Hamlet & Me (Part XI)

Edward P. Vining was a Union Pacific executive in the 19th century and a part-time thinker. He independently developed a unique theory regarding the three extant versions of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: The First Quarto of 1603, the Second Quarto of 1604 and the First Folio of 1623.

Vining believed each subsequent version was a revision of the one previous, each an improvement upon its predecessor on the way to an ultimate, perfect vision of Hamlet which the Stratford man either did not complete or that has been lost to history.

That’s not the unique bit. No, Vining’s grand theory focuses on what he perceived as an increasing “femininity” in the character as these draft progress, as the Dane becomes ever more thoughtful, emotional, and hesitant to act. Soft, if you will.

That Vining's theory is entirely misogynist goes without saying. What is interesting, from a narrative standpoint, is how Vining suggests it was possible that Hamlet was born female, that it was kept a secret, and that she was raised to pass as male. Vining set this all down in his book The Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem (1881).

Vining’s theory may have been lost to history, but that it was elevated by Danish film star and producer Asta Nielsen, who used his theory when deciding to play the title role as the premiere offering from her new production company, Art-Film. This 1921 silent film version is quite possibly the best adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet ever made.

Asta Nielsen in "Hamlet"
Art-Film, 1921

Here’s the thing: We know "Young Hamlet was born" on "that day that our last King Hamlet overcame [Old] Fortinbras." A gravedigger tells us so. (HAM V.i) But what if word traveled faster than the old Danish King, and that it was reported that it was he who had been slain? To secure the throne in a time of war, the new mother, Queen Gertrude, announces a son! By the time Old Hamlet returns, the lie has been widely accepted and is held as truth. The girl is raised a prince, only her mother and father aware of the deception.

This is all prologue. The question then is how this all affects her, Hamlet’s, relationships with Ophelia, Horatio, her mother, the new king Claudius, everyone? In 2006, I directed another production of Hamlet at Beck Center for the Arts, inspired by Nielsen’s film, and starring Sarah Morton in the lead, supported by an outstanding company of local artists.

“Since Hansen is experienced and demonstrably astute, there are no embarrassments here and much to appreciate. Most to be appreciated is his shrewd casting of the lady Hamlet. Sarah Morton is a palpably enchanting stage presence – smart, wry, covertly vulnerable and hesitantly self-confident. Properly attired, she's also tall, thin and still tomboyish enough to get away with the physical aspects of the evening's masquerade." - Damico [2]

"Oozing misery and nerves, Morton plays a Hamlet pierced by grief and drunk on death. She handles the language flawlessly, and several of her scenes are the best I've ever seen – her death, and the "nunnery" scene with Ophelia (a sensitive Rachel Lee Kolis)." - Eisenstein [3]

Hamlet & Horatio
Sarah Morton, Nick Koesters
Beck Center, 2006

One of the original aspects of this adaptation, one highlighted in Nielsen’s film, is the love triangle between Hamlet, Horatio and Ophelia. Each love goes unrequited and misunderstood, until the final moments of the tragedy. In the 1921 film, Horatio cradles the dead Hamlet and, in an unintentionally comic moment, discovers her breast. In our 2006 version, Hamlet instead chooses to “out” herself:

“In the final scene, a dying Hamlet places a kiss on Horatio's lips, revealing her true feelings. It's a poignant moment In a credible production of the fiendishly difficult, challenging play, one that keeps the integrity of the language and drama intact.” - Heller [1]

To be concluded.

The complete "Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance" starring Asta Nielsen and directed by Svend Gade & Heinz Schall (1921)

Sources:
[1] "Review: Hamlet" by Fran Heller, Backstage, 10/16/2006
[2] "Shakespearean Mélange a Trois: A Bardic Orgy of Drag, Gender-bending and Shaky Celibacy" by James Damico, The Free Times, 10/4/2006

[3] "Hamlet @ Beck Center" by Linda Eisenstein, CoolCleveland.com, 10/1/2006

On Sight (Pre-Operative)

Image of my Future Foretold
Self as Kent in "King Lear"
(Beck Center, 2019)

The good news is I will now be in town for the Borderlight Festival!

That’s a joke. I was going out of town for the week, now I am staying home to have surgery to repair a detached retina, so I’m not going anywhere. Jokes really do suffer when you explain them.

The Borderlight Festival, for those of you who are unaware, is an international theater and performing arts festival that takes place in downtown Cleveland and the only reason you haven’t read anything about it here is because it has always taken place when I am out of town.

I can’t tell you how much it pains me that there is now an international theater and performing arts festival in Cleveland, Ohio and that I am not part of it. But my family comes first, and I have no regrets about that. I have tried this year to flog a few of their offerings on social media, and hope someday to attend or even submit a production.

And up until yesterday afternoon, I was planning to leave town. A week long vacay with the entire family. They were ready to suspend travel, at least until I had undergone surgery, but I insisted they go. My son has a college trip schedule for tomorrow morning in upstate New York, and we have tickets to see the A.R.T. revival of 1776. That was my idea, I so wanted to see this production. But it would be a shame for everyone to miss it, I need them to report back to me how it plays.

Then onto Maine. My family vacation spot. My brother’s family is coming, my eldest will be joined by their partner – whose parents are also joining us (I mean them) ostensibly for my birthday, which is Tuesday. And the cousins, the cove, the view from the deck of the Barnstable.

One week out of the year, every year. Not this year, not for me. Having them miss it too would have made me even more miserable than I currently am.

