Hamlet & Me (Pre-Show Announcement)

Tom Cullinan, Brian Pedaci & me
Backstage at the Brick Alley Theatre

I was the youngest of three boys, my eldest brother is seven years older than I am, so I got a lot of shit. But my brothers weren't the kind of bullies who beat me up, in fact they never laid a hand on me. 

No, they were all poncy geeks and their friends were, too. The abuse that was heaped upon me was mental, literate snark. I would be mocked for existing, and god forbid I actually did or said anything stupid because I wouldn't only be ridiculed for the moment, there would be callbacks that went on for years.

As a result, I have always been extremely defensive about being made fun of, to the point of being no fun at all. I cannot take a joke, or at least I could not until I met my wife Toni who fills me with such confidence that I became a different person. This is true.

However, allow me to share a moment from my past when I was a complete noodge and ruined a great joke because of my insecurities. When we started Bad Epitaph Theater Company, I was determined that we present ourselves as professionally as possible. 

That included, for example, that the program include the UK model of company bios, where they are not third person narratives but a list of previous work. Some grumbled, but I wasn't about to provide the audience a dozen paragraphs that all begin the same way, "So-and-so is thrilled to be part of this production!"

I also insisted upon a pre-recorded pre-show announcement, which was not the convention at the time. I provided sound designer Walter Mantani with this text to be played right before the show begins:

Good evening.  Bad Epitaph Theater Company welcomes you to the Brick Alley Theatre. We hope you enjoy our performance, which will begin momentarily. First a few announcements. The production will last approximately three hours, with two, ten minute intermissions. Stage fog will be employed during the performance, and a firearm will be discharged onstage during the Second Act. Performers will be using the aisles for their entrances and exits. Please refrain from getting up or leaving the auditorium until an intermission. Out of courtesy for those around you, please refrain from having conversations during the performance, and if you have a cough or sore throat, you might like to take the time now to unwrap any throat lozenges or candy. Please take a moment and turn off any cellphones or pagers. Thank you for your attention, and enjoy the show.

Yes! We had content advisories in the twentieth century. Anyway, it was important information and Walter has such a beautiful, stentorian voice, I wanted it to be his, and not mine.

That recording was not played for the final dress for our first production, Hamlet, however. Instead, they played an alternate version. It was a joke, but I didn't think it was funny and was very direct with Marian, our stage manager, that it never be played again, that under no circumstances should it ever be played before any performance.

I mean, of course she wouldn't. It was a joke. For the company to enjoy. If it happened today, I would howl with laughter. At the time I took it all too seriously. Because I thought I was being made fun of.

So, anyway, here it is! I posted this on YouTube years ago, and people love it, it's gotten over eight thousand views which for me is a lot. Have a listen ... and enjoy the show!

Hamlet & Me (Part X)

Player Queen, Player King
Lee T. Wilson & Pandora Robertson
"Dumb Show" choreographed by David Shimotakahara
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999

Twelve years ago, Cleveland said good-bye to its last full-time theater critic. At that time, I expressed concern over the larger implications of that vacancy. Love critics or hate them, they write theater history.

Thomas Cullinan & Brian Pedaci

Upon the recent announcement that Peter Marks is stepping down from his position as critic for the Washington Post, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman expressed a similar lament.

“The historical record will also suffer. Losing this spot in my opinion matters more than losing a film or book critic because theater is ephemeral. My memories of shows I saw in DC as a kid have faded. The only thing that keeps them alive is the archive of reviews. Reviews mean that theater art lives forever and can keep getting discovered.” - Jason Zinoman on Facebook 12/18/2023

Looking over my journal for Hamlet, I was shocked at how much direct communication I had with members of the print media over that period; calling them on the phone, accosting them in public. It was 1999, and promoting your show exclusively online was not yet a thing. We had a website, yes, but we could only drive people to that through our print advertisements!

No mass theater email lists, no NEOPAL, no social media, none whatever.

Ours was a new theater company and we needed coverage, in print, on paper. Plain Dealer Theater Critic Marianne Evett wrote a preview piece, mentioned our fundraiser in her column, and reviewed the show.

I harangued the guy who wrote a weekly theater round-up for the weekly Free Times to include our events in his column, and was simmering with rage those weeks he said he didn’t have the space. Without coverage, we didn’t yet exist.

But they did cover our work, the critics did come to see our independently produced show. They all came on the same night, which was terrifying for me, what if the power went out? In that space it was entirely possible. But the lights stayed on, as did the heat (another concern) and we were reviewed by the Plain Dealer, the Free Times, and Scene Magazine.

Over the past ten days, I have described several productions of Hamlet. This is how the historical record describes ours.

