The Aliens (2014)

Alexander V. Thompson in "The Aliens" at Dobama Theatre

Too much information? Or too little? How much do you want to know about a play before you see it? On our drive back from a performance of Seven Ages at Lorain High School, Emily was all excited to learn we are producing The Tempest at Great Lakes Theater next year because she has never seen it. Never even read it. And she decided right there not to read it, to experience an entire Shakespeare from beginning to end with no foreknowledge. That will be an adventure!

(Why so excited about The Tempest without knowing anything about it? See: Neil Gaiman.)

I whole-heartedly support her decision. I like to be surprised. However, it is also true I do not like to be confused, or left confused. A little confusion is a good thing, it can be a mystery, it makes you think.

It also makes people talk during movies. Who is that guy? What are they talking about? Is she gonna die? When we get to talky bits in SHIELD, the kids get distracted and that’s when they make comments and I have to shush and remind them the talky bits is when we learn what the hell is going on.

Seven Ages was written to stand alone. Yes, you might get more out of it if you are familiar with As You Like It, you already have an idea of who these characters are. But the introduction explains all you really need to know; four people, hiding from danger, telling stories. One woman is dressed as a man and three of them must keep her gender a secret from the fourth. That’s it, easily spelled out, and on with the storytelling.

The first two performances a few adults in the audience expressed concern that the kids might be confused by some of the segues from one tale to another, because they include oblique references to As You Like It. I found only one such reference to the court of Duke Frederick, removed it (one sentence) and since then no one has expressed any confusion with the segues at all. To the contrary, the writers have been praised by audiences for how it all hangs together.

However, Lisa wanted to provide some context to the student audiences, explaining the origins of the play, how it was written, where the inspiration comes from. I told her I thought this was too much information to be providing the students prior to the show, that they would have the wrong impression from the get-go. She reluctantly followed my request, and our first student audience was confused and disengaged.

I was wrong.

Since then, each of our student audiences have received a very basic explanation of what it is we are trying to do with this play, how Jacques’ “Seven Ages” speech was the inspiration, and what they could expect -- seven stories. Those matinees were very successful. The students at Lorain High were most attentive, they got all the jokes and had many interesting questions or comments about the stories after the show.

Last night Brian and I went to see The Aliens by Annie Baker at Dobama Theatre (strong recommended, remaining performances tonight and tomorrow afternoon only). We arrived early to hear Nathan Motta, Dobama artistic director, and the director of this production, provide what they are calling a pre-show “conversation” though it’s not really a conversation, it’s a pre-show talk. For a half-hour, Motta provided very interesting background on the playwright, the history of this play and Baker’s other works, their importance and significance.

He also described the characters in the play, in some cases using the playwright’s stage directions, which gave the audiences clues as what to look for. This is what we strive to accomplish when presenting key scenes from Shakespeare in the classroom, as part of GLT’s residency program -- give the students something to watch for in the scene they are about to see. In that way, we make them active viewers.

But last night’s audience wasn’t full of students (though I was delighted to see a pack of teenagers there, on their own, seeing this play) we were adults. Granted, adults who voluntarily showed up forty-five minutes early for this information. Some of the information the director provided might be called spoilers -- not major plot points, but just the kind of things I like to figure out myself when watching a play or seeing a movie.

And yet, I feel this is an important step in keeping theater relevant in the 21st century. What media do we consume for which we have absolutely no foreknowledge? We have seen the trailers for films, that is largely how we choose them. And those are chock-a-block with spoilers. We read blogs, see commercials, have recommendations from friends, on books, TV shows, radio programs.

Why walk into a play and expect a modern audience to be satisfied to jump in with complete ignorance? Doesn’t make sense.

In my own works, I have tried to create “trailers” for plays, but they are devilishly difficult on a shoestring budget. We all know this. Even look at the online trailers for The Velocity of Autumn, they avoid showing actors speaking lines on stage as much as possible, because it just doesn't play the way it's supposed to on video. We get punchlines and audience reaction, which is the real selling point -- others enjoying it, not the work itself.


Tomorrow the tour visits Cleveland Heights-University Heights Main Public Library on Lee Road. They are usually quite a discerning crowd, because, you know. Heights. And yet, I believe I will be encouraging our moderator Khaki to be providing some much-appreciated pre-show context.

Regarding Neil Gaiman

Satan.

Last year during the tour of Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick), plans were already being made for this year's tour. The last time Great Lakes produced As You Like It, the outreach tour was a different play titled Seven Ages, featuring a slate of ten-minute plays, each written by a local playwright, each dealing with one of the seven ages of man. These short plays were contemporary, each a stand-alone short play.

We decided to put a spin on that concept, seven different Cleveland-area playwrights, each telling the story of one of seven ages, we would even use the same title, like editions of a magazine. Like the first three Peter Gabriel albums.

But how would it be unique? Emily asked me about it over lunch during the tour season, and I eagerly explained my concept. Four characters from As You Like It would be taking refuge someplace, like a tavern or somewhere, hiding out during a massive tempest, and they tell these stories to pass the time. And the stories could go anywhere! They can be fable or folktale, sincere or satire, spun from the past or even the future.

She said, "That's World's End."

Sandman #51, "A Tale of Two Cities"
(Vertigo, 1993)

Well, crap. She was absolutely right. My concept for Seven Ages even had a young woman passing as a boy.

