, a tad dull (Richmond always is), a fitting founder of the Tudor dynasty leading in a direct line to Shakespeare’s real life monarch, Elizabeth I.

Someone missing, you say?  Yes indeed.  There was one queen missing from this production of Richard III:  Margaret, termagant, widow of the dead Lancastrian King Henry VI who was ousted by the Yorkists (Richard’s family), and mother of the slain Prince Edward (who was the husband of Lady Anne, later Queen Anne – get it?).  This character should be the canker, the boil on Richard’s butt, an enraged victim of the Yorkists who teaches all others how to curse.  She was a major character in the Three Parts of Henry VI, and she’s fun.  She plays a major role in the conversation of the once powerful now powerless women of the play, leaving only the ineffective Queen Anne written in to join the bereft Queen Elizabeth, and the cranky Duchess of York to lament in Act IV scene iv, the traditional wailing women scene.  Perhaps the embarrassment of riches of too many queens in the script was seen as too confusing?  The long feud between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists certainly does not come as second nature, particularly to an American audience.  Nevertheless, Margaret is a vital part of the chemistry of the players.  Her absence contributed to the lopsidedness of the production, leaving out chunks of the politics, oversimplifying the changeable loyalties, essentially eliminating the history of each individual in the story, as if their own actions or inactions hadn’t brought them to this very place.  Richard III is the culmination of generations of internecine warfare; neither he nor his England sprang from nothing.  Ignoring what came before for the rest of the characters makes Richard III a showcase for Mr. Rylance instead of a play with intricate plotting and storylines.  What goes around comes around, that’s the moral of the story, but you won’t get it in this production.

Losing Margaret is short-sighted on the part of the producers and director.  I am far from a purist, but cutting Margaret’s character and its function diminishes the play — and even without her the production ran three hours!

Gentle reminder:  Twelfe Night was well nigh perfect.  Its subtitle is “or What You Will” and we will, we will.  Liam Brennan’s Orsino fell in love with the girl disguised as a boy played by an actor disguised as both, the wonderful Samuel Barnett.  Their chemistry was sparkling, ready to burst into flame.  The old gang at Olivia’s place were naughty and lusty, with superlative performances by Colin Hurley as Sir Toby Belch, Paul Chahidi as Maria, and Angus Wright as Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

 

Rylance as Olivia and Fry as Malvolio in Twelfe Night (Photo Credit:  Joan Marcus)

Mark Rylance proves he does not need to edit a play to make himself the star — his Olivia is timid, brittle, then giddy and lusty and wild, his powdered face malleable, his body alternating between stiff and yearning, girdled and rubbery.  His line readings will overpower my mind whenever I re-read the play.  He’s a comic genius with brilliant timing — which shows up in his Richard as well, of course.

The member of the company who appeared in Twelfe Night but not in Richard III is the estimable Stephen Fry, whose Malvolio was articulate, witty, arrogant, and deserved what he got — until he didn’t.  Suffice to say, Fry was an excellent Malvolio and I hope he returns to the New York stage soon.

 

Samuel Barnett as Viola and Mark Rylance as Olivia in Twelfe Night (Photo credit Joan Marcus)

In general this is a marvelous company.  The scenic and costume design by Jenny Tiramani merge into a whole that is magnificent.  The audience members on the stage may see a lot of backsides, but their proximity to the players makes them part of the experience, and the players’ connections to living audience is just thrilling to see.  Music by Claire van Kampen is period, fitting, and well played and well utilized in both productions.  Director Tim Carroll worked wonders with the great Twelfe Night but fell down on the job with Richard.  That said, I have no knowledge of the script he was handed, since no dramaturge is mentioned in the program. 

Editing Shakespeare isn’t easy, though often necessary.  The wrong bits were edited out of this Richard.  Thankfully the Twelfe Night was so extraordinary it entirely redeems the problems of the Richard.

~ Molly Matera, signing off and urging you to see at least one if not both of these plays in repertory.  (If just one, you know the Twelfe Night is the better!)