Yesterday a doctor examined my eyes, prodding them with a medal stick. It was very painful. She remarked at how well I managed, so calm. My blood pressure, my pulse were normal, better than normal. My wife said she watched me breathe during this examination, that my hands and arms were relaxed. I was practicing my breathing. But it hurt. It hurt a lot. I did my crying later.

Today I am lying on my left side, so the damage doesn’t increase. After the procedure, I am to lie on my right side for the week. This is not a vacation. I cannot do anything.

So, I am depressed about not being with my family. I am extremely apprehensive about the procedure itself. I am anxious about not being able to run for the foreseeable future. 

And I am very, very worried about being alone with my thoughts for an entire week. Because I do not like being alone. I do not like being alone at all.

The BorderLight Festival continues through July 24, 2022 from Playhouse to Public Square in Downtown Cleveland.

My Own Private Dramaturge

Calvin G. Thayer & Toni K. Thayer
circa 1985

My wife’s grandfather, Calvin G. Thayer, was a professor of English at Ohio University. When he died in 2004, his widow, Mary, thought it was only appropriate that we take his theater books. The collection included a large if incomplete set of hardbound Arden edition Shakespeares.

These baby-blue covered books have proven invaluable to me in the time since, as I have returned to them, again and again, for assistance in my work in education, and in directing the plays of Shakespeare.

Students of Shakespeare know Arden editions to be extremely helpful in understanding text, as they include footnotes on every page, sometimes so many notes that they take up more space than the text itself.

These copies, however, are unique in that they include Calvin G.’s handwritten notes in the margins, and it is his particular wry insight and commentary which made him the man he was, and remains on the pages of these volumes.

During the process of rehearsing for King Lear, as directed by Eric Schmiedl for Beck Center for the Arts, he was my own personal dramaturge. As I studied my lines for the role of Earl of Kent, often I would find CGT's cramped hand, commenting in one way or another on the proceedings.

The King banishes Kent for standing up to him in court, insisting Lear “revoke (his) gift” or change his sudden decision to punish the princess Cordelia. Instead of leaving the kingdom, however, Kent chooses to disguise himself and remain available to assist the ageing monarch.

KENT: Now, banish'd Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,
So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labors. (I.iv)

In red ink CGT writes, “Why does Kent love his master?” He then answers his own question in green ink, quoting Sonnet 116:

Love is not love.
Which alters when it alteration finds …

"Why does Kent love his master?"

Sonnet 116 is one of the few Shakespearean sonnets you can quote in a marriage ceremony (and I have) because it is one of the few expressions of pure, unconditional love to be found in them. You love because you love, and situation does not change that fact.

Why does Kent love Lear? Because he does. Understanding this informed my entire performance, including and especially Kent’s outburst in the first scene.

Kent is also a verbally aggressive character, and his hatred toward the servant Oswald (one who felt confident enough in the new power structure to be dismissive of Lear) leads to this hearty exchange:

KENT: Fellow, I know thee.

OSWALD: What does thou know me for?

KENT: A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch;one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny the least syllable of thy addition.

OSWALD: Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one
that's neither known of thee nor knows thee!

KENT: What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me!
Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripp'd up thy heels before the King? (II.ii)

Kent goes on. CGT writes,“One of the few truly satisfying passages in the play.” He underlines satisfying, which I take to mean (because he surely believes the play as a whole to be a great work) that it satisfies, that it feels good.

"King Lear" at Beck Center for the Arts
Photo by Andy Dudik

In our production Eric has done a tremendous job streamlining the text; he abridges it, yes, but also takes liberties with where lines fall and in what order. While it is greatly enjoyable to hear a fine actor vent Kent’s spleen in its entirety, this is not that show. My line as delivered goes like this:

KENT: A knave, a rascal, and eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, lily-livered glass-gazing son of a mongrel bitch that I tripped up and beat before the king.

Purists will take issues, and that is what purists do. For me, I find the line at present to be immensely satisfying.

Speaking of edits, in Act II, scene iv, Lear discovers Kent shamed, languishing in the stocks (for having assaulted Oswald) and demands an explanation. In the unexpurgated  tale, which Eric had lightly edited, Kent tell of how he had gone to deliver letters from the king to his daughter Regan.

It’s a bit wordy, describing how Kent had kneeled appropriately, but had been ignored, how another servant had arrived, one from Goneril, who had received proper attention, and how Kent had waited patiently while everyone was rude to him.

This little drama is new to the audience, as it is a scene that Shakespeare didn't actually choose to dramatize. CGT comments,“I suppose we must take his word for it.”

Kent then goes on to describe the issue at hand, his altercation with Oswald, and imagining myself sitting on the floor, feet in stocks, whining about that other event, the one we haven’t even seen, and I suggested to Eric we cut it and stick to the stuff we’re already familiar with.

Yes, I am an actor who actually suggests saying less. I suppose you must take my word for it.

Finally, I had a note of my own. Near the end of the play the king reconciles with Cordelia, in prison, accepting responsibility for his actions:

LEAR: When thou dost ask me for blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. (LEAR V.iii)

Shakespeare says almost the exact same thing in Hamlet, only this time to son is reconciling with the mother:

HAMLET: And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. (HAM III.iv)

I don’t know why, but I always have such difficulty getting my young actors to understand what that means, and why it’s important, and at that moment in the play. I am grateful to know how much more clearly it is stated in Lear, and that I can use that in the future.


One last story about Calvin G. If you have seen or read my play I Hate This (a play without the baby) you know we named our first born son Calvin, and that was in honor of my wife’s grandfather. Following the very first performance, sixteen years ago, a local poet came up and asked about the name, because it was too much of a coincidence. Calvin Thayer-Hansen? Did we know Calvin Thayer, the English professor? And of course, we did.

