Magnolia (film)

 

While I was recuperating from eye surgery, a friend offered to bring dinner and suggested we watch a “comfort movie” which was a wild concept because while I understand that other people have their comfort movies (our eldest, for example, relies upon Moana) I usually spend movie time finding something new, something I have never seen before.

This is not to say I don’t watch movies more than once, of course I do. I think I saw Ghostbusters in the theater around ten times. I have a DVD collection, not a large one, but it includes many discs I buy just in case – just in case I have the opportunity to share them with someone else. Not to sit and watch them on my own.

So, what title? What movie? I chose Paul Thomas Anderson’s L.A. epic Magnolia. Hadn’t watched that in maybe fifteen, twenty years. I first saw this movie in early January 2000, when it was in general release. I saw it with both of my brothers, which was a rare treat. But we’re all movie guys with opinions, and at one point in the film, I had a startling moment of self-awareness.

"This is something that happens."

The film has great momentum, after an extended narrated introduction on the nature of coincidence and the importance of storytelling, the plot whipsaws from one storyline to another, which are at first seemingly unrelated but are soon found to intertwine.

About half way through I thought, “Oh, no. I’m loving this, but we’re having dinner after – what if my brothers hate it?” Long story short, we were all impressed.

Sharing it with my friend, someone much younger than I, in 2022, was another revelation. I know what it’s about, it’s about fathers, the sins of the fathers, about toxic masculinity in general. That is the central theme, and one which resonated more deeply with me now that I am a father myself. I’m not sure what my young colleague thought. I find that many young people prefer not to engage with such issues, not as entertainment. Horror films, sure, but not dramas which depict ordinary men doing everyday, terrible things.

Moving forward a few years, I have also now shared Magnolia with our son. We watch movies together, he knows it’s important to me. And while he did enjoy the film, he wasn’t so sure about the song.

Yes! The song. About two-thirds of the way through this three hour movie, when every major plot thread has risen to a point of no return, and every character is at their most isolated (two of them are actually on the verge of death) the song “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann begins, and every character sings along. There is no explanation for this moment, it simply happens. The entire song plays, and everyone takes a lyric.



This comes right after hospice nurse Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman) administers a coma-inducing level of pain reliever to his charge Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a moment which hits differently once you have also made a like decision for one of your parents.

The song was always controversial. Janet Maslin, for example, writing for the New York Times, found it to be a horrible mistake. “It's astonishing to see a film begin this brilliantly only to torpedo itself in its final hour.” This is a widely held opinion, though I naturally disagree. For me, it is space to breathe, to sit with the characters for a moment before we charge into the rest of the narrative, which is about to go absolutely batshit.

Melora Walters in "Magnolia"

Also, I like singing. I like songs in movies, I like songs in plays. I once directed Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, in which the discarded and despondent Queen Katherine says, “My soul grows sad with troubles,” and urges her bard to: “Sing, and disperse 'em, if thou canst.” In this modern dress production, her assistants perform a karaoke version of “Somebody That I Used to Know.” There were some giggles from the crowd at first, which were dispelled when they realized, “Oh, my God … are they going to sing the entire thing?”

Of course we were. Why wouldn’t we?

My new play, The Right Room, is about four couples, in four different Midwestern hotel rooms, in four different years during the 20th century. The action plays concurrently, in the same room, each couple unaware of the others. Except when they break into song two-thirds of the way through. Did I steal this idea from Magnolia? Of course I did. I also stole it from Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. I steal from all sorts of places, because I am a genius.

What song, you might ask? The classic "If You Were a Train" by Buddy Langston. From Wikipedia:

Buddy Langston, a soulful saxophonist, rose to fame in 1930s Kansas City, blending blues and swing into electric late-night sets. A self-taught prodigy, his smoky solos enchanted crowds at the 12th Street Reno Club. Langston's bold improvisations influenced generations, securing his legacy as a cornerstone of early American jazz history.*

Why a song, you might ask? From my stage directions:

The song is an opportunity for choreography through which characters who do not otherwise speak to each due to the limitations of time and space to engage.

Will it work, you might ask? Well. Maybe this summer I will have the chance to find out.

Source:
"Entangled Lives on the Cusp of the Millennium" by Janet Maslin, The New York Times (12/17/1999)
Wikipedia: Buddy Langston

On Trigger Warnings

"Six"
(West End, 2021)

Recently, a theater critic lamented on Twitter the lack of “trigger warning” for the musical Six.

Trigger warning: a statement cautioning that content (as in a text, video, or class) may be disturbing or upsetting - Merriam Webster

I know little about Six, a British musical which recently opened on Broadway following an eighteen month postponement. What I do know is that it is a celebration of the wives of King Henry VIII, each of them modeled after a contemporary pop star. It is presentational, like one of those rock music competition television programs.

The suggestion that the show requires a warning of disturbing content led to a great deal of theater twitter tweeting, much of it centered on how dumb a person needs to be not to be aware that Anne Boelyn and Catherine Howard were beheaded, or that Henry was generally an abusive husband.

Two things. 1) Why should an American know that? The British Monarchy is not part of our curriculum. And 2) The show isn’t really sold that way. The advertising shows a diverse sextet of women with microphones. They’re not even wearing crowns.

Sure, I know who they represent, I do Shakespeare. I don’t look down upon those who do not.

