Process LIII

If you are hating on Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Queen, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Dave Grohl, Joni Mitchell, Pearl Jam & Neil Young, free speech wasn't something you ever really cared about in the first place.

— David Hansen (@dhansenx) January 30, 2022

The week began posting this tweet, which is not the most sophisticated social commentary I have ever made, and then watching it receive nearly twenty thousand likes, which is absurd. Thank goodness for the “mute conversation” feature because I had absolutely no interest in what anyone would have to say in response to this.

The vast majority of responses have been positive, a much smaller amount were negative, and then there were the people who were trying to school me on the inaccuracy of my statement. These artists haven’t pulled their work from Spotify, they scolded. Of course, I never said they did. I was making fun of the people who were, as of Sunday morning, denouncing this list of artists as though they had. But I wasn’t about to explain that to anyone. What’s the point?

I did get a lot of new followers out of the experience, so that was nice, and an unsolicited email or two from people who like the cut of my jib.

The week was a bit grueling in other ways, cold, cold and quite cold. We have a fire in the hearth but then the rest of the house, even the adjacent room to the fire, gets real cold. It is demotivating.

Because there is so much to do. A concert to attend. A book to be read. A play to be read. A writing assignment. Another writing assignment. A third writing assignment. Another book to be read.

And a script to be revised. A film to be edited. Scheduled to be drawn. Schools to be visited. And classes to be taught. Online. In person.

All in the same week. And then came the storm.

"Coversations in Tusculum"
(The Public Theatre, 2008)
Andrea Mohin for The New York Times

We read Richard Nelson’s Conversations In Tusculum, which is a prequel to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I mean, technically it isn’t. It’s not in verse, the playwright used a more historically accurate spelling of the name “Porcia”. But really, it’s a prequel to Shakespeare’s play. Or it’s for people who have an in-depth knowledge of the historic events that led up to the assassination of Julius Caesar, without being familiar with Shakespeare’s play, and then ask how many of those particular people would make up the audience for a play.

I enjoyed reading it, but I question how many would who weren’t already fans of Julius Caesar. What I was most struck by was how it depicts great men, feeling impotent in the face of mounting authoritarianism, might lash choose the course of assassination. The play is not about assassination, never even mentions it. This is all before. But it goes deeper into how and why then even Shakespeare does.

Mornings this week I have been teaching an online class for high school students in (ta-da) Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which is a thing I have been doing for over twenty years. Not online, that’s new, but it’s the same lesson plan. I am glad to report that Nelson’s play encouraged me to ask new and different questions which I had not thought of before.

Earlier this week I visited a high school in Parma to watch a team of actor-teachers conduct the in-person version of the same Julius Caesar lesson plan I had conducted online a few hours earlier. Stepping into the classroom they were working in, I was struck with a strong memory.

This was the last classroom I had worked in, nineteen years earlier, almost to the day, before my wife went into labor with our first living child.

Nineteen years. Remarkable.

Tyrant, Shakespeare On Politics (book)

Angela Merkel, on vacation, reading "Tyrant."

Stephen Greenblatt, American author of the acclaimed Will In the World, was apparently so entirely disturbed by the election of Donald J, Trump that he swiftly produced a brief examination of Shakespeare’s villains (189 pages) and how they each compare to the current occupant of the White House.

Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics, was released on May 8, 2018, and even at that point it was easy to see what kind of President Trump was going to be, as if that were not previously evident. Though he never names the President, his thesis is clear, with every chapter and every would-be emperor described, accurately for the most part, with precisely the same language many have used to describe Trump.

He calls Jack Cade, leader of a populist uprising in Henry VI Part 2, a “loud-mouthed demagogue” possessing an “indifference to the truth, shamelessness, and hyperinflated self-confidence.”

Shakespeare's Richard III “divides the world into winners and losers” and “is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it … because it gets in his way.”

Macbeth has “a compulsive need to prove his manhood, dread of impotence … a fear of failure.” These psychological cues explain his “penchant for bullying, the vicious misogyny” and “explosive violence.”

Surprisingly, Greenblatt spends few words on the character of Julius Caesar, who, of all of Shakespeare’s monarchs, has been the one most often directly compared to Trump, for all of each man's vanity, poor health, and weakness for flattery at the same time ferociously protesting their own god-like inability to be manipulated.