This man went on to explain how he had been a pre-med student at Ohio University, and took a class his freshman year in medieval literature. Calvin Thayer was his professor, and saw in him something other than medicine. Calvin recommended him to the honors tutorial college. He took CGT’s Shakespeare History class, and was his advisor on his honors paper -- the subject, none other than King Lear.

Thanks to Calvin G. Thayer we may have one fewer doctor in the word. But we do have internationally-renown poet, performer and educator Ray McNiece.

Beck Center for the Arts presents "King Lear" directed by Eric Schmiedl, now through June 30, 2019

Summer of Shakespeare

Robert Hawkes (Lear) and Jeffery Allen (The Fool)
"King Lear" at Beck Center for the Arts
Photo by Andy Dudik

The folks I work with in the school residency program at Great Lakes Theater are some of my very favorite people in the world, and it is a point of pride to mention that former actor-teachers have gone on to not only become successful, professional theater actors, directors, and technicians, but also occupy positions of responsibility at virtually every professional theater company in Cleveland.

There is a lot of Shakespeare going on around Northeast Ohio this summer, and it is delightful to note how many actor-teachers, past and present are company members.

Beck Center for the Arts opened King Lear last night, featuring former actor-teachers Jeffery Allen (The Fool), Shaun Patrick O’Neill (Oswald), myself (Kent) and recent hire Tyler Collins (King of France).

Opening June 21, the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival presents an all-female production of Henry V, directed by former actor-teacher Kelly Elliott, and featuring present actor-teachers Kimberly Seabright Martin (Montjoy, others) and Adrionna Powell Lawrence (Dauphin, others).

Kim and Adri are also performing as Rosalind and Celia (respectively) in As You Like It at French Creek Theatre in Sheffield Village, which opens August 16, directed by former actor-teacher Brian McNally.

Later in the Cleve Shakes season, former actor-teacher Khaki Hermann plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing.

Hamlet opens at the Ohio Shakespeare Festival, opening June 28 featuring former actor-teachers Trevor Buda (Horatio) and DeLee Cooper (Ophelia swing).

Chennelle Bryant-Harris and Kelsey Tomlinson
"Tame" at Rubber City Theatre

There is even a current actor-teacher, Adam Graber, who is traveling to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival to assume the role of Curtis in the production of The Taming of the Shrew which was first produced at sister company Great Lakes Theater in March.

And speaking of Shrew, that scrappy little Akron theater, Rubber City, received a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to commission a new work inspired by Shakespeare’s famously misogynistic comedy, interpreted “through the lives of LGBTQ+ characters.”

This new work, Tame, features former actor-teacher and present GLT Educational Assistant Chennelle Bryant-Harris in the Petruchio inspired-character, here named Porter.

Rubber City Theatre presents Tame by Josy Jones and directed by Dane CT Leasure, opening this Thursday, June 7 at 243 Furnace Street in Akron.

Happy PRIDE!

On Death

This post includes spoilers for William Shakespeare's four hundred and thirteen year-old play KING LEAR.

“Thou wilt come no more.
Never, never, never, never, never.”
- LEAR V.iii

Gloucester (Anne McEvoy) and Lear (Robert Hawkes)

My phone has this odd bug … I’ll be listening to a podcast and the Music app will suddenly start up, playing some song I purchased from iTunes at some point in the past fifteen years.

Today, before rehearsal, that song was "You’ll Be Back" from Hamilton. What an exciting time that was, three years ago, discovering this new musical, this national craze, at the same time as my seventh grade daughter.

I haven’t listened to this score for, what? Half a year? Since summer vacation last? So I had to ask myself, why this feeling of sadness, of melancholy, especially in reaction this, one of the lightest, most frothy tracks on the album?

Ah yes, always. Hamilton is steeped in melancholy for me. We purchased it shortly before my father died one February Friday morning. The year 2016 was dizzying, thrilling, full of anticipation, promise, and fear. And all year I was keeping my chin up, deep in mourning.

All the celebrity deaths that year. “Let’s all make a protective circle around Betty White!” I didn’t find it amusing. You know what I found amusing? That moment in Oh, Hello On Broadway when George St. Geegland (John Mulaney) says, “Ladies and gentlemen, it behooves you when a famous person dies, blame it on the year and make it about you.”

Just as we were adjusting to the new normal, death of a father, death of democratic norms, came the call. My father-in-law had cancer, the kind you don’t get better from. We were still in it, only my father dropped dead one day. They were all correct, those who said that was better. Yes, Chris hung on, danced at his daughter’s wedding. But his care took such a toll on my wife, on my mother-in-law.

My wife gently reminds me she wouldn't have traded those seven months with him for anything.

When he passed that December, my son was ashamed that he didn’t grieve in the same manner he had for my father. He didn’t openly weep, he was numb. We tried to reassure him. My father was a shock, a surprise. You knew this was coming.

But my son lost both grandfathers in as many years. I am glad he was close to my dad. But Chris was supposed to teach him so much more.

Kent in the stocks.

I am in therapy. I am having difficulty moving on, of making sense of all of this. Turning fifty, watching my children move into the last stage of childhood. I realize I may not have much longer, I didn’t used to be able to see the end, and now I can.

What have I accomplished? What have I yet to do? Will I do it?

And what will oblivion be like? I will miss this world, I want to see so much more. That is why I have been investigating Buddhism, to make peace with the void.

Performing in King Lear exacerbates this anxiety, especially in the role of Kent, working to help and protect those he loves from harm and then watching helpless as, in spite of his best efforts, they are all dragged down to their doom.

