Our Unwanted Journey (2001)

“Soon after we got out of the hospital, my brother Harrol asked if we wouldn’t like to stay with him and his family in London. They had a couple of free weeks in June. June. We hadn’t thought of life past the due date. The summer was supposed to spent with a new baby. We accepted their invitation immediately.” - I Hate This (a play without the baby)

Father's Day, 2001

When we took our massive, three week Southern road trip in the year 2000, it was intended to be our last vacation for a while. We made plans. And God said, “Fuck you.”

Looking over our materials from that trip, I was surprised by many things, not least of which is how much made its way into I Hate This. I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Sun., June 17: Father’s Day. No ties or socks, please. I’d just like my dead son back.

Finished “The Sparrow” late last night. Toni finished its sequel, “The Children of God” almost an hour before, and was very sad. That one ends with someone holding a baby.

Lots of things end with someone holding a baby. In fact, I may have said everything ends with someone holding a baby. Nothing ends with someone holding a dead baby. Maybe we should change that.

I hadn’t yet read Buried Child, but still. I was onto something.

I Hate This has been noted for my stoicism, or my dispassionate accounting. My journal from this trip tells another story, where I make note of no fewer than four times I had to excuse myself to go cry somewhere alone in one of the many rooms in the house my brother and his family were managing.

We also saw a remarkable number of plays, remarkable in that my wife didn’t feel like doing much of anything at all at that time, or not much more than to sit in parks and watch the birds. I was still (theoretically) managing a theater company, seeking inspiration and desperate for distraction. Also, our eldest brother had also joined us and what do you do on vacation but go and see things.

Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber
"Night Manager"

Night Manager created by Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber (LIFT: the London International Festival of Theatre)

Wed. June 13: A boat ride down the Thames at dusk. We wore headsets and listened to poetry about life underwater (the fear, the subconscious) while attendants served us a mint, warm milk and spices, gave us a blanket, while we watched London drift by in the dark. It was a pleasant experience. (DH)

“Despite the discreet revelation of this stretch of the Thames at dusk … you find yourself gazing more at the dark grey water itself than at the cityscape on its banks. [Björner] Torsson's text encourages you to slip into reverie; after a while, the words are there not so much to be listened to as to maintain the semi-hypnotic state into which you have drifted.” 

- Ian Shuttleworth, Financial Times

Howard Katz by Patrick Marber (National Theatre)

I have already written about this. The timing was poor.

Thu., June 14: I like it better upon reflection than I did watching it … a modern cross between King Lear and the story of Job where one awful man loses everything … his epiphany comes as a result of remembering what it felt like when his son was born. It upset Toni a lot. Made for a shitty trip home. We did have hot chocolate and Bailey’s in the kitchen, the five of us, and a nice time talking there.

Stephen Mangan, Lynn Redgrave
"Noises Off" by Michael Frayn

Noises Off by Michael Frayn (Piccadilly Theatre)

My junior year in high school, we conducted a workshop of first act of Noises Off and during my senior year the Cleveland Play House produced the first professional production I had seen. This was my second, a National Theatre transfer that now starred Lynn Redgrave and Stephen Mangan, who would later star in the fucking hilarious TV show Green Wing.

Fri., June 15: Lynn Redgrave. Man. She is a loon. First act was all right. The second they shouted too much. Gave me a headache.

Father’s Day proper we eschewed theater altogether, my brother and his wife thoughtfully proposing a drive to the New Forest Otter, Owl & Wildlife Park.

Sun., June 17: The park was very big; boards, wallabies, deer, ferrets, polecats – and lots of otters. Europeans, Asian, British, Canadian, big, small, swimming, galloping, dry, wet … very fun, very moving. We stayed a lovely, long time.

And then we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

Bill Nighy and Chiwetel Ejiofor
"Blue/Orange" by Joe Penhall

Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall (Duchess Theatre)

Every time I see professional theater in Britain, inevitably one or usually more of the actors in any given production eventually become stars in America. They were probably already famous in Britain, on stage and the Beeb but I’d never heard of them.