Instead, this author focuses, as the play does, on the character of Brutus, and his desire to preempt disaster and assassinate Caesar before he attains absolute rule. Shakespeare’s lesson, it is clear, is that violent overthrow, no matter how pure the intent, is never pure, and impossible by design; an oxymoron in action.

“Real-world actions grounded on noble ideals,” Greenblatt suggests, “may have unforeseen and ironic consequences.”

Carole Healey as Julius Caesar
Photo: Roger Mastroianni
(Great Lakes Theater, 2019)

Published almost a year before the release of the Mueller Report, Greenblatt also provides a warning; that, though investigation and the possibility of impeachment is not a violent act, subverting the will of the electorate will always be suspect, and probably futile, even if you believe it would be the poorer choice to do nothing at all.

“The attempt to avert a possible Constitutional crisis, were Caesar to decide to assume tyrannical powers, precipitates the collapse of the state. The very act that was meant to save the republic turns out to destroy it. Caesar is dead, but by the end of the play Caesarism is triumphant.”

As it happened, the Mueller investigation came to a close without touching Trump nearer, finding that while a foreign power certainly offered Citizen Trump political assistance during the 2016 election, there was not definitive proof that he accepted it.

It should surprise no one who has been paying attention that we are now mired in a nearly identical circumstance, with definitive proof that President Trump himself has solicited political assistance from (at least) one foreign power for the 2020 election.

Impeachment now increasingly likely, looking into the works of Shakespeare may be a direful predictor of future events.

"The Testament of Mary" at Mamaí Theatre

Anne McEvoy in "The Testament of Mary"

Some twenty years ago my partner and I went to see Annie Sprinkle give a lecture at Cleveland Public Theater. Once a sex worker and performer in pornography, Sprinkle had by this time earned a doctorate in human sexuality and had moved into education and sex-positive advocacy.

It was a full house that night, and as we streamed into the theater there was this one woman standing outside, entirely on her own, protesting the event. She had a sign and she was expressing her disapproval. I cannot recall what was written on the sign, nor exactly what her point of view was.

There are several arguments against pornography. The puritanical is perhaps the first that comes to mind, that performing sex acts on film or video for the enjoyment of others is wrong, improper, it is degenerate.

There are also more relevant arguments against pornography and more specifically the porn industry, which preys upon women, especially very young women, and can even participate in human trafficking.

If I remember correctly, this protester was against that evening’s event because sex work is generally anti-woman, that it defines women, the entire gender, as simply something to be fucked. A sound, feminist, anti-porn argument.

As the audience entered, we just kind of ignored her. But her presence impressed me. Whether I agreed with her or not, she was taking a stand for what she believed, all by herself. She wasn’t grandstanding, she wasn’t aggressively attempting to shame anyone. She was obviously outnumbered by the crowd and she had no support. She was just making her point, outside, in the cold.

We don’t protest theater in Cleveland. Not much. Too polite, perhaps. Or maybe it’s because no one cares or worse, that the vast majority of people in greater Cleveland who might be offended are entirely unaware of what happens in the theater scene.

Photo: Steve Wagner

Last spring, Talespinner produced my play Red Onion, White Garlic, and when it was announced that this Indonesian folktale would be performed by women in hijab (87% of the people in Indonesia today identify as Muslim) I was thrilled, and also concerned. We are a polarized country. Our president has expressed a general contempt for Islam. Would someone make trouble?

No one made trouble. Please. How would the racist dingbats of Northeast Ohio even know this were happening?

But recent events have made live theater an occasional lightning rod for controversy. Following a performance of Hamilton, attended by Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, the cast gave a curtain call speech as the man exited the hall. The outrage that followed in the media was scattershot; is it appropriate to lecture a captive audience following a play, shouldn’t they show more respect to the Vice President-Elect, must everything be about politics?

This was at Hamilton. You get it.

This summer the Public Theatre made headlines again -- this time with Shakespeare if you can believe that -- by presenting a modern dress production of Julius Caesar as one of their two, free productions at the Delacorte in Central Park.

Shortly after the election, The Public's Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis, decided to cast Caesar in the form of Donald J. Trump. This textually justifiable interpretation of Shakespeare’s version of Caesar as a proud, preening, feckless, needy, physically weak, power-hungry windbag would be on full display in the form of the actual sitting president, and in the president’s own city.

