This Band of Brothers

"What is this castle call'd?"
HENRY V, IV.vii

The transformation of Public Square has been remarkable. For four summers (the redesign officially opened in time for the 2016 Republican National Convention) folks have been playing in the fountain, dining in the shadow of the Terminal Tower, and attending performances -- and protests -- on the lawn. It’s a far cry from when the square was largely pavement and planters and nowhere to really hang out.

My friend Jeff (he who recently played The Fool in King Lear at Beck Center) and I once entertained the idea of staging free Shakespeare in Public Square. This was some fifteen or so years ago, when you would find very few establishments open in the vicinity of the Terminal Tower after four pm, any day of the week. The plan was to perform one act from some Shakespeare play every day at lunchtime. Five acts, five days. People would come back day after day to see what happens next!

People who put on plays by Shakespeare think like that.

Things downtown have changed, Public Square has changed, and I very much hoped my friends at the touring Cleveland Shakespeare Festival would add this site to their roster of performance sites. They wasted no time. Since 2017 they have produced free Shakespeare in spitting distance from the site of long-lost, 19th century Cleveland theaters such as the Lyceum and the Euclid Avenue Opera House.

Why yes, even my own production of Troilus and Cressida played there last summer, though I was out of town at the time.

Immediately following the closing, matinee performance of the aforementioned Lear (and after a farewell toast with the company; I must recount my experiences in this production soon) I hightailed it downtown to finally catch a CSF show on Public Square.

On Sunday, that performance was Henry V, in a production conceived by Kelly Elliott, the first such production of that play that CSF has attempted since their second season, twenty years ago in 1999.

Her choice to cast all women in this production is not only in keeping with adaptations in American and England and elsewhere, but a call to action to all young, male-identified performers everywhere.

In her director’s notes Kelly explains, “I did not set out thinking I was going to cast this production of Henry V with all women. But I did.” She goes on to describe a scenario I am all too familiar with; too many skilled and eager women at auditions, too few men, and those who deigned to offer their services all too confident of their inclusion in a play written for a large cast with only four named (and minor) female roles.

"Strip his sleeve and show his scars!"
HENRY V, IV, iii

So fuck it. She cast those who, apparent to me and the audience, were best suited to each role and to the ensemble. Of this there is no question. They’re great, starting with the bold, and might I say fierce, Shley Snider as young King Harry on down.

Let me mention a few things I loved about Kelly’s work on this production, her first directing for CSF, and if I am dissing all previous directors of their work that includes me, so, you know. Get over it.

PROJECTION. The show starts with the Chorus (Jenny Hoppes) beginning the performance from the back of the stage. The mics only pick up the actors onstage, she began bellowing “O, For a Muse of Fire” from the rear of the “house” and her voice carried through the crowd until she reached the front and did not need to try so hard -- though she and all other company members remembered throughout they were working al fresco and we were never at a loss for their text.

I recall a free a performance of Much Ado About Nothing in Fort Tryon Park in NYC that my wife and I saw way back in 2002, produced by Gorilla Rep. No mics. They just shouted for two hours. It was amazing. The sun went down (the show started at 8:00 PM) and the acting company used flashlights to keep each other lit. That shit was bargain basement but it was raw, it was big. They didn’t need no stinking sound system.

CSF has a sound system, but these girls were BIG, and by that I mean they filled that space.

REGARDING SOUND. The sound check alone, before the performance took some time. Kelly brought the tiring tents close, and used a curtain between them to create a close backdrop. The show was close, which hard to accomplish in an open space. And they made sure the sound system worked for the actors and the audience, that neither they nor we had to compromise.

That’s sound and also set, for those keeping track. Kelly created a tiny set, with instant entrances, the timing was excellent. I was in the middle of a wide open space and yet my focus was contained. And, as the old people like to bray, I could hear every word!

HUMOR. Jesus God. These women were funny. A playwright friend of mine made a jape recently on social media about how it’s not really Shakespeare without at least one crotch grab. We had one of those in Lear (sorry, Jeff) but they didn’t need one in Henry V. Instead, we were treated to a racy conversation from the French nobles about the merits of horse-riding which could only have been imagined by women.

It may be the best CSF production I have ever seen, and I directed Timon of Athens, which was legendary. You owe it to yourself to get out next week, and to see one of the final three performances. I recommend Tremont this Saturday because I would.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival presents "Henry V" directed by Kelly Elliott, at various locations through July 7, 2019.

