Playing at the Reps: A Retrospective

In addition to musicals, the county's two repertory/community theatres produce plays. Comedy and drama are rough classifications, and each includes variations.  It's become more common for plays to be a little of both, so it's a matter of emphasis.

Comedies can be laugh-out-loud funny, or more gentle romantic comedies, or Shakespeare's comedies which have some laughs and some romance, ending in at least one marriage.

 On the continuum of comedy, the far end is farce.  NCRT's Lend Me A Tenor exemplifies the classic farce form (wind it up in the first act, let it spin out of control in the second.)  Noises Off goes it one better by being a farce about a farce.  Its production at Ferndale Rep and "Tenor" at North Coast Rep were both ably directed by Renee Grinnell.  NCRT went back to the author of "Tenor" for another farce, Fox in the Fairway, that despite a classic farce set and a bravura performance by Anders Carlson, proved that the formulas don't always work when they are so, well, formulaic.

Fairly near to the farce end is the 1930s classic You Can't Take It With You, an ensemble comedy performed at NCRT that honors American eccentricity.  Maybe a Jules Feiffer play is truer to our time, when eccentricity seems mated with violence, but there is a certain hopeful model in this script, and maybe some hope in the yearnings it still expresses. In 2009 Ferndale Rep produced another show of the same era with farce written all over it: Arsenic and Old Lace.  (Renee Grinnell directed, of course.)

 Somewhere in here is another oddball, The Madwoman of Challiot at NCRT.  While it's not exactly Dr. Strangelove, it does combine farce with a political point.

Although it's also classified as a musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is classic (in several senses of the word) comedy and close to pure farce, based on tried and true Roman models (as well as early TV sketch comedy). The 2006 Ferndale Rep production was North Coast classic.  The same might be said of  NCRT's 2009 The Producers (by Mel Brooks, another Sid Caesar alum, along with Larry Gelbart of "A Funny Thing" and Neil Simon--see below.  )

About in the middle of the spectrum there are the comedies that most resemble their progeny, the motion picture or television situation comedies. They are basically about one kind of family or another.  The modern American master of this form on stage is Neil Simon, and NCRT has done a number of his plays.  The most recent was about the offbeat family of writers for a television show in Laughter on the 23rd Floor.

But in my time there was also the third in Simon's most autobiographical trilogy, Broadway Bound (2006) and Jake's Women (2007.)  (Both of these, less than coincidentally, involve comedy writers.)  In "Broadway" I singled out Gloria Montgomery for praise, for probably the first but certainly not the last time.  (Both reviews in full are now here.)  In my review of Jake's, I had this to say about Kim Hodel (later Haile):

"Kim Hodel had the plum part of Julie, Jake's perfect first wife, who he fell in love with when she was 21 and he was 24, and who died at 35. She played it with the moral beauty and physical radiance that forces us to wonder where the line is between Jake idealizing his dead wife and remembering her accurately - was she really this wonderful? Hodel is convincing as both fantasy and tragically lost reality, in a memorable performance."

Kim Haile (formerly Hodel) performed a variation on this role in what remains the romantic comedy I remember the best from playgoing at the reps: The Love List.  This was the perfect match of actor and role--the 'perfect woman' needed to be quick and fluid (adjusting to each male fantasy) and always magical, and she was.  The other actors (Edward Olson, Victor Howard) and the direction (by Carol Escobar) were also excellent. (I kind of like the review of it I wrote as well. I don't always.)

There were also comedies (alot of them in summer) that were funny at the time but are hard to even remember.  Many are set in the South and were born there, in a regional theatre or dinner theatre circuit, and they are the equivalent of a live TV sitcom, except not as memorable.  They are forgettable confections like The Red Velvet Cake War at North Coast Rep---funny at the time (at best), but leaving that hollow aftertaste.

All kinds of comedies need to evoke laughter at some point--usually early and often.  Comic energy feeds on laughter, and something that seems so simple and readily available can be very tricky to get. But a few things increase the odds (apart from, well, being funny.)

So as those tawdry Internet ads are fond of saying, here's one weird old trick: ventilation.  A well-ventilated theatre is comedy's best friend.  Keep the audience cool.  David Letterman was famous for insisting that his theatre be kept so cold that the audience could almost see their breath.

  He's not wrong.  If the house is hot and stuffy, the audience gets lethargic and loses concentration.  You might not even notice this in a drama.  But comedy needs active laughter-- that sound is part of the show.  Ventilation also happens to be the biggest problem for many North Coast theatres (along with inadequate rest room facilities.)  Apart from being unhealthy, stuffiness dampens audience energy and attention...and laughter.