I have thought a lot about trigger warnings, and I have decided they don’t trouble me, and they may help those who could use such advance warning. “This program makes light of spousal abuse and murder, please be advised.”

Dear Evan Hansen was part of our subscription package for the KeyBank Broadway series two years ago, and apparently it was a popular show with “the kids.” We took the family. My stomach bottomed out when one of the characters dies by suicide. I had no idea. My teenage children have exeperience with suicide, it’s not some abstract concept. It made for a difficult evening.

"Dear Evan Hansen"
(Broadway Tour, 2019)

I understand, life is full of challenging experiences, but like those going to see Six on Broadway, we expected a fun evening. Hell, we paid for one.

This school year, we have introduced a warning to the final scenes of Romeo and Juliet our actor-teachers perform in the classroom. Surely, you ask, they know Romeo and Juliet take their own lives. No, maybe they don’t. Some schools bring us in before they have finished the text. And many students know someone who has died by suicide, and watching that act performed with the degree of realism our actors bring to the performance may be troubling, whether they know the ending of the play or not.

So yeah, I fail to see how a content warning in any way mars one’s enjoyment of a performance. That is unless you are the kind of person who thinks they are stupid in which case I might ask, why so sensitive?

The Mirror and the Light (book)

Pengo’s 2020 Summer Book Club

Alexander, rumors only grow.
And we both know what we know.

On this date, four hundred and eighty years ago, July 28, 1540, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Order of the Garter, Viceregent and Lord Privy Seal, was beheaded at the Tower of London by order of King Henry VIII for crimes of treason and heresy.

Spoiler alert.

Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of novels on the life of Thomas Cromwell each conclude with a decapitation. Wolf Hall (2009) with that of Thomas More, Bring Up the Bodies (2012) with Anne Boleyn, and with the subject himself in The Mirror and the Light, which was released March 5 of this year.

My wife gifted me with the hardcover just as we all went into quarantine. It took four months to read half of it, and the past week to read the rest. I thought several times of putting it aside, but I have developed an attachment to the character of Cromwell, not only as Mantel has painted him but also in the performance by Mark Rylance in the six-part BBC adaptation of the first two novels.

Thomas Cromwell
(Hans Holbein, 1532-33)

Novelists who set a specific number of books to complete an epic story often find themselves trying to cram too much into the last one (Deathly Hallows comes to mind -- Half-Blood Prince, too, for that matter, maybe I'm just thinking of Harry Potter) and Mirror is the longest of this set, but for most of the first half I felt we were spending far too much time on tangential relationships and all the weird dishes that English men of wealth used to have for dinner.

Also, I have poor reading habits. I can take in maybe a page or two before bed and then I am spent. Summer vacation affords me the opportunity to sit and read, for hours. This past week I avoided work, both in my employment and my art. I set it aside. I vacationed. I went fishing with my son and I read this book. Once I could spend all of my time living in it, it came alive for me.

And it hurt. I knew how it was going to end, but I avoided delving into history to learn how or why beforehand. I even entertained the idea that he outlived the king and was put to death in the chaotic years that followed, but I was pretty sure there was no way that was how it actually happened. Henry VIII used people up, again and again, and it was Cromwell’s complicity in these acts which made it all but certain that he would eventually no longer be seen as useful to this monstrous monarch.

Rylance as Cromwell
(Wolf Hall, 2015)

It makes sense that the primary reason for Cromwell’s fall from grace was that, having successfully played the role of pimp for a monarch who was increasingly desperate for a male heir, he contracted a fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, whom history has regarded as the king did himself: fugly.

To the author’s credit, however, she creates an alternative scenario inspired by true events. The ever-playful Tudor decides to surprise his betrothed before their appointed first meeting. This was a habit of his, as illustrated in Shakespeare’s All Is True, putting on disguises to the delight of the ladies long past the age when such behavior was deemed appropriate.

In Mantel’s version of events, unprepared for the arrival, it was the German Anna whose first reaction to the middle-aged, somewhat lame and already overweight Henry was a reflection of his own physical state that no one had yet shown him.

The best way to read.

Again, I am put in mind of the BBC adaptation, in which Damian Lewis portrays a hot king Henry, and wonder, if they are to create three more episodes to bring the tale to its conclusion, whether or not they would use the Billions star and if it is even possible to make this actor unattractive.

Cromwell’s downfall as depicted is remarkable, he never loses his wit (nor Mantel hers, the author’s sense of humor is a particular delight) and his death handled in a manner in keeping with my own recent philosophical imaginings on the subject. It broke my heart.

What should I read next?

Play a Day: Craigslisted

Sharai Bohannon

For Wednesday I read Craigslisted by Sharai Bohannon and available at New Play Exchange.

There is an entire world out there with which I am entirely unfamiliar, and it's on Craig's List. A couple years ago a post was brought to my attention, a "missed connections" listing that referenced an outdoor Shakespeare performance downtown. Some guy was trying to hook up with someone he met while seeing my production of Henry VIII.

Gave u a free shirt at Shakespeare play - m4w (Tremont)

This morning's play script is about a young women who is trying to make her way through college by answering personal ads from Craig's List. It's charming, whimsical, with a touch of menace, peopled with hilarious and engaging characters and playful situations.

It's also a subversive feminist commentary on poverty, empowerment, and agency. I would love to be a fly on the wall for post-show conversations on this one. We live in an era where those who perform sex work and demanding freedom and dignity, but we also need to look at the economic conditions which compel those who otherwise wouldn't to pursue this career.