Okay. Okay, okay. Okay? Yes, there are similarities. Neil Gaiman's World's End is one volume of his comic Sandman. Characters take shelter against a "reality storm" in the tavern "World's End". These people are from different periods in history, they are perceptibly "real" (from the world as we know it) or mythic.

And they tell stories, because that is what you do to pass the time. Today we can pass the time alone listening to stories (radio) or watching stories or even creating stories (screens). Without such technology, people will tell stories, they always have.

Gaiman's work is storytelling, which is the role of any writer, but a trope particular to him is the act or the art of telling stories, whether they come in dreams, shared by forgotten gods or months of the year,  or passed about in publicans.

Backstage at the Alcazar.

So? It's good to be aware of what influences you. Strangers coming together who then tell stories? Gaiman would be the last person to claim he has a copyright on that concept. And so we cobbled our tales and last night presented the work to an invitation-only preview audience of Great Lakes Theater supporters and friends at The Alcazar in Cleveland Heights. None dast call it unoriginal.

Seven Ages opens at The Alcazar tonight at 8 PM, free and open the the public. Please join us.

Seven Ages: Music

Three weeks of rehearsal provide little time to waste time. After two nights of table reading, the tables have been pushed back and we are already on our feet.

This is not to the first time I have been engaged in a project that involves several playwrights writing on a common theme, and then striving through rehearsal to find their unifying threads. The Gulf certainly comes to mind.

Once we had written our tale, and decided upon their order (they are not chronological) each Seven Ages playwright was tasked with writing interstitial material, leading one story into the next. In this way, the in-between stuff is more interesting than if I had provided each of the segues.

However, it was inevitable that certain transitions appear too stark or abrupt. In each of these cases, the pleasing lubrication of music will help us slide from one fable to another. Our Touchstone, Bobby, has plenty of experience with the tunes from As You Like It, having played Amiens for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival -- twice.

I am looking forward to how we three, Annie, Emily and myself, may compliment his compositions ... if compliment is the right word.

Every Man Out of His Humour (1599)

Traditionally, I would read a book or a play before commenting on it. These days I am pressed for time and instead believe it would be more efficient to offer an opinion and provide historical background, and then take my time with the manuscript.

Currently I am reading four books at once. I look forward to finishing any one of them.

Every Man Out of His Humour is a comedy by Ben Jonson which was first performed in 1599. There has been speculation throughout the subsequent years as to whether or not this work (which is not to be confused with Jonson's 1598 hit comedy Every Man In His Humour) includes elements composed specifically to mock Williams Shakespeare's latest work, As You Like It -- also first performed in 1599 -- or whether Shakespeare was mocking Ben Jonson when he wrote As You Like It -- actually, possibly first performed in 1600.

It is at times like this we really wish Shakespeare had kept better records.

In Every Man Out of His Humour, Jonson features an introductory character who pedantically sets out the rules for all comedy. The play then goes about strictly following this set of rules, finally issuing his own critique of the play; By God, 'tis good, and if you like't, you may.

Shakespeare then writes one of his most-beloved and oft-performed romantic comedies, its title ripped straight from this challenge. Reminds me of when John Lennon ridiculed Paul McCartney for only writing silly love songs, and then McCartney wrote a number-one single called Silly Love Songs.

In fact, the character of Jacques from AYLI may have been a caricature of Jonson. He speaks mostly to himself, and no one really cares about his philosophy, if they are even listening to it. While Jacques' rumination on the seven ages of man is unarguably a legendary piece of work, no one around him has anything to say about it.

For his EMO Jonson created a vainglorious social-climber named Sogliardo who, like Shakespeare, spent time, cash and special favor to gain for himself and his family a coat-of-arms. While Shakespeare's read Not Without Right, Sogliardo's reads Not Without Mustard.

The difference is, I needed to explain that joke to you while the melancholy Jacques is one of the most beloved figures in "the canon". EMO was a popular failure, a fact German poet and translator Ludwig Tieck speculated, "greatly irritated its author."

Happy birthday, William Shakespeare. You win again.

Sources:
As You Like It (A New Variorum Edition, 1890)
As You Like It: A Guide to the Play by Stephen Lynch
As You Like It (Arden Edition)

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.

As You Like It: Choreography

I should write an essay about the grand history of Henry VIII (All Is True) and how our modern adaptation is a legitimate continuation in a grand, historical tradition of political pageantry. And maybe, eventually, I will.

But right now I am sitting the courtyard outside Coventry Elementary watching CSF actors dancing a Virginia Reel to the recording of a song composed and performed by area high school students. This isn’t for Henry VIII. These actors, most of whom are in the company of Henry VIII, have simultaneously been rehearsing As You Like It, which opens the following weekend. Same choreographer as for the Queen’s Vision, only a much happier dance.

So cute!

Meanwhile, in the auditorium, actors are working with director Dana Hart on scenework. The doors are open, the breeze comes through, the sound of music and laughter -- and birds -- from the courtyard floats through. The mood is casual, cheerful. The space is buzzing with activity, focused, professional activity, but cool. These are good reasons to rehearse summer, outdoor theater. Sometimes I forget to notice.

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival presents "As You Like It", opening Jun 22.