I have caught more than one play about the National Health Service (NHS). Two years ago that would have been People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan, a quarter century ago it was Blue/Orange, a three-hander in which two doctors debate whether or not a man who claims to be the son of Idi Amin (and believes oranges are blue) deserves his state-sponsored hospital bed.

All three actors were very good. They also happened to be Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln and Bill Nighy.

Remember when everyone was writing plays that had two word titles with a slash in the middle?

Tue., June 19: I read the new Neil LaBute, “The Shape of Things,” now playing at the Almeida. Honestly. What is wrong with that man? I think he is a good writer, he just doesn’t write good. Here he’s trying to write something like "Closer" only it’s closer to Oleanna in its lack of balance and treatment of women and his male protagonist doesn’t deserve anything that happens to him.

Jasper Britton and Eve Best
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Tim Carroll, Master of Play

This was my first experience hearing a play at Shakespeare’s Globe, though as of 2026 I have only seen two productions there. 

We participated in a tour the last time we were in town, shortly before the grand opening in 1997. Since that time, and under the artistic direction of Mark Rylance, the company had distinguished itself by its dedication to historical accuracy in design and, as near as can be ascertained, performance.

This production of The Scottish Play, however, was controversial for its nontraditional conceit, the entire cast (including witches) dressed in tuxedoes, with the exception of Lady M. (Eve Best) in a silky, silver gown. The cool jazz score was composed by Claire van Kampen, and I am so grateful to have had the foresight to purchase that CD.

“It is welcome and right that the Globe should start to experiment and move on from what was in danger of becoming museum Shakespeare, but Carroll's production doesn't even tell the story clearly. There is too much paraphernalia, as if every bright idea has been indiscriminately incorporated rather than carefully considered. So we get blood and death represented not just by gold tinsel, but also by coloured feathers and pebbles thrown in buckets.”
- Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

Well. I enjoyed it a lot.

Peter Capaldi and Henry Goodman
"Feelgood" by Alistair Beaton

Feelgood by Alistair Beaton (Garrick Theatre)

Not all political dramas have a freshness date, The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui still holds up, but this one was a bit whiffy when it premiered. I was excited to see Nigel Planer (The Young Ones) live on stage, but the delight of the evening was Peter Capaldi (who?) as a frazzled No. 10 speech writer. It would not surprise me if this turned out to be his unintentional audition for The Thick of It a few years later.

Wed. June 20: Well. I am sick of bad playwriting. Saw "Feelgood” tonight. Wish I hadn’t. Left me depressed. Stupid, preachy, unfunny comedy. It’s a TV movie on-stage. I hate that.

School Play by Suzy Almond (Soho Theatre)

Our final production – in London. A play which puts the lie to the time-worn story of the teacher with a heart of gold who helps disenchanted students discover their true selves. What if the teacher isn’t actually very good, in a very real and troubling way?

“The situation is ripe with sentimental opportunities, all of which Almond strenuously resists. What she actually shows is two solitary misfits with a ruthless eye for each other's weaknesses.”
- Michael Billington, The Guardian

Returning home, we had made plans to spend a few days in NYC before taking a train home. This turned out to be an error, we were emotionally spent from our journey and ready to just not do anything.

And yet. We spent a lovely morning getting tickets to see Mary Zimmerman’s production of Measure for Measure at the Delacorte, starring Billy Crudup, Sanaa Lathan and Joe Morton. As it happened, we would be back in August to see the other free summer offering in the park, but to attend The Seagull we would need to spend the night.

See also:
Howard Katz (play)
The Seagull (2001)

Sources:
"Review: Macbeth" by Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, 6/7/2001 
"Review: School Play" by Michael Billington, The Guardian. 6/24/2001

England, 1997 (Week One)

Last year we made plans to visit England during the holidays. I am downright resentful this did not happen. Not that we should have gone regardless, that would have been foolhardy. If I had had my way we would have gone as soon as possible after my mother died. I wanted a family trip with my high school aged children, perhaps our last big journey together for some time, perhaps ever.