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.

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.

Timon of Athens: Unsolicited Comments

Photo by Gabe Schaffer

This is the final weekend for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival production of The Life of Timon of Athens, which I directed. No critics chose to attend, no reviews have been published. So, for the sake of documentation, what follows is collection of unsolicited comments from satisfied audience members:

It was as though Shakespeare, himself, were present inspiring the actors to enthrall us with his genius. Luke Brett played Timon with overpowering wit and emotion. The cast and bonus songs by Gary Lee completed what was a wonderfully satisfying performance. What a great start to the summer's cultural season!
- Shiela F. (letter to the editor, Plain Dealer)

Congratulations to the cast of The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's Timon of Athens for a job well done. Under David Hansen's direction the production came across as a delightful morality play leavened with humor reminiscent of the Commedia dell' Arte.
- Donald W. (via Facebook)

Saw Timon in Lakewood Park with my family. Outstanding show! Funny for sure but packs a wallop by the end. Highly recommended.
- Fil F. (via Facebook)

Went to the Sunday evening performance of "Timon of Athens" at Halloran Park and had a marvelous time. The actors soldiered through some probably expected distractions, like the fire station right next door ... But the show was too good to be upstaged! Loved it! Well done, one and all!
- Robert W. (via Facebook)

 And this is my favorite, not a review but a story following the Shaker Hts. performance:

A fun story from tonight's show - we met a lovely couple who, since seeing a Shakespeare play on their honeymoon, have endeavored to see the entire canon together. This was #34 for them, and because "Timon" is such a hard play to find produced, they drove all the way from Cincinnati to see us! They were delighted with the production.
- Cleveland Shakespeare Festival (via Facebook)

UPDATE: Also, this:

Timon of Athens was just the jolt of gleeful misanthropy I needed to get through the weekend." - Arthur C. (via Facebook)

The Life of Timon of Athens concludes Sunday, June 28, 2015.

Timon of Athens: Brief Interview

Q: I've never heard of this play. What's it about?

A: "The Life of Timon of Athens" is a parable, a cautionary tale. A warning. A man of wealth and influence who learns too late that without his cash he has no friends. He abandons humanity to live in the woods. This story takes place against a backdrop of war in a foreign land.

Q: Why did you choose to direct this?

A: In choosing to direct this work, I was reminded of the Vietnam Era when men of privilege could avoid service, and saw Timon as a “big man on campus” whose personal tragedy stands in stark contrast to national events.

Q: What makes this production unique?

A: Timon is tragic but its also ridiculous, including a most vast array of insults packed into one Shakespearean drama. It’s a bitter piece of work, but it’s also hilarious.

Q: Tell me about the original songs used in the production.

A: For the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival production, we are very happy to feature area singer-songwriter Gary Lee as a significant player. There are a number of party scenes, and I wanted to include live music from the period - late 60s, early 70s. 

Meeting Gary was extremely fortunate, because he is a talented performer, and I discovered that not only does he have a deep catalog of original work with a Beatlesque sound, but many of them have themes of happiness and also betrayal and loneliness which reflect strongly on the play. 

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's production of The Life of Timon of Athens opens June 5.

Timon of Athens: Process

Timon.

For two weeks we have been rehearsing Timon of Athens in the Ensemble Theatre’s other tiny space in the Coventry Elementary building. Working through large cast productions, especially those of Shakespeare, I like to arrange the schedule so I am wasting as little of the actors’ time as possible.

Each scene (as set down by Shakespeare, or rather, his subsequent editors) are broken down into smaller scenes, defined by entrances and exits of characters. Timon may stay on stage for most of Act Four, but others come and go. Instead of working on an entire act, I can call someone who appears once, work on their part of the scene for 30 minutes and then let them go for the night. Some don’t get called at all on certain nights.

We keep track of all entrances and exits – the tour affords three, really, stage left, stage right and through the audience – and hopefully, one day, all the little scenes get presented in their proper order and it hopefully looks like you’ve got something. It’s not the most sophisticated process, but at the age of 46 I am confident in my abilities as an unsophisticated director.

We did that last night, assembling some 2/3s of the entire script and running it twice. This was an enjoyable revelation to me as I found the pacing to be much swifter than I had expected, and that the general mood reflects my own sense of humor. It would appear we are all, as they say, on the same page.

 Timon's Banquet (rehearsal)

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.