Who should I read tomorrow?

Troilus & Cressida (costume design)

The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival has to perform in a wide variety of spaces, from plain, grass fields to brick plazas, with audiences seated all on the same level as the company, or looking up at a stage. There are two large tents, situated stage left and right, that act as a backstage area for the performers.

It is because of these variances and limitations that I prefer to have absolutely no set. I will be honest, whenever I have seen CSF use a set, I have found it an unpleasing distraction from whatever the unique backdrop of wherever the show is being presented, whether that be a college building, a bandshell or chain link fence.

For Henry VIII we used one piece of furniture; a blue, plastic waiting room chair, for exactly one scene.

Timon of Athens did have a marvelous set piece, a large refreshment tray, covered with snacks and drinks and festooned with a large fraternity logo. It remained onstage for half the show, when Timon was in town and throwing parties, and wheeled off for the second half when he had abandoned civilization for the woods.

Henry VIII
(Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, 2012)

Instead, I always want to costumes to be the set. The costumes are vitally important to instantly communicate character, and to transport the audience to a specific time or place.

The costume designer for Troilus & Cressida, Jenniver Sparano, has heard this before. She joked with that “no ever ever says they don’t want costumes, that they want the set to tell the whole story.” So be it! When I heard Jenniver was going to be working on this production, I was so delighted. I am happy to have been dressed by her in the past, she’s an outstanding designer with great attention to detail.

Of course, I have been very happy with each of the costume designers I have worked with through CSF. I appreciate how challenging it can be to create or procure costumes for a large company on a modest budget. For Henry VIII I asked designer Heather Brown for modern suits for men and women that communicated wealth and power, and that is exactly when she provided.

Brinden as Troilus

Meg Parish created a perfect year 1970 college campus look for the company of Timon of Athens, which was complimented by a team of actors willing to let their hair grow out for part of the summer.

Troilus & Cressida, a tale of the Trojan War, has been updated to take place ten years ago, during the waning months of a conflict which will be visually familiar to our audience. Jenniver has gone so far as to create stitched name tags for each of the Greek officers. The company looks outstanding, and they have been inspired by their costumes.

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

The Famous History of Troilus and Cressida

Diomedes & Cressida (Troilus at left, seething)

Every three years, by accident is not design. I am contracted by the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival to direct one of the Bard’s lesser-performed works. Six years ago that was Henry VIII. In 2015, Timon of Athens. This summer, we will present Troilus and Cressida.

It’s fun. “Oh,” the people say, “I’ve never seen that one!” That’s right. No one has. I mean, they have, there are those that have, but most have not.

We learned of a couple who saw a Shakespeare play on their honeymoon and have made it their mission to see a production of every one of his (to date) thirty-eight acknowledged plays. Three years ago, they traveled from Cincinnati to see my Timon. It was number thirty-four on their list!

The advantage of staging the pieces few know is that I can do whatever I want with them. People would howl if you left “To be or not to be” out of your production of Hamlet. No one would notice if I left out “What is aught, but as ‘tis valued?” though that is a good line, one of the major themes, and I feel not bad at all giving it to a different character to speak.

Troilus and Cressida is lesser tale of the Trojan War, named for the fiery, brief love affair between one of the sons of Priam (Troilus) and the daughter (Cressida) of a Trojan priest and traitor. When, on the urging of the traitor for his daughter to join him on the side of Greece, an exchange is arranged for her and a Trojan prisoner.

Hannah Woodside as Cresida
Brinden Harvey as Troilus
(Photo added 6/10/2018)

The text suggests that Cressida easily takes up with one of the Grecian soldiers, though you could easily imagine she is actually trying to align herself to one who would protect her in a perilous situation. Regardless, Troilus spies their exchanges and assumes the worst.

There are those who believe this play answers the question, “Did Shakespeare believe that Romeo and Juliet would have had a long, faithful life together, had they lived?” That answer is no.

However, that is not all Troilus and Cressida, the play, is about. It’s about all kinds of things, with a mythological weight thanks to a staff of characters including Agamemnon, King of Greeks, Helen, she whose face launched a thousand ships, Cassandra, the clairvoyant and unheeded, Nestor, the ancient and verbose, Priam, king of Troy, and Andromache, his daughter-in-law.

I have cut all of these characters from this production.

Rather, we will focus in large part on Troilus and Cressida themselves, who are not actually the primary focus of the full-length text, as well as the character of Achilles. War has bogged down. As Ulysses observes, this is due less to the Trojans strength, and more to the laziness, apathy and indulgence of the Greeks, as best reflected in the person of Achilles, who refuses to fight and spends hours in his tent with his lover, Patroclus.

Our production will reflect a modern superpower, one also accused of apathy and indulgence.

Rehearsals begin this weekend, the company largely composed of actors I have never worked with before, or even met before auditions. I am very excited to get started.

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

On Technology

“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)

Cellphone.

The X-Files revolutionized the procedural drama by introducing the use of cellphones, utilizing them as a necessary tool of communication. That two detectives could be in two different places but still be in touch, it changed the game.

“Mulder, it’s me,” was catchphrase, a device for pushing the boundaries of storytelling, and an touching suggestion of intimacy.