England is the land of my ancestors, and I wanted to share that with them. They have touched British soil on two occasions. Neither of them remember very much. They were one and two, and three and four years old in 2006 and 2007.

Old Sarum, Wiltshire (1977/1997)

My first visit was in 1977, the summer of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Twenty-five years ago, in June 1997, my girlfriend and I visited. It was her first time off the Americas.

At that time I was in the middle of my tenure with Dobama’s Night Kitchen, and treated these vacations like archaeological excursions, digging for inspiration by seeing as many shows as possible. Unfortunately, our first choice was the notoriously awful Edward & Mrs. Simpson musical Always (see post) and I felt particularly bad about this because I had campaigned to see it.

We made for it the next night by checking out The Herbal Bed by Peter Whelan, an RSC production at the Duchess. Based on one historic document in which Shakespeare’s son-in-law Dr. John Hall sues a man for slandering his wife (stating publicly that Susanna Hall “had been naught with Rafe Smith”) it starts like some romantic fan-fiction until it suddenly becomes The Crucible.

Tue, June 3: “Everyone was sympathetic and you hated yourself for rooting for anyone … ethical matters are rarely ever cut and dry. They’d fuck it up in America, change the ending or something.”

Teresa Banham, Richard Hawley
"The Herbal Bed"
(Duchess Theatre, 1997)

At that time, having spent the better part of five years either managing Guerrilla Theater Company or Dobama’s Night Kitchen, I was a bit obsessed with the new theater company I just assumed I would inevitably found. Every road trip we took I would observe spaces and customs.

“Ice cream is served in theaters during the interval by vendors in the house. You can place a drink order before the show and have it waiting for you in the lobby.”

“My next theater project should be called The Other Theater Company”.

Our third night we got half-price tickets to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) performed by the present iteration of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Even then I understood that the star of the show were the topical references, and not the text itself. There was a line in the “comedies” section where they bust into the refrain of Wannabe by the Spice Girls.

Matthew: Meanwhile, the six brothers fall in love with six Italian sisters, three of whom are contentious, sharp-tongued little shrews, while the other three are submissive, airheaded bimbos.

All three sing in falsetto: "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want!"
Adam: (aside) I want to hit you in the face with a shovel, that’s what I want.

Clive Carter. Jan Hartley
"Always"
(Victoria Palace Theatre, 1997)

Everybody laugh. Comedians are horrid.

On our journey, I also picked up a number of books. Big books, little books. Perhaps most significantly visiting the bookstore at the National Theatre I purchased Hamlet: A User’s Guide by Michael Pennington. The RSC veteran breaks down the entire text by each evident action, and not some psychological interpretation, which I found refreshingly clear. Since that time I have ordered dozens of copies to provide for actor-teachers.

The book was also an invaluable tool when I would direct Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark two years later. Reading over my journal, my thoughts were roiling about my life as an artist.

Sun, June 8: “I worry my artistic future. Sometimes I wish I were younger, or that I was clever when I was younger – that I had accomplished more earlier, so I would be further along now.”

“Look at the Reduced Shakespeare Company. They started ten years ago in California, putting on a simple, goofy show … and they have touring companies, radio programs and an ongoing run in the West End … I want to start an ensemble, and have a theater, and teach classes …”

My anxiety was no doubt fueled by the fact that I was about to turn twenty-nine.

"Hamlet: A User's Guide"
by Michael Pennington

At the same time, I refer almost daily to my “Eliot Ness play” which I never did write. He played a role in These Are The Times, which also remains unfinished. I was inspired by the books on the so-called “Torso murders” I had read, and Paul Heimel’s biography. But also Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy of existential urban mysteries, and the current fascination with modern popular jazz ensembles like the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

I didn’t actually want to start my own theater company, ego made me think that I did. What I really wanted to do was to write plays. We rounded out our first week with a trip to Canterbury Cathedral, where I conceived of and jotted down a short play which I only recalled a couple of years ago, typed up and posted at New Play Exchange. It is titled Museum. You should read it.

To be continued.