Kent survives, but Albany’s appeals for the nation to move forward do not compel him. He will die soon, too, of a broken heart.

“I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.
My master calls me, I must not say no.”
- LEAR V.iii

Have a beautiful Memorial Day.

Beck Center for the Arts presents "King Lear" directed by Eric Schmiedl, May 31 - June 30, 2019

The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) (1999)

Nick Koesters, Allen Branstein & self
(Beck Center for the Arts, 1999)

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) was either:

1. Written by people who love Shakespeare for people who hate Shakespeare.
2. Written by people who hate Shakespeare for people who love Shakespeare.
3. Written by comedians for an audience of absolutely no one.

The bane of critics everywhere and to the delight of audiences everywhere, this show has been produced constantly since first produced by the Reduced Shakespeare Company at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1987. The wife and I saw the original in 1997, near the end of its nine year run at the Criterion Theatre in London’s West End.

Classify this one as Shakespeare (not) On Stage, as not only does Shakespeare not appear, but the entire play ostensibly celebrates Shakespeare while simultaneously reinforcing those elements that everyone hates about Shakespeare.

It is also horribly dated, including gags that are casually sexist and outright racist, that is, unless you think the idea of three white guys deciding to interpret Othello as a rap song as “edgy.”

This month, I will appear for only the third time onstage at Beck Center, and each time in the Studio Theatre. Eric Schmiedl’s adaptation of King Lear opens May 31. Seven years ago, I played Chris in Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn.

Twenty years ago, with Nick Koesters and Allen Branstein, we performed The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).

I was shocked when director Roger Truesdell asked me to consider the role, especially playing against two accomplished comedic actors. “But Roger,” I said. “I’m not funny.”

“Yes, you are,” Roger said. “You’re just afraid people might think you are.”

The one saving grace of Complete Works is the note on the front page which reads:

“... it’s also important to keep the show fresh and timely by updating the many topical references as events warrant.”

To put it another way, you are free to change the script to make it funny. As a result we felt entirely justified in not only changing the late-80s pop culture references to late-90s pop culture references, but also anything else that wasn’t funny.

What we couldn’t do was write a different play, so we still labored with the Titus Andronicus cooking show, including my lame impersonation of the then-87-year-old Julia Child (huh-larious) and the aforementioned “Othello Rap.” At least we could pretend to be appalled, like you do, and to change truly offensive verses like:

Now Othello loved Desi like Adonis Loved VENUS
And Desi loved Othello cuz he had a big … SWORD

Into:

AL: Desdemona, she was faithful, she was chastity tight
DAVID: She was the daughter of a duke
NICK: Yeah, she was totally white

My voice was more Ad Rock than Ice Cube.

We also had great fun tweaking other local companies. Our changes are in red.

AL: One popular trend is to take Shakespeare’s plays and transpose them into modern settings. We have seen evidence of this with Shakespeare’s plays set in such bizarre locations as the lunar landscape, Nazi concentration camps and even Akron.
DAVID: Akron?
NICK: Who does Shakespeare in Akron?

Later, I had a discursion regarding ‘The Apocrypha’ or those works whose authorship was once in dispute, referred to as “‘The Lesser Plays,’ or simply, ‘The Bad Plays.’ And yet, not all of The Apocrypha are completely without merit … except Edward III.”

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival had produced the only-recently canonized Edward III that past summer. One night a contingent from the company were in the audience and they booed my little joke.

“Oh,” I ad-libbed,” you’ve seen it.”

I went on to to describe what a fascinating play Troilus and Cressida is, but then bore the shit out of absolutely everyone in telling the story, which is coincidentally what I also did for Cleve Shakes audiences in 2018.

We changed scripted references about Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Boris Yeltsin to Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani and Vladimir Putin, which are more relevant now than they were twenty years ago.

The inclusion of Putin was odd, though, because the run of the show ran over into the year 2000, and Vladimir Putin was only just inaugurated on January 1st of that year -- we changed the reference from Boris Yeltsin after the announcement.

No one knew anything about him, except the name, so I suggested we change Nick’s recitation on "Chernobyl Kinsman" (Two Noble Kinsman, get it?) to include this exchange:

NICK: Does it have Vladimir Putin in it?
DAVID: It doesn’t have anybody pootin’ in it, Nick.

He's a monster. We didn't know.

We threw in Ally McBeal jokes, Jar-Jar Binks jokes, references to The Blair Witch Project, and my personal favorite, when Nick’s Macduff emerged with "the usurper's cursed head,” he was, in fact, holding a replica of his own head, which was the same prop used when he played the lead in Macbeth at Beck Center the previous season.

It gets better. As prescribed in the stage directions, “(drop kicks the head into the audience)” -- but then Nick hollered, "GOOOOOAAAL!!!!" and ran in a tight circle, before sliding on his knees and ripping off his shirt to reveal a Brandi Chastain inspired black sports bra (Google Women’s World Cup 1999.)

The script as written closes with a familiar theater cliché:

"If you enjoyed the show, tell your friends. If you didn't, tell your enemies."

By the second weekend we were sold-out in spite of receiving some scathing reviews from those aforementioned critics who simply hate the idea of this admittedly dumb little play.

AL: If you enjoyed the show, tell your friends.
DAVID: If you didn't ... you must write for the Free Times, man.

Exit, pursued by a laugh.

Beck Center for the Arts presents "King Lear" directed by Eric Schmiedl, May 31 - June 30, 2019

Play a Day: King Lear

This is a year of many auspicious anniversaries.