Some of the same stage priorities apply to comedy as to musicals: bright lighting (you want the audience happy, right?) and when speaking, characters should be as close to the audience as possible (jokes play well that way.)  One fairly recent show that got this and the lighting right was North Coast Rep's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. 

The opposite mask to comedy is the one for tragedy, at least according to the Greeks.  But tragedy is a classical form and whether modern plays rise to tragedy is a question best left to academics, at least for the moment.  The term "drama" is used both as a general term for all plays, and a category that basically means everything that isn't comedy.  So it includes melodrama, political and historical or biographical plays as well as tragedy.  

The virtue of the dramas performed by the reps is similar to the musicals and to some extent the comedies:clarity and humanity.  Lacking staging frills and show biz pretensions, they expose the heart.  The negative side of that is a want of intensity and the kind of passion that really superior acting can reveal.  But many plays profit by performances that create characters that North Coast audiences can relate to, in a clear style.

So North Coast Rep produced an interesting and involving version of a modern classic, David Mamet's American Buffalo.  A less star-centered production as this one revealed new aspects of the play, especially its particular humor.  Ferndale Rep's Look Back In Anger is another modern classic that revealed new dimensions, partly by being staged some 60 years after the original production.  The acting was higher octane, too.

Confrontations over law and ethics create drama in a space that the stage at its best can intensify.  So we had Ferndale Rep's 12 Angry Men and NCRT's Doubt.  But especially Ferndale Rep's To Kill A Mockingbird with Brad Curtis.  It's not a great play, maybe not as good as the movie, but its differences are worth experiencing, and just seeing it live was memorable.

I'm going to save Shakespeare for another post, but it's important to acknowledge North Coast Rep's consistent commitment to staging one production each season.

Before this retrospective moves past the reps, there's a pair of interviews I did in the first year of my Stage Matters columns, with the directors of both theatres.  Marilyn McCormick was beginning her 10th year as the artistic director of Ferndale Rep.  That decade plus one year turned out to be the uncharacteristic calm in the Rep's stormy history.  The Rep reputedly sped through and shredded artistic directors before that, and certainly has since.  Most observers I've talked to about it, including insiders, say it's because of the Rep's "impossible" board of directors. (That wasn't necessarily the word used, but the polite form of its meaning.)

Here's a previous post on the last big hiring/firing.  Since then, it seems another de facto artistic director has quietly fled.  Local hopes are now pinned on Leira Satlof, to whom we can only say, good luck.

I also interviewed Michael Thomas, the managing artistic director of North Coast Rep, and he is still there.  I've come to admire his management and his philosophy of play selection which has never wavered from what he describes in this interview.  In addition to the "popular" shows and the stubbornly regular rotation of one or two musicals and one Shakespeare a season,  North Coast Rep has continued to produce "edgier" plays.  They've included not only relatively esoteric modern dramas like Albee's The Goat but, this past season,  a 19th century American melodrama and a pair of plays from classical Greece.  Considering recent trends here, those are bold selections.

It's worth noting however that, as he's pointed out to me more recently, some sure-fire popular shows turned out to be busts, and some edgier choices were hits.

So to end at the beginning so to speak, here are those two interviews.  

Ferndale Rep with Marilyn McCormick (2006)

Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to immense disaster…
 Fennyman: So what do we do?
 Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
 Fennyman: How?
 Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
--- Shakespeare in Love by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard

 Ferndale Repertory Theatre will begin its 35th year of continuous production in the fall, and Marilyn McCormick will begin her tenth year as Artistic Director. She’s had a hard time settling on the upcoming season but so far it looks like this: The Mystery of Irma Vep (by Charles Ludlum and the Ridiculous Theatre) in late September, then a Young Actors original in November: Ghost of the Hart, which is about Bertha, the resident ghost in the Rep’s home, originally called the Hart Theatre.

 Then the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella for the holidays, plus another original for the school matinee, Cinderelder. Peter Shaffer’s Lettice & Lovage in January, a teen show called Hamlet Through the Looking Glass in March, the Rocky Horror Show musical in April, To Kill A Mockingbird in May, another try at mounting the senior citizen production, Taking My Turn, in July (it was scheduled for this year but was cancelled due when a cast member suddenly became ill), before The Sound of Music ends the season next August.