Jay Kim, Jason Popis
Gary Jones Christine Castro

David Hansen – Cleveland's champion of twentysomething madcap intelligentsia; founder of the antic subversive Guerrilla Theatre (sic) and the edgy Night Kitchen – has happily sought new horizons with his Bad Epitaph Theater Company. [5]

Hansen, Thomas Cullinan and other BETC co-founders Alison (Garrigan), Brian Pedaci and Sarah Morton met at Dobama's Night Kitchen, where the quintet discovered compatible tastes and aims. As maturing, ambitious theater fanatics invariably do, they concluded, "It was time to take the next step." [3]

The group's creative esthetic will be expressed through an unslavish fidelity to texts and a reasonable respect for what's valuable in traditional performance practices. "People coming to us," (Hansen) cautions, "expecting some wild, shocking interpretation will be disappointed." [3]

The Bad Epitaph Theater Company will present their very first production, "The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," opening April 9 at the Brick Alley Theatre. [1]

Directed by Hansen, Hamlet features Thomas Cullinan as you know who, Alison (Garrigan) as Gertrude and Brian Pedaci as Claudius, supported by a 13-member ensemble. [1]

Alison Garrigan, Tom Cullinan

You’ve got to admire the guts of a new theater company giving birth to its baby with a whack at "Hamlet." [4]

A judicious cutting of the script (reduced by a sixth and shaped into three acts that average an hour each), primarily reliant on following the narrative’s progression with an emphatic clarity, occurring in stripped-down, unspecific, but modernized setting and dress. [4]

Featuring an eclectic and dynamic cast, more grounded in Stanislavsky and psychological realism than in plumy vowels and exalted emoting, Hansen's "Hamlet" emphasizes fast-paced storytelling over poetry and pathos, yielding a robust, energetic production. [5]

The production… is a good one, given clear and thoughtful direction by David Hansen. The publicity has labeled it “in-your-face,” but in fact, the interpretation is straightforward and not at all confrontational or experimental. And the production shows how potent the play can be on its own, with the simplest possible set and costumes. [6]

Using modern dress, ingenious economy, and performers who know how to captivate a wide variety of audiences, this interpretation reproduces in spirit the immediacy and vitality that the original cast production likely flaunted. [5]

Christine Castro

It’s a decided relief and pleasure to report that the Bad Epitaph Theater Company’s most respectable production of the hallowed classic not only justifies a touch of audacity, but, much more crucially, earns the genuine anticipation of the group’s next, hopefully less historically perilous, project. [4]

The guiding force here is clearly director Hansen, who demonstrates a well-defined and knowledgeable understanding of the play, apparent in the production’s major strength — its sharply etched, thoroughly lucid story line. [4]

Hansen propels his three and a half hours without a single traffic jam. [5]

We seem to be reviewing posters lately, so I must say that if (Thomas) Cullinan acts half as well as he looks as the all-in-black modern-dress Hamlet, well, he ought to be dynamite. [1]

Cullinan immerses himself in the complex role, pacing it well and letting you see the fluctuations in Hamlet’s moods. His terror at meeting with his father’s ghost (a strong performance by Hansen), his easy banter with Polonius or the spies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, his anguish in confronting his mother – all add up to a moving performance. [6]

Marie Andrusewicz

Cullinan is first of all the right thirtyish age — not too callow to have had the required depth of experience nor too old, which would upset the balances of various character relationships. The blond actor’s unmarked features additionally generate a still boyish, brooding self-interest — not to say self-indulgence — that perfectly suits this most unheroic hero. Intelligent, word-obsessed, the often petulant eternal student is caught in an endless analysis of his own inaction until he’s forced to erupt in a violent release. The appealing Cullinan has these aspects well in hand and delivers a secure and sustained characterization. [4]

This is a family drama, whose anguish builds throughout the evening. When Cullinan’s Hamlet dies, having finally brought about his vengeance on Claudius at the cost of so many other lives, you feel genuinely moved, touched, as you should be, by the waste of a promising young life. [6]

In a fearsome performance of finely carved detail that delineates a blighted soul, Brian Pedaci effectively evokes that vital something that is rotten in the state of Denmark. [5]  Pedaci is suitably conniving and slimy as Claudius, who has killed his brother, the old King Hamlet, married the queen and seized the throne. [6] Pedaci’s Claudius is commendable and particularly strong in his devious calculation. [4]

David Hansen

Alison (Garrigan) is also very good as Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude. Looking beautiful and rather lost, she rises to the emotion-filled confrontation with her son in which she learns of her new husband’s treachery. [6]

As Ophelia, Christine Castro is touchingly and authentically sweet. [4] When Ophelia flips her lid, she pistol-whips the entire court with her flowers. As her petulant big brother, Laertes, Jay Kim is boyish, brash, and impetuous. [5]

Some unconventional casting provides new insights into the play. Gary Jones is a stout, vigorous Polonius, a bustling middle-aged snoop rather than an old busybody. Marie Andrusewicz is quietly effective as Hamlet’s loyal friend Horatio; Pandora Robertson gives the Player’s speech histrionic force; and Dawn Youngs has exceptional presence as Rosencrantz, Hamlet’s treacherous schoolmate. [6] Allen Branstein's gravedigger combines the best bits of Samuel Beckett and Walter Brennan. [5]

The Brick Alley (Theatre) is exactly that – a former alley roofed over and made into a building with a long, narrow theater space. Hansen and set designer Gunter Schwegler have put stages on each side, one backed by the building’s brick wall and the other by black and gold hangings. A walkway runs between them, with the audience seated across both ends. [6]

Pandora Robertson,
Allen Branstein

The result might look unconventional, but its flexibility and intimacy adds to the emotional immediacy of the show. [6] Schwegler and Jennifer Linn Wilcox’s scenic and lighting designs nicely adapt to the Brick Alley’s unusual two-sided arena space. [4]

For the academically inclined, yes, the language survives … an ideal introduction for untested Shakespeare neophytes and, for those suffering from overexposure, a perfect way to rekindle an old flame with a sweet prince. [5]

Bad Epitaph, which takes its name from Hamlet’s words to Polonius about the company of actors who have just arrived at Elsinore (“After your death, you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live”), is clearly a company worth having around. [6] 

Three professionally written reviews for one storefront theater production in Cleveland. Those days will not come again.