The existence of technology has always had an effect on the way we tell stories. Baz Luhrman’s film Romeo + Juliet (1996) with its contemporary Miami Beach as a stand-in for Verona is dated in a manner in which Franco Zeffirelli’s Renaissance-era Romeo and Juliet (1968) is not. A 15th century R&J just makes sense, presented as it was more or less intended. But watching a “modern” version is no longer modern without cellphones, the internet and all the rest.

I didn’t even have a smartphone yet when I directed Henry VIII six years ago, but I understood their ubiquity, and creating a contemporary governmental regime, I thought they should be present. So every character had a phone and we played with them throughout rehearsal to figure out how they could be incorporated. They were used for music, to take and share photos, and in one amazing circumstance dictated by Shakespeare's actual plot, to send the wrong email to the right guy.

Smartphone.

Today, it is far too easy to look up someone you knew so long ago, perhaps briefly, get their contact info and, you know, contact them. Of course, just because you can do this doesn’t mean you should, Depending how you knew them, and how briefly, perhaps you shouldn’t.

I actually wrote a play about doing just that. And, as you might expect, it's short. Screen Play is a ten-minute play, available for reading at New Play Exchange, and it will make you uncomfortable. A little learning is, indeed, a dangerous thing.

In the past, we just lost people. They went away, they were gone. And we didn’t think there was anything strange about it, because that’s the way things were. It might hurt, might make you wistful, might even make you sad, but that was life. That’s one reason people actually showed up to high school reunions, to see, meet, and speak with those with whom you’d shared so much when you were a younger person.

With the advent of social media, it hardly seems necessary. You don’t need to bring pictures of the kids, they’ve already watched your kids grow up on Facebook from their homes in Texas, Nepal, or Bay Village.

Yes, I know one person from my graduating class who lives in Texas, one in Nepal, and the rest still live in Bay Village.

Yearbook.

Back in the day, in order to find someone you needed to do some actual detective work. I recently read Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere, which takes place in the mid-late-90s. Old-fashioned legwork is a major element of the story; a character must make phone calls and travel real physical distances to find the information she seeks.

This is also the case in my new play The Way I Danced With You, which will be performed one weekend as part of the Blank Canvas Factory Series. It is a strange thing for a young man going through an emotional low-point to drive past an exit on the highway day after day and think, “All of my answers lie right over there.”

But that’s the thing, right? You have to take that exit.

Blank Canvas Theatre presents “The Way I Danced With You” at 78th Street Studios, March 22 - 24, 2018.

Timon of Athens: The Beginning

The Life of Timon of Athens

Three years ago I directed Henry VIII for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. While audience attendance for that production could not compare with that of its companion piece, As You Like It, the show had gotten positive reviews and was attracting healthy audiences to this modern dress, iPhone wielding production of a late-era Shakespeare play few had ever seen.

Following the conclusion of a performance at the Shaker Heights Colonnade, as satisfied patrons were making their donations and wandering away, I approached CSF artistic Director Tyson Rand and asked, "What am I doing next?"

He said, "Timon of Athens?"

This was, as I said, in 2012. I have checked in with Tyson annually to ask, "Now?" Finally, last year, he said that it was time. So I finally read it.

At a baseball game for my son last summer, I asked my friend and colleague Kelly E. what she knew about Timon and she said it was her favorite primarily due to the eye-popping number of insults. I found the text to be composed primarily of insults, and when not engaging in outright offense, is merely creating a pretext to be offended.

Coupled with CleveShakes other 2015 summer production, The Merchant of Venice, I have decided to call this season "Summer of Assholes."

Prior to auditions, a few weeks back, I observed that I would be directing a play no one has ever seen. A number of friends disagreed, stating they had seen many fine production of Timon of Athens. Well, not a number of friends, only two or three said that and they were all professional Shakespearean actors. But still.

National Theatre

A recent, acclaimed production starred Simon Russell Beale, the greatest British actor of my generation, little known in the States - he was the Baker's Father in the film version of Into the Woods, even there a major role reduced to 10 seconds of screen time. A brief consultation with the internet shows this was, like my Henry VIII, a modern dress production complete with very fine suits.

The story is simple. Lord Timon believes his wealth is without end and is lavish and spendthrift with all his friends, who are many. Finding himself at long last in debt, he learns too late his friends are false and won't help him. He abandons society to die in the wilderness.

A subplot involving a vindictive general comes to the fore as Athens realizes too late Timon was the only man who could have prevented the general from invading their city. End of play.

Timon is meant to be a lord, one of some age and history at the outset. For the production I will direct he will be young, a man from a monied background, in a position of influence based solely on his charm and trust fund. He will be a fraternity president at a state university in a city called Athens.

Rehearsals for The Life of Timon of Athens begin in one week.

On Direction

We close, we do not end.

Our final two performance of The Great Globe Itself were not public performances, they were held at Elyria High School and Firestone High in Akron. Each crowd was very enjoyable for our men to perform for and the post-show discussions were some of the best we'd had the entire tour.

The discussions themselves are always a challenge for these tours, at least at the beginning. We have a list of potential questions, but we never know how an audience will respond. Some public audiences don't want to be asked questions following the performance, and as moderator I have to take care not to be too pedantic. I mean, I have to be a little pedantic. I am a pedant.

Me and Ted.

Several weeks ago - feels like months - my high school drama coach, Ted Siller, attended a performance in Oberlin. That was a complete surprise, and a happy one. He did this once before, when I was performing I Hate This at Dobama Theatre in advance of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. That was in 2003. 