Thirty years ago I performed my first Shakespearean role, that of Friar John in Romeo and Juliet. Twenty-five years ago I directed my first Shakespeare, which was also Romeo and Juliet. In that production I provided a recorded voice over for Prince Escalus.

Twenty years ago I directed Hamlet, and did a walk-on as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father.

I have performed a few other Shakespearean roles. Petruchio in the Guerrilla Theater Company production of The Taming of the Shrew. Bardolph in Henry IV for Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. Pistol in the Merry Wives of Windsor at Great Lakes Theater, and also in The Tempest as Adrian.

What? You don’t know who Adrian is? He is the least-consequential named character in all of Shakespeare. He has a name, "yet--" he does nothing and provides absolutely no information we do not already know. In this production his signal contribution was to get his head bitten off by a harpy.

The fact is, in spite of being regarded as a Shakespeare guy, I have performed very little Shakespeare. This summer, however, I will be playing one of my very favorite roles, that of the Earl of Kent in the True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters, or as more popularly known, King Lear.

As Adrian with Dougfred Miller as Antonio
The Tempest, Great Lakes Theater (2007)

Is it just me, or is this play going through something of a renaissance in the 21st Century? Is it because the Baby Boomers are entering their final years and want to redefine him for a new age?

I have had the opportunity to witness a couple iconic performances of King Lear in my time. In 1990 we and a college group visited London and Stratford and saw Lear performed by John Wood, who most Gen X Americans would know as Professor Falken from the motion picture War Games. The two standout performances were that of the non-yet-famous Ralph Fiennes and Alex Kingston as Edmund and Cordelia, respectively.

Several years later, Toni and I were in London and saw Ian Holm play Lear at the National, following his long hiatus from the stage. On that trip I picked up a copy of the book Shakespeare Made Fit: Restoration Adaptations of Shakespeare edited by Sandra Clark.

In that I learned of Nahum Tate’s adaptation of Lear, in which he created a much happier conclusion, one in which Edgar and Cordelia (who never speak to one another in Shakespeare’s original) fall in love and overthrow Edmund to live as King and Queen of a united England. Published in 1681, “Tate’s Lear” was the favored version until around 1863, when William Macready staged the first truly popular restoration of Shakespeare’s original tragedy.

David Troughton as Tom, right
With Penelope Wilton
The Norman Conquests, BBC (1977)

It was Tate’s version that was to be my third Shakespearean production, announced for Cleveland Shakespeare Festival’s 2000 summer season. When it became necessary to abridge that year’s production schedule from three productions to two, Tate’s Lear was cancelled. We had a wonderful cast who were tremendously disappointed, and it still pains me to remember that I let them down, having made the proposal myself not to move ahead with the production.

Ironically, perhaps, one of the other two productions that year was a compact and modern production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Eric Schmiedl. Referred to as “The GQ Love’s Labour’s,” Eric had cut the text down to just the lovers’ story (no Don Armado, sorry, no Holoferenes) punctuating the narrative with a few passages from popular magazines describe what the modern person wants in a relationship.

My relationship with Eric goes back to our tenures briefly overlapping at Karamu in the early 90s, later we were in the Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit. He has directed me in Sarah Morton’s Night Bloomers, Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn, David Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries, and now we are entering the rehearsal process for a streamlined, studio production of King Lear at the Beck Center for the Arts.

Kent is such a desirable role for a man my age, and I hope I can do him justice. He has the first line of the play, and it is entirely unassuming, one of the rare circumstance in Shakespeare when the action just starts, right in the middle of a conversation, Kent speaking with the Earl of Gloucester about a point of interest which has marginal bearing upon the issues of the narrative.

He is pressed into action, having to suddenly bridge a confounding gap and is forced into action he couldn’t have considered five minutes previously. He is not particularly remarkable, except for his absolute devotion to those he loves, sharp wit, and his ability to kick a young man’s ass.

David Troughton as Earl of Kent, right
With Linda Kerr Scott and John Wood
King Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company (1990)

I have seen two men whose performances as Kent rest upon my shoulders. The first was David Troughton, whose work I had first seen when he played Tom in the BCC production of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests. Why a ten year old would be watching a British comedy about intimate relationships you can blame on my brother, regardless I remembered him when our school group visited Stratford that 1990.

Troughton was a then-member of the RSC, and in addition to leading workshops and acting as a mediator between our team and the company, he and his wife Alison welcomed us into their home and they were just remarkably kind and thoughtful people.

He and Ciarán Hinds conducted the final battle between Achilles and Hector (respectively) from Troilus and Cressida for us during a stage combat workshop. I saw him play Holoferenes in Love’s Labour’s Lost onstage, and he was Kent to John Wood’s Lear.

It was a remarkable week.

Most recently, I saw the production at Great Lakes Theater, directed by Joseph Hanreddy. That was four years ago. Hanreddy has done such marvelous work with our company, and this was no exception, a towering performance by Aled Davies in the lead role. His Kent, his "Caius" was Dougfred Miller.

I first met Doug the summer of 2005, when we played Merry Wives of Windsor at Great Lakes. Doing summer shows, my birthday often overlaps rehearsal or performance (this has happened numerous times) but I don't tell anyone. There's too much, I want it to be about me. That July 26 I walked into Becky's after rehearsal, on my own, prepared to drink a solitary toast to my own 37th anniversary. Doug was there at the bar and invited me to sit with him -- I hadn't really gotten to know anyone in the cast yet, and he expressed a deep, sincere interest in me, which was very gratifying on such a day.