To be continued.

[1] “Happier notes” by Larry Gorjup, Free Times, 4/1/1999
[2] Calendar Listing, Editor, Scene Magazine 4/9/1999
[3] “…and the melancholy Dane” by James Damico, Free Times, 4/7/1999
[4] “Heavy Decisions: Of Hamlet and The Old Settler” by James Damico, Free Times 4/14/1999
[5] “Quite the Mischievous Boy: In Bad Epitaph Theater's production of Shakespeare's hit, it's dog eat dog in Denmark” by Keith A. Joseph, 04/15/1999
[6] “Company’s debut delivers potent version of Hamlet” by Marianne Evett, Plain Dealer, 04/17/1999

Hamlet & Me (Part IX)

Newspaper prop graphic for "Hamlet"
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999
Design: Timothy Smith
Photo: Anthony Gray

Notes for first production meeting of “Hamlet”
Bad Epitaph Theater Company
November 11, 1998

The concept of this production, at its most basic, is to present it as what it is. A troupe of actors in a brick warehouse in Cleveland in 1999, putting on HAMLET.

We will not be commenting on the words, or bending them to fit meanings that aren't there.

However, we will be presenting the characters as though they are present in our world today, our audience will be treated to this spectacular story couched in images that are familiar. Kings in suits, guns for swords, local newspapers, beer, etc.

Most concepts are museum pieces, even at their most inspired. It is exciting to take audiences to strange, distant or ancient lands. But for this production, we want them to feel it is happening now, and not only now, but here.

With a contemporary American attitude, while maintaining the dignity of royalty, the fear of the supernatural, and all the sorrow and madness which never will be out of style.

As for Hamlet, I use myself as a guide. A man of thirty, with a past full of ideals and a future full of nothing. He talks about the past as a golden era (which it may not have been) and speaks of the future not at all. We stand on the brink of the Millennium (excuse me) and we don't know what's ahead but we sure know what's behind.

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part VIII)

"Hear the sentence of your movèd prince."
Courtney Brown, Xanthe Tabor, Rich Weiss,
Suzanne L. Miller, David Hansen (Mr. Hansen does not appear.)
"The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet"
Guerrilla Theater Company, 1994

By the time I turned thirty, I had performed in only two Shakespearean productions, three if you count a pre-recorded voice-over.

Junior year at Ohio University, I played Friar John in Romeo and Juliet, who has three lines. For the Guerrilla Theater production I directed, I played the prince, but my voice came from on high, as though from a public address system. This meant, of course, that I needed not be present for every performance.

I later learned this conceit was also employed by John Gielgud in the 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet, arriving as the Ghost in the form of a massive shadow in the shape of a helm.

A video recording of the Gielgud/Burton Hamlet was released in the mid-90s, and I spent the summer of 1998 watching that several times and taking notes.

Having decided to direct a Shakespeare, you need to decide what version of the play you wish to see and hear, and then cut the script to fit your conception.

Stealing edits from others provided my primary education. The cuts from our college production of R&J were the basis for my production. We had taken a paperback and spent a rehearsal having the cuts dictated to us as each of us crossed out the lines in pencil, so I had them all, not just the cuts for my one scene but for the entire play.

"Mark me."
John Gielgud, Richard Burton
(Mr. Gielgud does not appear.)
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 1964

In the time before personal computers, this was really the only way to do it. Today I can make the edits on my laptop and provide the company with a show-ready document. But then they wouldn't have the physical script, to see what was eliminated as well as what was kept. That's fine if you don't want your actors requesting to have lines restored, but what if you do?

I had opinions about what additional material I wanted for my production of Hamlet, and what additional lines I wanted to cut, but using this Burton production as a guide gave me great confidence to have something to begin with.

And in the case of Hamlet, who better to steal from than Gielgud? He was his generation’s Dane, surviving audio recordings are a testament to the style, grandeur and pathos he lent to the role, for decades and in numerous productions. It’s a shame we only have a film version of Olivier’s Hamlet and not his.

I watched the 1964 video, making the same cuts as Gielgud made, and in this way learned about which versus a great person of Shakespeare believed were not as necessary as others. Then I cut just a little deeper. Cutting the text is the director’s first pass at directing their actors, before you even know who those actors may be. You can change the motives and intentions of a character by eliminating certain lines of thought and exposition, or what other characters have to say about them.

I was greatly influenced by Pennington’s book to strip away centuries of assumptions about the characters and established tropes of performance. The goal was to focus specifically on the words they say as written on the page, and not the ways they have been said by others in the several productions I had already seen.

Is the Queen correcting the King for getting the names of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wrong, or is she changing the order of address to lend their names equal weight as a form of flattery? Because that is what the King and Queen are trying to do at that moment, convince old friends to betray him. 

Does Hamlet know he and Ophelia are being listened to when he asks, “Where is your father?” or is that another way of inquiring, “Where is your keeper?” Because that is in keeping with everything else Hamlet is saying at that moment, you need looking after.

Alison Garrigan, Tom Cullinan
Promotional Photo for "Hamlet"
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999
Photo: Anthony Gray

There are motivations for these deliveries which are clear and obvious, and then there are those which try to think a step ahead of the playwright and detract from the matter at hand.

I did entertain the notion of having Hamlet echo one of the King’s lines from the first scene after the stabbing and the poisoning; “So much for him.” This I did not do, though I did have Tommy punch Brian in the face on the line, “Follow my mother.”