Ted turns me into Death.

It's hard to reacquaint yourself with the mentors of your youth, you start sounding like a teenager. Regardless, he had very supportive comments following the show, this show I have directed, and it got me thinking of my journey as a director and what I have and have not learned.

My first production was in Kindergarten. Seriously, I told my teacher I wanted to do a play and she asked me what I wanted to do and what I described to her was Stan Freberg's Little Blue Riding Hood. The rest of the afternoon was spent casting the play and my providing lines for everyone and ... I'm not making this up, this really happened.

But my first real attempt at directing was part of an evening of one acts my sophomore year. Sobczak and I performed Woody Allen's Death Knocks. I didn't think much about it during our "process" which at this point consisted mostly of memorization and not much blocking. The day of the first performance, when people had made "wallies" for us for people to sign in the main hall, and everyone was talking up the event, I was struck by a sudden, urgent philosophical quandary:

Who said I was allowed to do this?

It was the first of many times I would be struck by my own completely blind arrogance. For I was not merely director in this case, I was also kind of the producer - I made this happen. You act in a play, and it blows, you can blame everyone, the director, the playwright, the other actors. You direct it, you own it, baby.

At school, there were as many opportunities to direct as act or do anything else. I took a course in Directing 101 (I am sure it was not called that) which was remarkable only in that it further emphasized my ability at that time to do as little serious work as humanly possible. The course was further complicated by the fact that the grad student conducting the course was also herself directing me in her thesis production and I was falling short there as well.

Later that same year I directed my own script, Breaking Point, based on the daily comic strip I had published in the college paper. As a result of that experience - directing my own play - I have entirely avoided directing my own work for over twenty-five years.

It is easy for me to judge myself harshly (and it's on video so I can confirm this) it is neither a very good script nor particularly inspired directing. At that point in the game I would have been much more richly served by doing one or the other. There was little opportunity to edit, though I am glad I took time to rewrite the entire ending, due to the kind, persuasive advice of my stage manager. If I could have sat back and watched, I would have rewritten quite a bit more.

It was several years before I would write another full-length script to be produced - The Vampyres - and at that time I took great delight in editing. Delight is the wrong word, what I mean is it was like having someone reach down my throat and yank at my stomach, but having been told, "This opening monologue doesn't work, rewrite it" at least I was able to concentrate on doing that and it was better. Even better when the piece was a remounted several years later, I cut the monologues altogether and that was much better.


The first time directing Shakespeare was a precarious moment in Guerrilla Theater Co. history and I had to do some convincing and spent a lot of cigarette time bringing people into my camp, into believing that a production of Romeo and Juliet was something I really should do. Once it was agreed upon, I was struck by a sudden, urgent philosophical quandary:

Who said I was allowed to do this?

There was no reason to believe I could DIRECT SHAKESPEARE, it was pure arrogance on my part which is really the only way to attempt anything. Jumping off the high dive is arrogance, submersion is antithetical to being a mammal, who do you think you are?

This production marked my directing phase, as I moved from Guerrilla to Night Kitchen to Bad Epitaph, in ten years time I directed around a dozen productions, without guidance, without mentorship, no one said I was allowed to do this. Some of it worked, some didn't, who cares. My attentions moved to arts education and writing. I found it much more satisfying and a lot less stressful.


I think what I could never enjoy was thinking of directing as a gig. Since 2004 my directing jobs have been by choice, and not assignment. Directing Henry VIII for CleveShakes in 2012 was a gas because there were no expectations, none at all.

This is the thing - I have had to make up everything as I go along. I have learned from directors I have worked with as an actor, but not as an assistant to a director, nor as a stage manager. When the time came to edit Romeo and Juliet, I started with the cutting from a production I had performed in in college - adding bits back I missed and removing others that did not interest me.

When I directed Hamlet in 1999, I started by watching a video of Richard Burton's Broadway production from 1964, making cuts based upon that before then deciding upon my own. It felt like cheating each time, as though I were some Shakespeare fraud, that I didn't really know what I was doing.

What I was really afraid of was removing something someone else would think were important. That in my ignorance I would excise the most important piece from the show, and that it would be apparent to all.

By the time Henry VIII came along, I wasn't afraid any more. I just cut what did not interest me, that didn't tell the story the way I wanted to tell it, end stop.

... I'll come in again.

The Great Globe Itself was the first play I have directed for the outreach tour.  I found it an intense experience, working for three hours (with one short break) with three guys - two of whom I'd never worked with before - to tackle a dense but ridiculous script, telling a somewhat oblique story that spanned four centuries and played fast and loose with true history.

It's what I do.

My script, my direction. At least this time I was able to step back, at least somewhat, to perform some judicious cutting at the outset, once I heard it repeated a small number of times. There were even more cuts after we had opened, one or two lines which offended. With their absence, those complaints stopped. It is a process, and better to make adjustments than to say "it opened, it's out of my hands."

Living Together

Which brings me back to Mr. Siller. He was always extremely accommodating to those who wanted to produce special projects - like an improv show or an evening of one acts. My brother was super involved in Thespians, acting, participating in competition, even directing Alan Ayckbourn's Table Manners (one part of the Norman Conquests trilogy) his senior year, a full-length production between the fall comedy and the spring musical.