Dougfred Miller as Earl of Kent, right
With Cassandra Bissell
King Lear, Great Lakes Theater (2015)

The next year we created a great moment together on stage for The Tempest -- the one in which I played the least consequential named character in Shakespeare. Doug was Antonio, the usurping Duke. Director Andrew May had stage these moments where Ariel was literally playing with us -- we were like puppets on strings. She paused us as I (as Adrian) had made a fist, as to strike Antonio. We were released and I hit him, Doug (as Antonio) reeled from the impact, as our "strings" were cut, sending us crashing to the floor.

Not remembering having been in this state, I rose from the floor, rubbing my hand as he rose rubbing his chin. We looked at each other -- and then away. A marvelous take. If anyone in the audience caught the exchange, I have absolutely no idea.

A performer possessed in equal measures great compassion, dedication to craft, an unparalleled wit and god-like sense of comic timing, his Kent was to me emblematic of Doug's work at its finest.

As we begin rehearsals for King Lear this evening, I enter the only way I could, following the example of such generous men, with humility and hope.

Beck Center for the Arts presents "King Lear" directed by Eric Schmiedl, May 31 - June 30, 2019.

Troilus & Cressida (fight choreography)

The fist of Hector.
(Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, 2018)

Directing Shakespeare, it is often necessary to include stage fighting. Part of the challenge in directing Hamlet is that you must end with a sword fight. If you decide to set your production in the present, that can present obvious challenges because that’s not how we do things any more.

For the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival I have been fortunate to direct Henry VIII and Timon of Athens, plays in which people just talk the whole time. Talk or sing, or do some freaky dancing.

The first time I directed Shakespeare it was Romeo & Juliet for Guerrilla Theater. I was twenty-six and come up with this brilliant concept that we weren’t going to celebrate or sensationalize violence, and so decided that just as Tybalt and Mercutio came at each other the lights would black out, and when they came back up Mercutio would be mortally wounded. Ditto when Romeo and fights Tybalt; blackout, lights up, Tybalt dead on the floor.

No combat choreography. I am a genius.

"There lies Tybalt slain."
(Guerrilla Theater Co., 1994)

That was the concept, anyway. I knew that combat choreography takes time, a lot of time. Rehearsal time to learn the steps and then time every rehearsal to rehearse those steps. I was directing my first Shakespeare and though I could not spare that kind of time. Also, at that point in my life I knew actually zero fight choreographers in Cleveland. Zero was also our budget.

Since then I have met several fight choreographers, and have commissioned a few fights. When we produced a modern Hamlet on a stage the size of a postage stamp, we did a stylized knife fight, Hamlet and Laertes each holding onto the end of a strap. Yes, it was compared the rumble in the music video for "Beat It." For Sarah Morton’s Hamlet at Beck Center, which was period appropriate, she and choreographer Joshua D. Brown fought with rapier and dagger, like it says in the script.

The first and really only time I had been introduced to the play Troilus and Cressida was when we took a college trip to Stratford in 1990 to attend master classes with the RSC. Company members Ciarán Hinds (as Achilles) and David Troughton (Hector) performed for us a fight to the death. Their choreographer, inspired by Nestor’s description of Hector cutting down his opponents (“there the strawy Greeks … fall down before him, like the mower's swath") provided them with whirling, twin short blades. They made quite a clang.


Ciarán Hinds (Achilles) and David Troughton (Hector)
35mm camera, sound out of sync.
A big question for the director choosing a modern interpretation of a classic drama (e.g., one set during the Trojan War) is what to do about the fighting. People like to see fighting, it adds excitement and emotional impact. But we no longer fight with swords, we fight with machine guns. On the battlefield, we often drop bombs from pilotless drones and create improvised explosives. These are neither easily staged nor dramatically compelling. What to do?

"The American Revolution"
(Bad Epitaph Theater Co., 2004)

For The American Revolution, Kirk Wood Bromley's modern verse play about the War for Independence, we presented battles in the background as they were described by messengers in the foreground, actor charging with colonial-age rifles with bayonets, and also waving the many colored battle flags of the period, and that made up for the difficulty in presenting gunfire onstage, because it's static and potentially under-dramatic.

There are a few key moments in our production of Troilus & Cressida which have been staged by Josh and his partner Kelly Elliott, including a fist fight between Hector and Ajax, some clever work with handguns, sexual assault, a brutal death by knife, and a bullet to the head. Scored briefly with the recorded sound of explosive devices, we hopefully will evoke a moment of chaos, confusion, and insurgency.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival presents "Troilus & Cressida" opening June 15, 2018.

Play a Day: Fairfield

Eric Coble

For Monday I read Fairfield by Eric Coble, and available at New Play Exchange.

Two months reading a new play every day, and this is the first time I have presented the work of Eric Coble which is odd because we are friends. I am friends with playwright Eric Coble. Everyone hear that? Me and Eric Coble. Yes.

We met in college, I was completing my fifth year as an undergrad and he began his MFA in Acting at Ohio University so though I think of him as older we are the same age. He stopped acting in 1996, I was the marketing director at Dobama Theatre when he walked on stage for the very last time in Eric Overmyer's Mi Vida Loca. Coble is an excellent actor and I am sorry no one else has the opportunity to see that.

Because he was committed to becoming a playwright! And he has been most prolific and most successful. I had the great good fortune to perform in The Velocity of Autumn opposite Cleveland legend Dorothy Silver at Beck Center in Lakewood, before it moved to the Arena Stage and then Broadway, a production for which Estelle Parson was nominated for a Tony.

The Velocity of Autumn
(Beck Center, 2012)

I am dropping all the names today.