Like “Welcome to Earth.” If you know, you know.

By fall I had my cut. Hamlet might go quite swiftly in three acts, with two intermissions, like this:

• Act One: In which Hamlet goes from "I don't know what to do" (Too, too solid flesh) to "I know what to do!" (The play's the thing.)
• Act Two: In which Hamlet puts on a play, murders the wrong guy, gets exiled to England, and finds he hasn't accomplished anything. (How all occasions do inform against me.)
• Act Three: In which all occasions literally inform against Hamlet and he dies just as he has evolved into a person who might indeed have made a good ruler. 

The rest is silence.

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part VII)

Thomas W. Cullinan
Promotional photo for "Hamlet"
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999
Photo: Anthony Gray

Tom Cullinan and I met when he auditioned for a show at Dobama’s Night Kitchen. Having spent some time living in Chicago, he was returning home, so he told me, to look after his mother following the death of his father.

I sat in the house, he sat on a singular chair on the stage, wearing a long coat and, in my mind’s eye, smoking a cigarette. Was he? It is hard for me to imagine that he was not.

The audition in question was for a long-form improvisation inspired by MTV’s The Real World. As I had scant experience in improv, and that his resume said that he had, and in Chicago of all places, I was intimidated. But I have also always scorned men in dusters who smoke during auditions, and so we sized each other up and decided to become friends.

Besides, the fact that I was seated in the position of authority, evaluating him in a theater space he had practically grown up in, I had to respect his équanimité. He became an invaluable player in our late night adventure.

Over the next couple years we would grow close, but not too close. It was good to have a new partner in theater, someone I hadn’t gone to school with, someone with a broader experience than I had, an entirely different creative toolbox. Someone to push me out of my carefully guarded comfort zones.

I asked him to direct my first play, The Vampyres, about a goth coffee house. He suggested we visit New Orleans at New Year’s Eve. You know, as “research.” Goodness, I never would have dared.

Yes, we spent many evenings drinking and smoking, primarily at La Cave du Vin, and elsewhere. Tommy was the toastmaster, the speechmaker. I was always uncomfortable before crowds, he lived to be there. I asked him to be Best Man at our wedding.

Brian Pedaci, Tom Cullinan
Promotional photo for "Hamlet"
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999
Photo: Anthony Gray

However, it was he who made getting too close impossible. I would invite him out for a private evening, just the two of us, and he would bring along one or two. There was a crisis in my relationship with Toni and he simply did not let me talk to him about it. He spoke too quietly in bars. He was pretentious – and not in the same way I am pretentious.

He was complicated. We’re all complicated, but Tommy was really complicated.

My time as Public Relations Director at Dobama Theatre was coming to a close. I’d never worked anywhere for three whole years and I was anxious to move on. I loved my time there, but I was turning thirty and feeling constrained, I guess. I had no idea what was happening next, what I did know was that I had a burning desire to create an epic, independent production of Hamlet, and I knew who I needed to build the company around.

My man is Tom Cullinan. The reasons for him are plentiful. I love him. I can work with him. He is an experienced actor with just the right everyman quality to his personality, but also the right amount of class, charisma and charm. And guile. And romance. And because he’s not perfect.
- December 23, 1997

To be continued. 

Hamlet & Me (Part VI)

Twenty-six years ago today, I decided that I was going to (somehow) direct a production of Hamlet. The following are contemporary accounts from my late twenties, about two books that were major inspirations in the development of my thoughts.

August 4, 1996

Yesterday, Dad presented me with a recently written book called "Modern Hamlets." It's pretty cool. It is a succinct look at a dozen 20th century actors who have played Hamlet, and how they set about performing the soliloquies.

At first I thought this emphasis on the soliloquy was precious. Why so specific, what is the point? A few chapters in and I see how, by zooming in on the soliloquies in specific, and not each performance in general, we get a brief distillation of each actor's Hamlet.

Reading this, reading how the great acting men of this century tackled what some feel is theater's greatest role (if not play) makes me long for directing Shakespeare. "Romeo & Juliet" was difficult, "Hamlet" would be more so, but I would like to try.

January 26, 1997

I can tell you this; thanks to Kenneth Branagh, no one ever has to produce an uncut "Hamlet" ever again. He has done it, he has done it on film, and regardless of what records it broke in the Guinness Book of World Records (first uncut Hamlet on film, longest Shakespeare on film) he has proven without a doubt that producing unabridged it is unnecessary.

However, Branagh's film highlighted all of the stuff that is normally removed. For example, everyone removes Fortinbras and everything to do with Norway (see: the Mel Gibson 1990 film) which robs the story of its depth. Branagh even turned Polonius into a much more political, scheming man, instead of just a doddering old fool, which was infinitely more complex and interesting, and still just as funny.

However, the Broadway 1995 production (Ralph Fiennes) kept all of these elements while still paring down the text. It is hard work, cutting down Shakespeare the right way. But it is also rewarding.

June 24, 1997

"Hamlet: A User's Guide" by Michael Pennington. I got it in England and read it very fast; another amazingly helpful text on the subject of what is most probably going to be my next Shakespeare.

My next project should be called the "Bad Epitaph Theater Company." I can't remember at what point in my life I came up with that one, it's old, I know it is, I don't know who talked me out of it, but if I start with a production of "Hamlet" (and there hasn't been one in this city since 1991) that would be a good name.