When I was a senior, I decided I wanted to attempt everything he had, if I could even going so far as to direct another play in Ayckbourn's trilogy, Living Together - because I do not have the capacity for original thought or ideas.

This wasn't for a grade or extra credit, it was for bragging rights more than anything else, but Siller did request I create a rehearsal journal, which, much like my journal for Directing 101 a few years later, was largely perfunctory. It was the basis for my application to Macalester where I pretty much said, I did this thing and therefore I am qualified. You will notice I do not have a degree from Macalester.

The Great Globe Itself

Learning to direct has by and large been a process of learning how to work with other people. To make plans in collaboration with others, but also to have big ideas and to be excited about bringing them to fruition. For me it has always been a matter of wanting to see something on stage and then doing everything I can to make that happen.

Working with Arthur, James and Rod on The Great Globe Itself was a unique experience, and I will miss the time we spent collaborating on this production. They were each of them focused on their performances, and I am incredibly grateful for the talent and intelligence they each brought to this new work, helping me make it into the production I wanted to see. Collaboration in effect.

Slumberland: Valerie gets a haircut.

 

Twice before have I had the great fortune to engage the charming and talented Valerie C. Kilmer. First, when I directed Henry VIII for Cleveland Shakes (Valerie is an accomplished speaker of verse) and this past winter in the workshop production of my play, These Are The Times at CPT.

Because Talespinner holds auditions at the end of the calendar year for its entire season (auditions for the 2014 season will be December 8 & 9) Valerie had already been cast as Little Nemo for Adventures In Slumberland when we worked together on The Times last March. Before accepting the role we asked if she were willing to cut her very long, red hair for the role and she agreed!

On Friday evening, I brought my daughter with me to rehearsal, and to take these photos. When I told her Valerie was having her hair cut right there at the theater, she thought that was odd until I explain Ali would be acting as barber, and then it made perfect sense. She knows Ali can sing, act, direct my plays, create costumes, masks and dolls, and really great hats. (Emphasis: My daughter's.)

Wow!

Annie Perusek (Princess Camille), Valerie C. Kilmer (Little Nemo) and Tim Pringpuangkeo (Flip).

I am forgetting something. Valerie and I worked together one other time -- with my daughter -- at CPT's Pandemonium in 2012, when I wrote and directed a five-minute version of Slumberland. Valerie played the Imp, and my girl was the Princess.

Wolf Hall (book)

I received a copy of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall for Christmas. This has been my summer reading, and I just finished it.

Here is my review: I am giddy over the fact that this is merely the first book of a trilogy.

Upon learning of this novelization of the life of Thomas Cromwell, which is to say, the reign of King Henry VIII told from the point of view of one of his councilors, it occurred to me a shame I had not read it prior to my directing Shakespeare's Henry VIII last summer. However, though the two cover the same ground in history -- which is to say, this first novel does, the next two will tell the story of that which came after -- they tell the story from such differing view points that it may have proved a distraction and in no way improved the choices I made in directing the play.

After all, Shakespeare's Wolsey is the antagonist. Mantel's Wolsey, from the point of view of her protagonist Cromwell, is a much-beloved father figure and mentor. And I worked very hard, and successfully, I believe, to limit the number of definable, named characters in Henry VIII, and as a result there was no one named Cromwell in my production at all, his lines greatly limited and put in the mouths of others.

Bryan Ritchey as Cardinal Campeius ... but also kind of Thomas Cromwell.

It comes as no surprise at all that this book has already been optioned by BBC/HBO as a miniseries. The main character is far too charismatic not to hold a high-profile production together, you could see everyone from Colin Forth to Paul Giamatti vying to play Cromwell, and attract enough stars to play virtually all of the supporting characters. Mantel's dialogue is irresistible, adaptation seems almost unnecessary.

Dad was pleased to hear I enjoyed it so much, he offered to get me Bring Up The Bodies for my 48th birthday, which was four days ago.

Henry VIII: The Final

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII

closed in Tremont on August 4.

Henry VIII: The Song

Queen Katharine. 

My soul grows sad with troubles;

Sing, and disperse 'em, if thou canst.

Now that the show has closed, I can write something about the song. I have already written about the pageantry inherent in The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII. The stage directions call for the dying Queen Katherine to have a vision of the future wives of King Henry. But they also have her calling for one of her ladies to sing to "disperse" her troubles.

Now, I could have cut that. But I did not wish to lose any opportunity to have something happen, something non-stand-and-talky. We have a party near the beginning, and the Vision closer to the end. A song would be very nice.

The woman sings the following lyrics:

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.  

Okay. Was I going to set that to contemporary music? No, I hate when people do that. I was trying to make this feel as contemporary as possible. So, a substitution. At first I tried to think of songs of heartbreak from my past, and briefly entertained the idea of using Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. But that seemed silly. What was I going to do, have a guy come out with a guitar and warble a verse, for a laugh, and move on? It didn't seem appropriate.

Then I remembered this song I had been listening to since last November -- yes, I am claiming to have heard it first, so kill me. I wrote this around Thanksgiving:

So. Tuesday. I'm making breakfast for children, packing lunches for everyone, listening to The Current. I am struck by a track that sings to me. Slightly retro, sounds like something I would have been big into during my younger days. There's a vocal refrain reminiscent of Sting. I immediately download the song from iTunes -- I never do that anymore.