For ten years Eric and I have been colleagues in the Playwrights' Unit at the Cleveland Play House, where I have been blessed to receive Eric's guidance, advice and good humor as I have made my own journey as a professional writer.

I have also had the fortune to experience several of his works in progress, including Fairfield, as well as seeing the CPH premiere production in 2015. In the spirit of #NewDayNewPlay, however, I did re-read it before writing my recommendation!

Fairfield takes place in an inner-ring suburb somewhere in the United States. Except the only city like this one in the United States in Cleveland Heights, a magical fantasyland where an almost equal number of white people and black people (and a not insignificant number of Jewish people) live side-by-side and get into heated arguments about race and racism and yet never actually set fire to anything and we don't leave because we love it here. Except for all the racism.

Fairfield
(Cleveland Play House, 2015)

Eric was a member of our school board when he wrote this play (we both live in Cleveland Heights, the city of great writers) and after the table read I asked if he wasn't concerned about how it might be received. He just gave that carefree smile of his and told me he wasn't running for reelection, anyway.

Coble has an incomparable way of taking difficult contemporary issues to outrageously hilarious extremes, and Fairfield is a classic example of this. He explodes modern conversations about race, while still presenting engaging and (with one obvious exception) sympathetic, well-meaning, occasionally delusional characters who truly want to do the right thing, even if they only help make everything spin more wildly out of control.

As one of the parents whose children attend Fairfield might say, Eric Coble knows how to "use his words."

This month I have been heartened to read thirty great works by thirty tremendous playwrights. So many of them were recommended to me by other playwrights, dedicated individuals who proudly promote each other's work.

I am taking a short break from writing, however, as I concentrate on an outdoor, summer production of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. Perhaps I will see you there!

Eric Coble is currently developing his new play, "The Girl Who Swallowed a Cactus" at the New Visions/New Voices Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

How I Spent My Summer (2015)

Actor-Teachers (2014-15)

Today we will be celebrating the close of summer in our neighborhood by attending the annual block party. The date is generally the penultimate Saturday before school begins. So many other districts have started already, it feels like ours are the only children without classes to attend.

The other day one of the kids said they were pretty much exhausted with traveling. The girl and her mother have traveled more than the boy and I, and all of them together more than me. The wife took them to Ottawa for the first weekend of the Women’s World Cup and of course there was Girl Camp.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival

The unofficial start of summer for me is always the end of the school year party for the actor-teachers. This year we tried something different, eschewing the traditional potluck at either mine or Lisa’s house, and instead having a bowling party.

At that time, we had already begun rehearsals for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival production of The Life of Timon of Athens. Now, I was pretty confident we would create an entertaining show, but I was surprised at how successful the company was in taking this rather odd and somewhat bitter text and creating a lively, funny and actually kind of touching story.

Camp Theater Improv Club

Recently I wrote a piece about improvisation which detailed my happiness with the work we created at Great Lakes Theater’s Camp Theater! The high emotions left me feeling very positive about the summer and what lay ahead.

Finding the right balance of time on and time off for the children has been a continual challenge, especially now that they (as we) can easily pick up a device and zone out for hours on end. The girl attended camps in music and soccer, while the boy concentrated on his efforts as part of his baseball league.

TCG National Conference Weekend

The Theatre Communications Group national conference was held in Cleveland this June, and I was happy to play my part as an ambassador for GLT, hosting a dinner at Sokolowski’s and then taking some new friends for an impromptu walking tour of my old theatrical stomping grounds in Tremont.

By the middle of June I began training for the Twin Cities Marathon (in October) and you can just read all about that here. We closed out the month taking what has become a much beloved annual trip to Topsail Beach in North Carolina.

Indepedence 5K (Topsail Beach)

Boy Camp continued, which included not only bowling and theater but also an extended bike/run and even his playing drums for a School of Rock performance at the Cain Park Art Festival.

We all saw the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival production of Merchant of Venice. We all saw American Idiot at Beck Center together. And then it was time to take the second part of our summer vacation … which is normally a road trip to Maine, though this year we started by heading through Canada instead of upstate New York.

One night in Niagara Falls and then onto Montreal. We spent three nights and two days in a funky part of town in an even funkier apartment. For my forty-seventh birth we attended a daytime house party on an island and then an outdoor performance of Twelfth Night.

Repercussion Theatre (Montréal)

Maine is to me eternal, though every year I wonder if it will be the last … for me, not for Maine. Maine will remain. The children have grown older, and while they have always been content with staying in the cove, near the water, fishing, catching crabs off the dock, their worldview has expanded so that we were able to take a touristy visit for window shopping and movies. Our interests meld.

Now we are in a kind of holding pattern, or I am, anyway. As I said, waiting for school. Waiting for friends. In the boy’s case he’s waiting to shake a terrible cold he developed several days ago. Last days of summer and you’re too weak to go out, that sucks big time.

My son and my father. (Flood's Cove)

But I have not been moved to review the events of summer before on this blog, not like this. Why? I am always moved by nostalgia, much to my own regret (there’s a snake that eats its own tail) but life has moved with such speed these years, I much naturally rather to look forward.

However, these days have been particularly hard on me, and it has been exceeding hard to focus. Some stems from within, but also from without, with some hard knocks striking at me from strange and surprising directions.

Perhaps I needed to give myself a brief reminder of how successfully things can go and how important it is not to forget that.

The Velocity of Autumn

Where is Pengo? What happened to his delightful blog entries, where is he?

Good question. Where am I?

Today, this beautiful, sunny 75 degree day I am in an all-day technical rehearsal at the Beck Center in Lakewood, preparing for the regional premiere of The Velocity of Autumn by local playwright Eric Coble.