It would also mean depicting him murdered in the Senate, every single night.

Photo: Inside Edition

Even the discussion of the assassination of a sitting president is repellent to me. I don’t even joke about it, and I’ll joke about anything. First, I am an avowed pacifist. Then, the violent overthrow of a democratically elected figure is the diametric opposite of democracy. One individual or small number of people conspiring to violently undo the decision of the vast majority, it is anathema to the values upon which this nation was based.

This is, in fact, a dominant theme of the play Julius Caesar. Brutus is torn between his belief in the ideals of a democratic Republic against his deep love of his comrade Caesar. But the people want to make Caesar their emperor, their king, it’s what the people of Rome, for good or ill, have decided they want.

In murdering Caesar, Brutus utterly failed to teach the citizens of Rome that it was necessary to slay a potential tyrant. (Ironically, J.W. Booth also failed in this regard, and as an interpreter of Shakespeare he really should have known better.) Brutus's name was disgraced and eventually he threw himself on his own sword rather than surrender to a man  -- Octavius, later called Augustus Caesar -- who would soon become to first true emperor of Rome, regardless of Brutus’ sacrifice.

But your average Trump-supporting troglodyte wouldn’t know that. They couldn’t be bothered to watch this production, any production of Julius Caesar, let alone read it. They just saw the stabbing murder of a version of Caesar dressed like Donald Trump on a continuous loop on Fox News and on Breitbart. No other part of the play, just that one moment.

None of these people would have even cared about the production if they hadn’t been told to care about it by the people who tell him to think things on TV and on the internet. The production had been playing for weeks before the uproar began, and it was only through the final weekend of performances that protests took place in the form of Trump sympathizers interrupting the performance and storming the stage (death threats to Eustis and his family at his home came later) which created a heightened sense of expectation, wonder, and worry at those final shows.

After all, in Shakespeare’s day, when Caesar, and later Brutus then Marc Antony, make their speeches to the actual audience, certain members of  the audience called lines back to the stage, rehearsed lines. There we undoubtably audience plants at the Globe, and so it was this summer at the Public. How was an audience member to know if the person getting riled up next to them was an actor, a protester, or perhaps a domestic terrorist?

Last weekend I brought my mom to see The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín, directed by Bernadette Clemens and produced by Mamaí Theatre at the Helen Theatre in Playhouse Square. Tóibín created a stir when he wrote the novel, a brief exploration of Mary, mother of Jesus, as a troubled, conflicted single parent to a religious zealot in a dangerous time. Adapted for the stage in a ninety-minute solo performance, she tells the audience directly of experiences at once familiar but seen from a fresh perspective; from a person who sees only disaster in what is to come, and from an intensely personal point of view.

Photo: America Needs Fatima

On Friday, July 8 a peaceful protest was staged on Euclid Avenue, sponsored by the Media Research Center, an arch-conservative lobbying organization whose founder, L. Brent Bozell once referred to President Obama as a “skinny ghetto crackhead.” They provided flyers decrying the depiction of “Holy Mary” for her “bubbling with contempt for her Son’s demented followers,” that she “threatens the writers of the Gospels with a knife,” and that for a time she “lives as a bandit, stealing to survive.”

These allegations are true, as are all the others cherry-picked and presented out of context from this compelling narrative. Anne McEvoy, one of our most talented performers and a good friend, imbues her character with pathos, and also the deep, painful wisdom of a mother and woman who has lived so long and seen so much. It is a passionate and moving performance.

Sitting in the house, however -- with my own mother sitting next to me -- I was keenly aware of the others in the audience around me. That one protest had taken place the week before. This Friday evening there were few people downtown anyway, a sleepy summer evening in Cleveland. There were no security offers checking bags or purses. I wondered how many attended as a direct result of the protests. I have to admit, it motivated me to get a ticket.

But what if one of those in attendance had ill-intent? To interrupt the performance, or worse? These things happen today.

I am not a person of faith, and am accustomed to seeing things from a variety of points of view. I guess that’s relativism. If a person of faith cannot glean insight from a reinterpretation of their beliefs without flying into a rage, they need to breathe, to begin again, and to reconsider the foundation of their faith.