Anyhow, Pennington has done this play a dozen times, in most of the leading male roles, even Fortinbras, and has quite a bit to say about the subject.

December 23, 1997

I have finally decided to direct "Hamlet." Pennington reminds us that no one decides to produce this play without having already decided who is playing the main character. I didn’t believe this to necessarily be true until now. I have chosen a Hamlet, and now am obsessed with producing it.

Sources:

"Modern Hamlets and Their Soliloquies" by Mary Z. Maher (Iowa, 1992)

"Hamlet: A User's Guide" by Michael Pennington (Limelight Editions, 1996)

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part V)

"It's me. Hi."
Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie
Hamlet, 1996

Look. I come to bury Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, not to praise it.

But how can you argue with success? It’s a brightly colored production with manically animated set pieces and swirling camerawork – Hamlet as an action film, which is fine! The character has long been described as a man who cannot decide, who is unable to “take action.” But he does! He’s always on the move! And Branagh makes him vital and exciting, not brooding and torpid.

I visit schools all over, have done so for years, and if there is a film version of Hamlet most shown in these schools, this is positively that one.

However, in the act of presenting the complete text, a four-hour endeavor, the entire undertaking feels rushed, under-rehearsed and not carefully considered.

Watching the film for the first time in a recently renovated Centrum Theatre on Coventry, I was impressed by the first soliloquy, “O, That this too, too solid flesh …” Not for the rendition itself (which is fine) but how long the take is. Branagh delivers the piece without a cut, and then the scene continues unbroken as Horatio, Barnardo and Marcellus enter to share the news of the ghost.

Long, uncut takes like this allow an actor to display the range of their stagecraft, and it’s like watching a good play, up close. Take for example Claudius (Derek Jacobi) seducing Laertes (Michael Maloney) into committing acts of treachery. It’s a great scene from the play, and one usually cut to the bare facts.

Unfortunately, as the film goes on these long takes feel like a method to rush the filming along. For the “rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy, which should be one of the high-points of any production, Branagh thrashes about with his limbs, frantically gawping as he trashes a map room. It may be emotionally appropriate, but the director in me wanted him to try it again. I was led to believe the whole production was so big he decided that there wasn’t time to get it right.

Other crimes, in no particular order:

• Scary, scary Brian Blessed
• Sexy Dane sex
• Rapier javelin
• Smushed Ophelia face
• Christ pose exit
• Jack Lemmon

And perhaps most egregious, the speech “How all occasions do inform against me” is depressing, not rousing. It is not “St. Crispin’s Day.”

As my father once told me, “If you aim at a king, you must kill him.” That summer I had already started to fantasize about staging some future production of Hamlet, and I would take my time in conceiving it.

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part IV)

Brian Blessed & Kenneth Branagh
Henry V, 1989

At the age of 26, Orson Welles directed and starred in what is generally regarded as the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. That was in 1941.

At the age of 26, Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in what is generally regarded as the best adaptation of Shakespeare to film, Henry V. That was in 1989.

Side note: At the age of 26, I directed my first Shakespeare, Guerrilla Theater Company’s production of "Romeo & Juliet" and lots of people liked it. That was in 1994.

An independent film, and therefore not widely distributed, I believe I first saw Branagh’s Henry V in early 1990, and we all lost our shit.

Recently acolytes to the genius of Shakespeare we, the magnificence and success of this movie heralded nothing less than a renaissance of Shakespeare on film, which indeed came to pass. Whether or not you choose to credit Branagh with this achievement, 1990s cinema (and beyond) was fairly awash with Shakespeare, including Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990), Oliver Parker’s Othello (1995), Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), Twelfth Night (1996), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) and Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet (2000) as well as adaptations like 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), O (2001) and She’s the Man (2006).

Branagh’s next cinematic Shakespearean outing solidified his reputation among Gen X aged theater nerds. Much Ado About Nothing is a bright and goofy take on what has become one of my very favorite of the Bard’s scripts, and this time Branagh expanded upon his acclaim by casting a number of high-profile American actors including Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves and Michael Keaton.

This is one of the truly impressive things about Branagh; great actors and movie stars want to work with him, a trend which continues to this day as his Poirot adaptations pop with familiar names and faces.

Even before Henry V, Branagh had staked his reputation with his Renaissance Theatre Company. Like Welles before him and his Mercury Theatre, the work began onstage. Branagh directed and starred in stage versions of Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, As You Like It and others as well as classic works by other playwrights. He also produced radio adaptations for R&J, King Lear and Hamlet, all of which I acquired and listened to on cassette.

I could go off on how his audio adaptation of Romeo and Juliet inspired me to direct a production myself, or how I read that John Gielgud was unhappy with how Branagh insisted on recording King Lear (Gielgud played the lead) with scant rehearsal. This last detail will be relevant later.

Michael Maloney (center) & ensemble
In the Bleak Midwinter (1995)

For his third Shakespearean outing onscreen, I had hoped Branagh would choose, well, absolutely any title but Hamlet. Much Ado, for all the adoration heaped upon it, is not great. There is a lot of mugging and eye-rolling meant to indicate to an American audience which lines are meant to be funny, and before that he had directed the modern noir mystery Dead Again (1991) which is unintentionally hilarious. I didn’t think he was yet a good enough director to summit the Dane.

When it was announced that Branagh’s Hamlet would feature the complete text, entirely unabridged, it was clear he was pointing to the bleachers. It was clear he wouldn’t be merely directing a Hamlet, he wanted to make the Hamlet. I was very worried.