I listen to it over and over again on the drive down Chester to work. I never do that anymore. A song about an ended relationship, frank, naked, blunt. Well-crafted song. Stirring production.

It's like that old saying; I do not miss you. I miss the person I was when I was with you.

Yes, I'm talking about Somebody That I Used to Know. What I did not know, because I do not listen to Top 40 stations, is that this had become a number one song everywhere in the world this summer.

Regardless, that was the song. In conversation with my friend Elaine, I was trying to figure out how the hell to stage it. I had already banished any kind of furniture, I wanted a clean, uncluttered look to everything. Did I really want the entire company to join the Queen onstage with guitars, drums, and a toy xylophone? I mean, what the hell?

Elaine asked if I meant what I said when I said every character carried an iPhone. Why not have one of them download a karaoke version?

Thanks, Elaine.

Boy Camp 2012

For three years running, the wife and girl have journeyed to the Land Project Feminist Girls' Camp in western PA to get their empowerment in. Two years ago, when the boy was only five, he was less than pleased with the idea that his sister got special mom-alone time. What was going to happen for an entire weekend without Mom in the house?

I swiftly replied, "Boy Camp."  What is Boy Camp, he asked. I said I was pretty sure it involved bowling.  He was no longer disappointed.

Really, Lassester? Really?

The first year was pretty simple, father-son bowling, burgers and beer (for Dad.) Last year we also walked up the movie theater to watch Cars 2, which is without question the worst thing Pixar has ever produced.

Last month at a bowling birthday party I was sharing the joys of Boy Camp with a fellow father and an invitation was extended to Dr. Dean and Mr. Boy to join us. This was a good move, as my boy has become more interested in racking up tickets-for-crap from the arcade than tossing the ball which he is now finally strong and tall enough to sling properly. Mr. Boy provided a third-way, which was to introduce the extremely welcome art of hip-hop dancing into the mix. As everyone knows, Party Rock Anthem was written for seven year-olds, and they each had the chance to get their groove on.

Can I also mention that during our second game, a had a turkey -- and then a double? Oh, I guess I did.

Boy Camp also means super-late bedtime. He was knocked-out cold by 10.30.

The next morning it was sleeping-in, pancakes and a long-awaited haircut. The boy asked for a buzzcut over three years ago, but his last was last fall he's become quite the moptop since. I have not forgotten how much I enjoy cutting his hair.

Cleveland, 1845

The summer baseball season came to a conclusion with 44-14 blowout (which cannot be independently confirmed) after which we drove to the Lantern Theater at Canal Corners Farm and Market to see Singin' On The Ohio by Eric Schmiedl.  The Lantern is a former dairy barn adjacent to the former Ohio & Erie Canal, and the show is an historical-fiction about an adventurous young woman (Andrea Belser) and a flinty Irish canal boat captain (Mr. Schmiedl) making their way down the canal to Portsmouth. It's fun to watch the eternally cheerful Eric S. play someone aloof and grumpy!

East Bank Images

Yesterday was also my very last chance to catch Henry VIII, this time at the Shaker Colonnade. The boy had already seen the show twice, so I promised him ice cream after if he remained a good audience member. There was some dude in the crowd who was recording the song on his iPhone. If anyone knows who that was, I'd really like to see it -- the song was the most powerful I'd heard it last night. I think having them so close to the audience really helped.

The Maple Bacon will slap your grandmother.

We rounded out the evening -- another late evening -- at Sweetie Fry. If I were a cupcake I would write an entire post on how this one corner ice cream store puts Cleveland on par with any major city in America!!!  (In spite of, you know, everything else.) The boy got Key Lime Pie, I got New York Cheesecake with blueberry compote, and we shared the chicken tender fries ... which I assumed would be chicken tender-seasoned fries or something, but no, it was a basket a fresh fries with three fried chicken strips on top. No complaints!

The boy observed, "This is the kind of food you eat when you are up past your bedtime."

Just evil.

The day before, as promised, we got a copy of Epic Mickey from Redbox. The boy tried it out during various downtimes yesterday, but gave up on it and went back to Pokemon. I uttered those fateful words, "Let me give it a try ..."

Thing is, I don't play video games anymore. They bore the hell out of me. Five minutes, tops, I'm done. Repetition, repetition, repetition, ugh. Since we got the wii my only interaction with it has been to watch Poirot on Netflix.

Before I had realized it, and with the boy's encouragement, I had plunged headlong into this game, completed three levels, two and a half hours had passed, I was sick to my stomach and had a splitting headache, which took the rest of the day to abate.

But seriously, once I had emerged from the world of Epic Mickey, I could not articulate a thought, I could not speak in a complete sentence, for at least a half-hour. I just made lunch, brainlessly, and ate it with my son saying, "huh?" and "what?" and "I'm sorry, would you repeat that?" over and over again.

Suck it down.

This hasn't happened to me since I spent every day of 1999 doing absolutely nothing but playing Duke Nukem. It is my personal belief that the emergence of ADHD in the 1980s, which afflicts a disproportionate number middle-class, white boys, in often the misdiagnosis of symptoms brought about by video games. Or maybe that's just with this middle-class, white boy.

The rest of the day was spent reading epic battles from The Dangerous Book for Boys, watching small children catch very large fish on YouTube, hacking low-hinging limbs from the tree by the sidewalk, and engaging in the manly art of hair dye.

Then the ladies returned, and we were very happy to see them.