Preparing for this Spring, planning for it with my wife, in addition to the annual outreach tour, which often takes a physical and mental toll (in spite of outward appearances, “acting” is very difficult for me) I was offered the opportunity to perform in this two-person, 90-minute play with Cleveland theater legend Dorthy Silver. My wife said, well … you can’t turn that down.

And so, two weeks after closing the outreach tour, we will be opening this play. At the same time, I have been training for a marathon. Yesterday I ran eighteen miles before breakfast. My thighs are very sore, and my calves. Spoiler alert, this show begins with my clambering rather awkwardly though a second-story window. I have bruises on my arms, my stomach, and my thighs. I am tired, sore and bruised.

And yet, I am so very glad I accepted this challenge and, now that I am feeling more confident with my lines, am becoming increasingly excited about the opportunity to share it with an audience.

The Velocity of Autumn had its world premiere at the Boise Contemporary Theatre a year ago, but this “regional premiere” is different, he’s rearranged it a lot, working to jack up the action without losing what the play is truly about.

From the BCT production. Dude has less hair than I do.

“Coble's dialogue is both playful and touching and had the opening night audience not only laughing but nodding their heads with understanding.” - Boise Weekly, April 13, 2011

It’s going to be a long week, I need to be careful to rest and take thing easily, giving necessary attention to each component, theater and work and home and family -- and me.

The Velocity of Autumn opens this Friday, March 23.

Nick Koesters

Nick Koesters

I first met Nick Koesters (b. February 9, 1971) after a performance of Eight Impressions of a Lunatic, in which I played the part of Edouard Manet. A mutual friend had pointed him out to me before, to me he looked like a dirty hippie with long black hair and desperate-looking eyes. 

When he stepped to me I thought he was going to take a swing at me or something and I was ready to duck behind Allen Branstein (which is a trick, let me tell you) and scream for Tracey to protect me, but instead Nick just told me how amazing he thought I was in the show. I thought he was going to cry. I had like, two lines in that show, but he was right, I was incredible. I thanked him and worried about the future.

Nick was a member of Kaiser Permanante’s educational outreach tours at that time, and maybe we never would have done a show together (after one particularly difficult party at Jill’s place on Hampshire he was high as a monster and spent about an hour pitching this sketch improv show at me while I gazed longingly at the front door) only Bohan got a job with Great Lakes (Jesus) and stepped out of Bad Epitaph Theater Company’s production of Wendy McLeod’s Sin. Bohan was playing Sloth, I was cast as Envy. So the director asked me to play Sloth, and brought Nick in for Envy.

With Sarah Morton in "Sin"
Photo by Anthony Gray
(Bad Epitaph Theater Co. 1999)

This made no sense to me, I was perfect for Envy. I am Envy. But I hadn’t really gotten to know Nick. I thought he was dopey and sweet, but he has a deadly mean streak. After a performance one night I asked him to keep it down as he railed backstage about this asshole in the front row who had the nerve to bring a dog into the audience, being blind is no fucking excuse.

“Hey, don’t bad mouth our audience,” I said. I was the artistic director of the company. I thought it was important to keep it cool, especially as we were performing in a dinky art gallery and I was horrified the blind guy or his dog might hear him.

Nick snapped off my jaw and pulled out my spine through my mouth.

That night Nick, Al and I had our first read-through at the Beck Center for The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged), the best production of that stupid play ever produced.

"The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare (abridged)"
(Beck Center, 1999)

Nick was good to Bad Epitaph. Bad Epitaph would have been weak without him. He has a beautiful singing voice. Who thought it was a good idea to make a modern musical adaptation of Lysistrata? Me. Who thought it was a good idea to have Nick perform the rousing R&B number "Welcome" composed by Dennis Yurich? Me. He was in that show, Cloud Nine, The Wayward Angel, The Alchemist and State of Siege.

They called us the next Reuben & Dorothy.

I wrung as much work out of him as possible before he went Equity and I would be forced to pay him.

After that he was forced to stage manage and direct for him. God, I worked him like a dog. He was an ardent supporter of the I Hate This project and was my first stage manager for that production, taking it to the Minnesota Fringe with me where he caught Gwen Hairy Gwen Gloss and asked to direct it with BETC.

With Sarah Morton,
George Roth in "Hamlet"
(Beck Center, 2006)

That show was hilarious. He staged it at Zen Salon in Ohio City, a real salon. Least expensive set we ever had to build. You didn’t see it, did you? That show was hilarious. And you suck.

Let’s see, how else did I use Nick … he was Laertes in that production of Sarah Morton’s Hamlet I directed … and in all of my radio dramas for WCPN, I Hate This, The Machine Stops and Fortitude. We were also naked on the radio together. That was a special time. Naked.

Since then he has been too busy acting in real shows where people pay him money and stuff. And I have been distressed to discover that in my absence he’s gotten … really good. Saw him in three shows this year, Inoculations, Side Effects May Include and My Barking Dog. It’s the best work I’ve ever seen him do. Amazing. Christ, he’s focused. Daniel says he could watch Nick watch TV for hours. Did you miss My Barking Dog? You suck.

So, of course, he's leaving. Not dead, leaving. He was offered a position with a real company to do real acting in Virginia, a real state. I wish him luck. Because I've seen him naked, and he needs all the luck he can get.

ALSO: Why Nick Koesters Is A Genius

UPDATE: Beck Center for the Arts presents a virtual production of "Fully Committed" by Becky Mode, directed by Scott Spence, and performed entirely by Nick Koesters, November 13 - 29, 2020.