In 1995, Branagh wrote and directed In the Bleak Midwinter (US title: A Midwinter’s Tale) a brief, black and white comedy about the company of “am-dram” performers putting on a holiday production of Hamlet. It’s a silly and delightful piece of work, full of inside baseball for thespians, and Branagh doesn’t even appear. His surrogate is the film is Michael Maloney, who opens the film with the monologue about the anxiety of acting as a profession, a performance which is all the more enjoyable when you realize Maloney is doing a spot-on impersonation of Kenneth Branagh.

Midwinter is a celebration of the act of creation, a love-letter to theater artists everywhere, and in its way, I felt the film was an apology for the grotesque and unhappy excesses of his Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994). Maybe Branagh's Hamlet would be good after all.

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part III)

I have this poster.

December 1990, the school of theater had arranged a tour of London and Stratford. We got to see Royal Shakespeare performances of King Lear, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, and Chekhov’s The Seagull.

I was still pretty jet-lagged when we rolled into the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for Lear, and literally pinched myself through the show to stay awake. The most compelling reformer was He Who Played Edmund (that’s a hint, by the way). In the first scene, Edmund says little, but gracefully endures the verbal bullets cast his way by other for his “illegitimate” birth.

When all have gone, this Edmund took his position, center stage, one foot forward, and delivered the most cutting and hilarious rendition of the “Bastard” speech I have ever heard, feet planted, hands at his sides, he just said it. His voice, his face, and the text doing all the work.

This was Ralph Fiennes, twenty-eight years old, and three years from Schindler’s List and international acclaim.

The next day he was Berowne in Love’s Labour’s. For the “Love’s Whip” speech he did the same thing as with Edmund's soliloquy, he just said it, standing there. And I thought, "Oh, this is his bit. He does this.” For some reason, that left the twenty-two year me unimpressed.

Then came Schindler’s List, and Quiz Show, and then he performed Hamlet at the Belasco Theater on Broadway in 1995, where it was quite the palpable hit. And we went to see it!

Once more, I was seated in the very back row of a theater to see a live production of Hamlet. After being subjected to his uncle’s condescension and his mother’s entreaties, the Prince is left alone on stage, and recites “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt …”

Fiennes stood, one foot forward, hands at his side, and just said it.

I leaned over to my girlfriend and whispered knowingly, “He does this."

Ralph Fiennes as Hamlet
Belasco Theatre, 1995
Photo: Mark Thompson

Of course, he did so much more, too. Hamlet has several soliloquies and monologues, each of which move the plot forward and track the progression of his psyche throughout the play. “Too, too solid flesh” is the rock bottom; if he does have a suicide soliloquy it is this, and not “To be or not to be.” That first speech mentions “self-slaughter” as a viable (if damnable) option. If anything, “To be …” is an argument against entropy.

Regardless, Fiennes stood, for that one moment, and was on the move for the rest of the show. I recall in particular his delivering Hamlet’s advice to the players as he worked with them to set up chairs for the performance. Kinetic, engaged – a participant.

I stood, too, during the curtain call. I even hollered “Bravo!” which is slightly embarrassing to recall. Was it that good? I think he was, he was certainly the best Hamlet I had seen to that date, which included GLT’s 1989 production, Zeffirelli's 1990 film, and another local production in 1991, the inaugural offering from the Cleveland Theater Company, an entirely unabridged production directed by Tom Fulton and featuring every Equity actor in town.

Ralph Fiennes won a Tony Award for Best Actor for playing Hamlet in 1995. The next year would provide us a high-profile, star-studded film adaptation about which I have so many thoughts.

To be continued.

Hamlet & Me (Part II)

Promotional Mailing
Great Lakes Theater Festival, 1989

My third year at Ohio University was Our Shakespeare Year. We hadn’t touched the Bard my previous two years, at all. But the school was producing Romeo & Juliet that spring, so it was necessary to bring us all up to speed. We rehearsed soliloquies for performance, the school purchased a complete set of John Barton’s “Playing Shakespeare” series on VHS.

Side note on the “Playing Shakespeare” tapes. They were expensive and Mother Martha V., our beloved school secretary, kept a close eye on them. They were for classroom use only, they were not to be borrowed, but they could be stolen which we promptly did, dubbing them off and then returning them. Eventually one went missing (not our fault, I swear) and I have ever after lived in fear.

Also that spring, a certain classical theater company* based in Cleveland was producing Hamlet. Directed by Gerald Freedman, the style was very modern, it was promoted as an “angry young man” version of Hamlet. A number of us drove up from Athens to catch a Saturday matinee, but a water main break in the Ohio Theatre meant the performance was canceled, so my friends and I went to see the just-opened-that-weekend Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that afternoon.

We did get seats for that evening’s performance, which were way up in the vert last row of the thousand seat house. This would be the very first time I would see a live performance of Hamlet. I hated it.

No doubt I had a chip on my shoulder. I was twenty years old. I had spent an entire semester devoted to the works of Shakespeare. I had memorized an entire soliloquy (two, actually) from the great Dane. I knew a thing or two about Hamlet, and about being an angry young man.

Looking back, I am sure I would have enjoyed this production, if it hadn’t been my first. At the time, I found its touches of modernity far too clever. Claudius had a nasal twang meant to evoke that of sitting President George H.W. Bush (folks hate politics in their Shakespeare), the mad Ophelia went topless, and then there was the man himself whose main objective was, as I recall, to be angry.