A Wee Hamlet

Last week, the compact traveling production of Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Globe was quite entertaining and unlike any Hamlet I’ve ever seen.  That said, was it Hamlet?  It didn’t feel like Hamlet, although it was certainly Shakespeare.  The language, rapid-fire and musical, was intellectually challenging, and, by virtue of the words themselves and the rhythm of the lines, emotionally fraught.  But were the characters? 

The play opens with song, Laura Forrest-Hay’s music performed by the eight actors who portray all the characters in the script.  Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole co-directed the play with Bill Buckhurst on a tight, clever set by Jonathan Fensom, who also designed the versatile costumes.

Scenic Design Jonathan Fensom, Lighting by Paul Russell.  Photo credit (c) 2012 F. Stop Fitzgerald

The spitfire Hamlet of this production was Michael Benz, a very young man in whom we could see all those things the play says Hamlet was wont to embody — courtier, scholar, etc.  Mr. Benz articulated the brilliance of Hamlet, rather like a teenager whose genius was appreciated before but no longer, not under the reign of the usurper.  This boy is hurt, rather frightened, and still responds with immaturity to much that occurs around him.  Which comes off quite funny.  The lines of the play have always shown us that, but Mr. Benz gave us more of the young man’s brash uncertainty than the older actors to whom we are accustomed.  This Hamlet was a stranger in a familiar land.

Tom Lawrence played the grounded best friend, Horatio, with warmth and humor, and lent life and reality to his other charges, Reynaldo and the Norwegian Captain.

Peter Bray gave equal weight to his portrayals of Rosencrantz, Osric (witty and swell), and Marcellus, although his Fortinbras was not as well defined. 

Matthew Romain plays a fine fiddle, a sensitive and loving Laertes, and a Guildenstern with some depth.

Benz, Bray, and Romain, Miranda Foster in the background.  (c) 2012 Fiona Moorehead.

Christopher Saul was grave as both Polonius, who didn’t talk nearly as much as usual, and the Gravedigger in a greatly shortened scene.

Dickon Tyrrell did good work as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father and the usurping Uncle Claudius, his characters clearly differentiated.  While his lively First Player and Player King were quite delightful, playing all those roles did require some suspension of disbelief from the audience, particularly during the cleverly curtained scene changes surrounding the play within the play.

Miranda Foster played Gertrude rather as a fishwife, braying her tears and fears.  Mind you, in this shortened version of the play (I wish I could see the actual script), Gertrude did seem to have been given short shrift.

Carlyss Peer played Ophelia as a country girl, strong, not too bright, which was fine in the first half, but not so much in the second.  Her mad scenes did not come off as a girl deranged by loss but rather as acting exercises.

Hamlet and Ophelia.  (c) 2012 Fiona Moorehead.

Sometimes, despite the skill of these players, it almost seemed like a production of youngsters, perhaps because most of the players seemed to be physically slight in comparison to the blatant adult males — Saul’s Polonius/Gravedigger and Tyrrell’s Claudius/Ghost, both men much taller than the other players.  Must give us pause.

While the set was fabulous and imaginative, the upper portion was barely used — primarily when Hamlet “hid” Polonius’ corpse and when he returned from his sojourn with the pirates and tells Horatio the tale.  Unfortunately at the time they were upstage of the people clearing the stage (rhythmically, artistically) of the graveyard scene, so it was easy to miss what Hamlet had to say about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern et.al.

Polonius, Claudius, Hamlet, and Gertrude.  (c) 2012 Fiona Moorehead.

The humor in the play was at the forefront here — perhaps that has to do with speed — and the musical opening, interludes, and closing were jolly.  And, of course, there was time for them since you cannot tell me that the text workers (they’re not called dramaturgs in the program) didn’t cut quite large swathes out of the script.  The play wasn’t a mere 2 hours 40 minutes just because Hamlet spoke so fast.  It’s been cut and cut and cut, and while the result was not precisely a new play, it’s a different version.

Back to my earlier question:  Was it Hamlet?  It was not a tragedy, nor was it emotionally engaging.  Well, it was a “Wee Hamlet.” All in all, a flawed but enjoyable afternoon at the theatre.  While the New York run has ended, the production also plays Boston and the West Coast. See it if you have the opportunity.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to re-read the play.  The long version.