Mamaí Theatre presents "The Testament of Mary" at the Helen in Playhouse Square through July 23, 2017

The Crown (TV show)

John Lithgow (right) as Winston Churchill in "The Crown"

The problem with using the stage to make direct and obvious political statement is that the message can be misinterpreted, casually dismissed, or in the case of most local productions, singing to the choir or more often ignored entirely.

The first year of Guerrilla Theater Company our more obvious agitprop was leavened with playful absurdity, but as our more pointed statements we from time to time dismissed out of hand or criticized, we bent the rules of inclusion to force each of the performer-writers to defend the point of each brief vignette. In short order the creators of some of our most popular pieces decided to move on and our audiences dwindled.

When a company decides to present a classic piece of political theater, the language and situation would most likely not most obviously resemble contemporary concerns. When Ensemble Theatre presented Waiting For Lefty six years ago (to take one example) they strove for period accuracy in production in costume and design, but their video projections reflected the very recent Occupy Wall Street uprisings. And yet, the Great Recession was not the Great Depression and the pictures did nothing to change Odets' clumsy words. In spite of using David Bowie in the soundtrack, it was still more museum piece than think piece.

Timing is also important. Bad Epitaph produced Lysistrata in 2000, which was enjoyed as an absurd sex comedy, but as we were not currently engaged in an wars (at least not any we could see) the playwright’s original political intent was beside the point. We came a bit closer to the mark in 2004 when we produced Kirk Wood Bromley’s The American Revolution.

True, we made no obvious references to the present geopolitical situation, the early years of Bush’s war in Iraq, and the Colonial version of occupier and freedom-fighter, but just putting it out there seemed to make its own statement. As Plain Dealer critic Tony Brown put it, we didn’t need to be “ponderously obvious” about it, as that was his job.

“One imagines that if the revolutionaries were to say and do now some of things they said and did then, John Ashcroft probably would have them locked up without lawyers in the prison at Guantanamo Bay on terrorism charges,” said Brown.

Ladies and gentlemen, ponderously obvious.

The Trump era has invited a slew of productions of Julius Caesar, which has been an obvious go-to for those who would warn against tyranny in all it forms, for centuries. In New York this summer you can see a modern-dress production for free at the Delacorte in Central Park, or an Off-Broadway production by Access Theatre featuring an all-female cast and set in an independent, girls’ school.

Orson Welles' "Julius Caesar" (1937)

It is facile to swap out one political leader for another. Arguably when Orson Welles presented this work during the reign of Mussolini, that strongman must have appeared to be a literal incarnation of almighty Caesar. But Donald J. Trump more closely inhabits the strengths and failings of Caesar -- as conceived of by William Shakespeare -- especially in those scenes where he loudly protests his immutability even as he agrees with who ever spoke with him most recently.

But a military genius with an extensive record of victories on the battle-field? Darn that ankle spur.

The question remains whether or not political commentary on stage has any relevance at all. To those of us who are theater practitioners, of course it does. But most people do not see plays, are unaware of plays, are entirely unaffected by plays.

However, the extremity of the actions of and declarations from the Trump Administration have emboldened commercial entities, which would normally avoid controversy and offense. We live in a golden era of men in suits sitting at desks (and one woman standing in slacks) taking the piss out of the president every night of the week.

In fact, the word and actions of the young Trump Administration have been so extreme, and transparently anti-democratic, that any creative expression in regards to totalitarianism and propaganda in the service of such ends can appear to be intentional commentary on the current president.

Yes, sales of George Orwell’s 1984 spiked after the inauguration, but when Audible produced a television ad featuring Zachary Quinto performing an audiobook version, it created controversy. Reading passages from a seventy year-old book is commentary on Donald Trump? Whose fault is that, Audible’s, Orwell’s or Trump’s?

Hulu’s production of The Handmaid’s Tale includes scenes that appear to emulate the January 21, 2017 Women’s March, but production started last year, long before the election. How might this program have been received during a Hillary Clinton Administration? How significant is it a big screen Wonder Woman came out this past weekend and has broken all kinds of records including biggest opening for a female director. Has the disappointment and disillusionment of the past six months actually fed interest in such a vehicle?

Last week I started watching the Netflix series The Crown, which debuted four days before this past election. I like Peter Morgan, loved The Queen, The Audience. I’m an Anglophile, and my interest in the monarchy reaches beyond what is necessary to comprehend Shakespeare’s history plays.