One of my mentors gave me a very good piece of advice, to wit; Anger is boring. My own rendition of “O, that this too solid flesh,” was peevish, this Hamlet was literally shaking with rage.

At one point he walks on stage, fires up a spliff, takes a mean drag, and begins, “To be …” It brought the house down. I thought, at the time, that that was entirely inappropriate, turning the most famous speech in the English language into a pot-fueled rant.

Hamlet and the Ghost
(Anthony Powell & Peter Aylward)
Great Lakes Theater Festival, 1989
Photo: Roger Mastroianni

I have different opinions today, about cannabis and more importantly, about that speech, which I still haven’t figured out. Opinions differed among audiences, too. Letters to the company in response to the production ranged from the outraged to praise like the following:

“Your exciting, riveting production of Hamlet is just about the most creative and wonderful production I have seen in years. The attention and shock which you elicited from the audience was palpable. No one moved, no one coughed, no one spoke throughout the performance.

No wonder. This modern interpretation of the classic was … so meaningful. Freedman did more than change the costumes and setting; he interpreted Hamlet in light of modern times for a contemporary audience.

Yours is the kind of production that young people must see. Then they will understand that Shakespeare was meant to be seen and heard – not read” - Norman W., Cleveland

I agree with all of that. They received some negative letters, too, though most I read were of the “why do you have to mess with Shakespeare?” variety, criticism lobbed at all modern adaptations of Shakespeare for more than a century, and a point of view I find tiresome. The director himself put it very well, in his Director's Note:

"There is no perfect' Hamlet, or a Hamlet for all seasons and all people. One of the difficulties in producing the play is that each person sees Hamlet in himself or herself. Critics have for centuries encrusted the role with ideas and theories that have biased readers to various interpretations. The theater is the place to experience him."  - Gerald Freedman

And at least I finally saw it. The entire play, beginning to end, performed by a professional company. Only ten years later I would attempt to direct it myself, and my intention would also be to create an exciting, riveting -- and modern -- production of Hamlet.

To be continued.

Source: GLTF Spotlight, August 1989, Vol. 4, No. 3

*Full disclosure, my employer is Great Lakes Theater.

Hamlet & Me (Part I)

"Heaven and earth, must I remember?"
Spring 1989

Junior year at Ohio University, I was preparing a soliloquy from Hamlet, the one that begins “O, that that this too, too solid flesh …” The day I presented it in workshop for our voice and movement teachers, I was asked why I had chosen this particular piece.

I could have been honest and said, “I don’t know.” I could have said it was the first monologue in the first script I picked up yesterday. I can’t remember what I actually said, but I am sure I tried to bullshit my way through. I was worried I might be asked to choose a different piece, and I’d already worked on this one for over an hour and I did not want to start again.

But they wanted to know, what interested me about the character? Why Hamlet? And the more they asked, the more embarrassed and defensive I became because the fact was, I knew nothing about Hamlet.

I was fortunate enough, attending Bay High School in the early 1980s, that I could still benefit from the expansive liberal arts education that had been afforded to the teeming mass of my Baby Boomer antecedents. We weren’t merely offered the same English curriculum provided to every grade level (English I, English II, etc.) but quarter classes in a variety of genres and disciplines.

I took classes in Journalism, radio drama, Death in Literature, and courses in both Shakespeare Comedy and Shakespeare Tragedy. It was like a college curriculum. We even had a quarter course in Vonnegut, if you can even imagine that.

Richard Burton & Alfred Drake
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 1964

For Shakespeare’s Tragedies we read Hamlet, King Lear, and Romeo & Juliet (we had all read Macbeth in eighth grade.) We watched the BBC adaptation of King Lear starring Laurence Olivier and John Hurt (1983) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968). But we listened to the 1964 Broadway Cast Recording of Hamlet, starring Richard Burton and directed by John Gielgud.

I cannot speak for my classmates, but I absolutely loved these studio recordings. What I remember most was how Burton brought out Hamlet’s great, cynical humor, which I had missed on the page. Wry, sarcastic, incisive, bitter. The guy was an asshole, and so was I.

And so, several years later, it made sense to choose a piece from this play to rehearse for class, but as was normally the case during my undergrad years, I hadn’t bothered to return to the text. I knew nothing about Hamlet.

To be continued.

Twenty Twenty-Four

Thomas Whitely Cullinan
Promotional Photo for "Hamlet"
Bad Epitaph Theater Company, 1999
Photo: Anthony Gray

The next year will mark the twenty-five year anniversary of many important events. 1999 was (literally) another century ago, and at that time I was at once wrapped up in some of the most exciting adventures and also in therapy.

Numbers are arbitrary. However, I was very unsettled at the time about the impending millennium, and hey, I guess my fears were entirely justified. But at the time I was engaged in creating a new artistic endeavor, Bad Epitaph Theater Company, which debuted in April with a production I insisted on calling The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. With the recent passing of Tom Cullinan, I have been thinking more about that production than I have for a very long time.

I was also engaged in another sense, engaged to be married! My wife and I celebrate out 25th wedding anniversary this summer, and unlike Bad Epitaph, which lasted five years in fits and starts (or my first marriage, which barely lasted two) our romantic partnership has survived, thrived, blossomed, borne fruit … what I’m saying is that we are very happy in our life together.