The Director's Nightmare

Annie, Reg & Sarah.

(Erin Cameron, Scott Kern & Becky Carson)

The very first time I directed a show was senior year in high school, Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn. There were three performances on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in early 1986. Opening night I sat in the middle of the house. There was a point during the beginning of the second act where Norman (Steve Pack) was splayed out on the floor, intoxicated, and someone could not remember their line.

I do not know who it was, and even if I did I would not rat them out here. But for a long, awkward moment two or three actors stood over him, looking down, none of them saying anything. My heart was beating in my throat, and the next line was on my lips. I had never been in this experience before, and I did not know what to do. I could have blurted out the line myself, "prompting" them, but I thought that would suck terribly, if I did that. So I didn't. Someone jumped to the next cue, the scene continued. That horrible moment was over, and there was not another like it during the entire run.

It is odd to think that my company for Henry VIII last performed that show a week and a half ago, not to perform it again until this Saturday night in Mentor. The other night I had a dream that this next performance was actually in a theater (not outdoors) and probably my high school stage. Just as the Queen's Vision was to begin, one of the Cleve Shakes company members - not an actual company member, I have no idea who she was supposed to be - wearing a tank top, cut-offs and flip-flops ran out onto the stage with a styrofoam cafeteria tray.

It was a segmented cafeteria tray, but not an ordinary cafeteria tray, this one was about the width of a picnic table. It had on it a grilled sandwich, about the size of a small child, and some enormous kettle chips. This intruding stagehand began to roll the sandwich in the chips. Then she got on the tray and rolled around on the tray herself.

I have no idea what the symbolism is here, all I can tell you is that she was ruining my show.

As You Like It: Opening Weekend

PHEEEEE-BEEEEEE!!!

Friday night, opening night of Henry VIII, marked the first moment since the beginning of 2012 that I have been without a production. From Styles to Autumn to Henry VIII I have been in-process; revising, acting, memorizing, editing, directing, always thinking, obsessing. Fortunately, absolutely none of it was onerous. Three just fabulous productions for me, each in their own way. I could not have known this at New Year's, but I did hope, and I am satisfied.

Having nights free doesn't mean actually having them free, it means working with the wife in negotiating everything she has been doing almost entirely on her own. Right now that means swimming lessons, music lessons, baseball and whatever else populates the world of our children.

During baseball practice last night I abandoned my charge and headed over to Notre Dame College to see how tech week for As You Like It is proceeding. It was like the bizarro world, most (all but two) of my cast is in AYLI. The costumes are as good as those for Henry -- we have the same designer -- but a very different setting. The show opens tomorrow at 7 PM, and I am really looking forward to seeing it. Word is it clocks in at around an hour forty, which is amazing, I've never seen As You Like It performed with such speed.

Next to Hamlet, I believe I have seen As You Like It more than any other Shakespeare play. That is not because of any affection for the play on my part, just because it is performed so damn often. At Central Park with Elizabeth McGovern (1992), Stan Hywet (1993), Great Lakes Theater (1996), Cleveland Public Theatre (1998), Great Lakes Theater (2005) and also the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival ten years ago in 2002.

At that time, I was emerging from a year of mourning, and looking forward to "coming out" as an actor again. I hadn't performed in a play since Bad Epitaph's Cloud 9, two years earlier. I thought I would make an excellent Jacques. However, the guest director packed his cast with his students from the CWRU grad program. The role I wanted went to Rich Sommer.

Harry Crane:

Full of wise saws and modern instances,

And so he plays his part.

Ah well. Sorry you missed that. One thing that last CSF production has in common with this year's is Bobby Williams, reprising the role of Amiens, the balladeer, and you do not want to miss that. Director Dana Hart calls AYLI "Shakespeare's Musical" and it does have a great deal of songs, and there will also be dancing! I love good dancing in shows, non-dance shows, it just makes me smile.

I noted in an earlier post how Sarah was choreographing happy, festive dances for this show on the same evenings she was creating Katherine's vision for Henry. However, I did want to state for the record that I was careless and unintentionally allowed audiences -- and critics -- to think she also put together the breakdancing. Sarah did not choreograph the breakdancing. Bill, Steven and Brian made that shit up.

Earlier I mentioned Hamlet, and in discussions with others this week I was not the only one to compare the role of Rosalind to that of Hamlet. They each carry the show on their backs. They also must successfully traverse a wide range of emotions, and deliver pithy, witty, heartfelt monologues and soliloquys. They both lecture others. A lot. Rosalind and Hamlet are know-it-alls. Shakespeare makes us care about their fates, but it takes a rock star performer to carry that performance, and the entire show depends upon them.

"How tastes it? Is it bitter?"

Old Young Lady in "Henry VIII"

Fortunately, Dana has Valerie C. Kilmer, an outstanding young actress in that pivotal role. One of the things I have really enjoyed about this repertory process was how Dana and I negotiated and shared our casts, and as a result were able to offer actors who may not have been interested in schlepping scenery and putting up tents all summer in exchange for a lead role, a sizeable role in one show, and a supporting role in the other. Lucky me, I had the opportunity to offer the part of "Old Lady" to Valerie on the same day she was offered the part of Rosalind.

Now, get me drunk and ask me what I think of the character Touchstone.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival presents "As You Like It" beginning tomorrow evening at Notre Dame College at 7 PM.