With this series, dramatising the first months of the reign of Elizabeth II, Morgan seems to be a bit more heavy-handed with the exposition than with other treatises on Elizabeth Windsor, as though he assumes most of his audience will be American - or at the very least, not British. The idea of having to explain to the new queen that she chooses her royal name (her father George VI was born Albert, for example) is ridiculous, she knows that.

I’m loving John Lithgow as Winston Churchill, the first time I have seen any actor embody the character without doing a Churchill impression. Episode four, "Act of God," felt as though it too were mocking the new American President for his behavior, even though that episode, like the entire season, were all released on the same date, November 4, 2016.

The Great Smog of 1952

The Great Smog of 1952 was a bizarre weather event, an “anticyclone” which trapped air pollution - mostly the result of the use of coal for electricity and heat - over the Greater London area for several days. It was catastrophic, resulting in thousands or by some estimates over one hundred thousand deaths, due to either accidents due to low visibility or illness due to inhalation. These facts are a matter of historical record.

"Act of God" suggests Churchill, the Prime Minister, intentionally ignored scientific studies which made plain the health risks related to the coal-based power infrastructure and even reports that such a freak weather event were possible.

That I watched this episode on the very day President Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement wasn’t even the most alarmingly prescient element of this episode. That came when, in the midst of a national calamity, the Prime Minister was determined, during a cabinet meeting, on ranting about whether the Queen’s consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, should be allowed to train for a pilot’s license.

The comparison is ponderously obvious.

Source:
Freedom Rings With An Edge in “American Revolution” by Tony Brown, The Plain Dealer, 6/23/2004
Great Smog of London, Wikipedia

Winter rehearsal period, Wednesday

"I found it in his closet, 'tis his will."
Julius Caesar, III.ii



"What were you doing in his closet?"
Today we read Julius Caesar. Our people indulged in all manner of bizarre "old man" voices. Apparently all of the conspirators were dribbly septuagenarians. In spite of all of the political talk, Caesar is a pretty swift read.

One cannot help make comparisons to events in the 20th and early 21st century, and through the course of the reading the entire team managed to make allusions or engage in brief discussions about the Iraq War, G.W. Bush, F.D.R., Vladimir Putin, the Arab Spring, Ai Weiwei, 9/11, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Bill Clinton, Grover Cleveland, John Kennedy, Barack Obama, Joseph McCarthy, Al Gore, Ross Perot, G.H.W. Bush, the Persian Gulf War, Osama bin Laden, Dwight Eisenhower and Martin van Buren.


"Come on my right hand."
Julius Caesar, I.ii
Upon completion of the text, we engaged in a discussion about our beliefs. As we ask of our students, let us not make what we discussed within these walls source for further discussion in the halls, the lunchroom, or after school. We will keep it to ourselves. But I can say I treasure the opportunity to have an open discussion about important personal matters without fear of judgement or rancor.

"Just as we like it."

They built a little Globe Theatre for Shakespeare plays. The Great Lakes Exposition was about progress, about the future, about the world - it also had fan dancers and other kinks for daddy - and someone felt that Shakespeare had to be involved. That makes me happy.

About Some Players Who Give Us Shakespeare Just As We Like It
By Arthur Spaeth
The Cleveland News - July 2, 1936

We chose to imagine the Great Shakespeare’s spook being a bit puzzled and then downright worried through the centuries since his demise as the literati has carried on a campaign of refined ballyhoo, that has stuck the Bard up on a pedestal far from the common people.

But this brave little Globe theater company is doing its darndest to bring him back down to you and me - and doing it darned well.

Here’s comedy with true burlesque flavor. It’s lusty, ribald, pants-kicking comedy. And it’s played as Shakespeare wrote and directed it.

***
Visiting the Old Globe ...
By W. Ward Marsh
The Plain Dealer - July 3, 1936

“Julius Caesar” seems to lend itself better to the abbreviated production of the Globe than the other plays I have seen. The whole kernel of the play is present, and it moves swiftly and logically with no appearent loss in power trough the reduction of characters, words and scenes. The three phases of Caesar’s story life, death, burial, make for stirring melodrama in the Globe, and the great speeches, the spurring by Cassius, the apologies of Brutus, and the oration of Antony, are here and are delivered with power and fire.

I felt that Director Stevens had done remarkable work with the mob scenes. Although the “mobs” were not large, they were expertly coached and gave this production a good deal of its power and stirring qualities.