A quarter century ago I had written one produced play, and I produced it. But since then have written fifteen more new works than have received a full production. It has been three years since my last, Savory Taṇhā (yes, a live zoom production counts, thank you very much) and so I am very glad that in 2024, Talespinner Children’s Theatre will produce my new play script, The Toothpaste Millionaire.

Ralph Hoopes & Tierre Turner
"The Toothpaste Millionaire"
ABC Afterschool Special, 1974

This will be an adaptation of the book by Jean Merrill (The Pushcart War) about a twelve year-old entrepreneur from East Cleveland. This is my first authorized adaptation, my Agatha Christie works were taken from her books in the public domain.

Published in 1972, Toothpaste Millionaire was a book I loved as a kid, because it tells my favorite kind of story; one of creation, promotion, and success. These were the same feelings I had in 1999, as the director and also marketer for a new theater company, producing what was at that time heralded as the “greatest poem” of the second millennium.

Millionaire is aimed at the late elementary school audience, kids aspiring to adolescence, it’s also packed with practical applications of math, and it’s also a history play, subtly acknowledging the mood of the times, and the shifting demographics in one American community.

We look forward, we look back. We always do.

Source: “Hamlet Alone, A Celebration of Skepticism” by Helen Vendler, The New York Times, 4/18/1999

Talespinner Children's Theatre presents the world premiere of "The Toothpaste Millionaire" in May, 2024

Ten Amazing Productions in 2023

Jordon & Orson at "Hadestown"

When did we start posting photos of our programs? I remember all those in early 2016 who went to see Hamilton with the original cast, showing off selfies in the Richard Rogers Theatre, feeling at once joy for whoever was there and also that inevitable pang of jealousy.

Totes FOMO, yo.

Of course, I have also posted a picture of my Hamilton program on Instagram, but also, when I remember to, pictures of the program from whatever show I am seeing, wherever I’m seeing it. It’s a promotion, not a flex (I promise) reminding anyone out there who cares to know that theater is happening, and to encourage others to choose it.

This year I had the opportunity to see a lot of shows, and I want to make more of a habit of this. Since the kids have moved on to college I have taken more opportunities to just go see shows as a regular thing.

Here are ten I caught this year which were amazing (presented in chronological order).

"Scenes From a Night's Dream"
Photo: Rob Wachala

Scenes From a Night’s Dream (convergence-continuum) Yes, I’ll start with one of mine. This was my Master's Thesis, an exploration of the darker corners of my own psyche and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the acting company who realized not only the loopiness of the dream but the dreadful tension of reality.

Hadestown (Palace Theatre) The boy and I saw this show on Broadway, and we were both excited to get to share the touring production with our partners, here in Cleveland. I’m not really a huge musical fan, but I like what I like, and I really think this is the best original musical of the past ten years.

Fun Home (Cain Park) This show is meant to be intimate, which is why it was weird to see the Broadway tour perform Alison Bechdel’s memoir play from the balcony in the Palace seven years ago. The Alma was not only a more suitable venue, but we were seated front row center on opening night. Joanna Cullinan directed this piece with all the sensitivity and humor it deserves.

"Step Nine"
Photo: Steve Wagner

Step Nine (give me your keys) This is another one of mine, a twenty-minute two-hander about toxic masculinity in the theater community. Presented for free in a small room at Parnell’s downtown as part of the BorderLight Fringe Festival, I have been led to understand that a few men about whom I know absolutely nothing were angered that I would write a play about intimate details from their personal lives.

The Last Five Years (Near West Theatre) The main problem with any production of this two-person musical by Jason Robert Brown is that anyone playing Jamie will try to make him sympathetic, but he’s not. Neither is JRB for having written a somewhat cringy roman à clef about his first marriage. The folks at Near West saved the play from itself by queer casting Sarah Blubaugh in the role, who was able to cut to the heart of the role in the way no man could, and by God, she even crafted a mythic spectacle from the much-derided “Schmuel Song.”

"The Last Five Years"
Photo: Amber Patrick

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Great Lakes Theater) People who love this musical really love this musical, but that’s not a lot of people. I came to it entirely fresh and was entirely overwhelmed. This was the best show I have ever seen at Great Lakes Theater. Alex Syiek as Pierre brought me to tears, twice.

Bulletproof Backpack (Tri-C West) Eric Coble wrote a very good script about America’s gun pandemic, and director James Alexander Rankin staged a fast-paced production packed with urgency. And that’s the best kind of art they is.

Merrily We Roll Along (Hudson Theatre) Ever since I heard of this musical’s troubled history, I’ve been fascinated by it. I read the Kaufman & Hart play it is based on, I have been inspired by the backward chronology, I’ve seen the documentary. Songs from this show are now classics. When I heard this production was headed to Broadway I told my wife, we’re going. And it's a hit! People are really starting to get into Stephen Sondheim.

"John Proctor is the Villain"
Photo: Daren Stahl

Purlie Victorious (Music Box Theatre) It is a beautiful thing to see a triple threat like Leslie Odom Jr. tackle a straight play where he still has the opportunity to bring the graceful might of his voice and agility to the work. It is a demoralizing thing that a play from sixty years ago that comments on the state of civil rights in America is just as relevant in the 21st century, but I guess that’s why we do theater, right?

John Proctor is the Villain (Academy for the Performing Arts) Having first read this piece by Kimberly Belflower during the lockdown, I was really looking forward to eventually seeing a production. A high school drama about agency and abuse, I’m very glad I had the chance to see the work executed so expertly by actual teen performers.