More than ever now do I urge a visit to the Old Globe.

***
Shakespeare In Quick Time Wins At Expo
By Jospehine Robertson
The Plain Dealer - July 17, 1936

Nearly 1,000 of the 25,975 persons attending the Great Lakes Exposition stopped in the Old Globe Theatre for a dose of synthetic culture.

There was plenty of slapstick and not a dull split second. You just started to laugh at Nick Bottom “roaring like any sucking dove” when he was squinting through Wall’s two fingers saying “I can hear my Thisbe’s face,” and Wall and the lovers fell in a heap and the lion had lost its tail.

***
Shakespeare Streamlined (editorial)
The Plain Dealer - July 18, 1936

The Shakespeare output in its formidable entirety has become forbiddingly synonymous with the obscure, the labored, the stilted, the rhetorical, the ponderous. All that, it nows appears, is out so far as interpretations given at the exposition are concerned. One result is that a considerable number of adults seem to enjoy taking their Shakespeare for its own sake rather than spend their time and money throwing baseballs at dolls.

***
Streamlined Shakespeare (feature article)
The Plain Dealer - September 13, 1936

College dramatics teacher and Chicago business man speed famous plays for the entertainment of masses.

The piper strikes up “Oranges and Lemons” on her recorder. Lads and lassies move to and fro in rustic weaving. Trumpeters sound a fanfare as Queen Elizabeth descends from her dias, escorted by her beefeaters, disappears into the theater. Once again the Town Crier waves a bell and hat in a flourish of red and green. And the play begins.

Despite rival attractions, peep shows and scantily clad dancing girls, Shakespeare is proving popular with the masses.

How I Will (Not) Be Spending My Summer Vacation

Currently making plans for my follow-up visit to New York. I have tickets for a show Saturday night, intend to revisit the Performing Arts Library on Saturday, and make make plans to attend NY Fringe shows on Sunday before flying out late. One thing I will not be doing, if only because it doesn't mesh with my current agenda, is to catch Julius Caesar, as part of the Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot.

This is a pity, because I love outdoor Shakespeare, I love performers who are willing to risk performing Shakespeare absolutely anywhere, I love actors who can execute this tricky piece of work without a mic. And I love women who pop their blouses open in the name of art.

While I have not missed being the producer of a small theater company, I have missed the freedom of producing whatever the hell I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. I had a dream the other night (after reading a review for this production of JC) where I was an artistic director again, and the mission was to produce outdoor Shakespeare. In this dream I was reminded of the 32-minute adaptation of The Comedy of Errors produced at the Expo (which, in waking life, I have an actual script for) and started concentrating on which other dramas I might rip down to under an hour.

Because, you see, I've never really done that. We mounted Bromley's The American Revolution outdoors, but other than that I've never had a successful go with the Bard al fresco. I do think there is something wildly attractive about that kind of urban, guerrilla Shakespeare that involves few props, no costume changes, a tiny cast, no sound system or lights, and a set based on wherever the show takes place - ideally somewhere with lots of walking traffic where unknowing passersby might even walk through your staging area, or even better, stop for a while to watch and listen.

Of course, we not have such thoroughfares in Cleveland. Not really. Not at all.

The Comedy of Errors

When two twin brothers and their two twin servants are unexpectedly reunited after three decades apart, the unsuspecting port of Syracuse is torn apart at its seams. With a zany cast of unforgettable characters and a myriad of mistaken identities, Shakespeare’s greatest comedy delivers triumphantly on its famous title. - Great Lakes Theater Festival synopsis of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" (2009)

"The Blackfriars Company" performing at the Old Globe Theatre at the Great Lakes Exposition presented six abbreviated adaptations of Shakespeare's work in the summer of 1936. Their production of The Comedy of Errors clocked in at "a mind-blurring thirty-six minutes" (Vacha)

The eighteen member company included the young Sam Wanamaker. You would think that such a small company for a Shakespearean comedy would afford plenty of opportunities for the 17 year-old Chicagoan actor to have at least an interesting supporting role. Alas, the program lists him double-cast as "a guard" and "attendant." In Julius Caesar he is Second Citizen ("Peace, silence! Brutus speaks.").

I believe that is him pictured above, center, trying to be seen amongst all the hats.

Source: Showtime In Cleveland