 When I visited the theatre on a recent afternoon, the stage was dominated by a painted Roman arch. Part of the Young Actor’s Workshop show this past weekend? Or maybe left over from the July 4th pageant? Could it be a bold new concept for Pajama Game, Ferndale’s next scheduled show? Imperial Retro, something like that?

 Not exactly. The director slated for that show got a job in New York, and the new director had a different play in mind. So A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum opens in a few weeks, on August 3. That’s how it goes in the theatre.
“It’s a miracle it comes off,” McCormick says. “I’ve learned not to worry about it.”

 Ferndale Rep is the oldest and largest community theatre in the county, but what does that mean anyway—community theatre? “To me it’s made up of people of our community,” McCormick replied, “for our community. That’s basically how I like to run the theatre—to give opportunities to people in the community to explore this art form, as participants and audience. It’s grassroots theatre.”

 “Some people think of community theatre as amateurish,” she added, “but I don’t think of us that way. We have amateurs, but also people with lots of experience, including professional experience. There are people of all ages who want to be involved in theatre, and this is the perfect opportunity for them to find out if that’s what they really want. We introduce them to this world.”

 A funny thing happened to Marilyn McCormick on her way to the theatre. From the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University drama school (Carnegie Tech in those days), and acting at the legendary Arena Stage in Washington, DC, she came to California with husband and fellow “dramat” (as the CMU alums call themselves), Robert Foxworth. He began a career in movies and TV ( Boston Legal, various Star Treks) but she didn’t like film acting and concentrated on home and family.
 They came through Humboldt on vacation, returned to run a small café in Honeydew as a lark. Marilyn stayed, and raised her children in Petrolia and Ferndale after the divorce.

 Then the long and winding road led back to the stage when her son, Bo Foxworth, was a stage manager at Ferndale Rep, but had a basketball trip conflict with a show and asked his mom to fill in. She’s been there ever since, as an actor, director, board member and Artistic Director. (Bo is playing Hamlet in southern California this summer.)

 At the moment McCormick is especially excited about working with teenagers. “I like being able to give them the opportunity to experience this, outside of school. There are different rules and responsibilities here, with a paying audience.”  Teens are involved in all aspects of their productions, and McCormick is hoping to find financial support for extended technical training, which would help the theatre, too. “I’d love to have young technicians and designers here.”

The Ferndale Rep audience “is mostly from Eureka-Fortuna, mostly family-oriented,” she said, “and the theatre-lovers who support all the theatres in this county.”

 When we looked out at the 267-seat theatre—virtually unchanged from the 1970s—she recalled that “in the late 70s you had to have a season ticket to get into a show at the Rep. But this was the only theatre around then. NCRT and Redwood Curtain came out of here.”

Now McCormick would like to expand and redesign the stage and reduce the number of seats. She’s already made physical improvements to the green room area backstage, and Technical Director Daniel Lawrence has rebuilt much of the theatre’s façade, with lumber donated by Almquist Lumber. (The film-set façade that Warner Brothers presented as a gift to the theatre after the Outbreak shoot turned out to be built with indoor wood and paint, and has been falling apart ever since.)

 Besides ticket sales, Ferndale Rep is supported by local sponsors and grants, notably the Bertha Russ Lytel Foundation. “We have a staff of three—I’m the only full-time,” McCormick said. “It takes about 500 people to put on a season.”

 While she confesses it’s sometimes hard to figure out how to get people to come, the fascination of live theatre is still powerful. “There’s nothing else like it. It all happens right there, in front of you. Someone can make a movie and if nobody comes to see it, they still have that work of art. But we can’t do a play without an audience. They’re just too important.”

North Coast Rep with Michael Thomas (2006)

North Coast Repertory Theatre concludes its current season with Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound, beginning August 10. Soon after, its 23rd season starts with Ladies of the Camellias in September, Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado in November, Jake’s Women (by Neil Simon) in January, Henry IV, Part 1 in March, Kiss Me Kate in May and Larry Shue’s The Nerd next July.

 In his office over the theatre, with windows overlooking Fifth Street in Eureka, Managing Artistic Director Michael Thomas was busy with solicitations for next year’s season tickets (you can call him at 442-NCRT and get yours) when I visited one recent afternoon.

The choice of plays for a season is “critical.” he said. NCRT has stayed alive for 23 years by essentially breaking even on season ticket sales and tickets at the door, plus selling ads in the playbill, with help from concessions, donations and grants.

 “But that doesn’t mean we don’t try things that are surprising. There are people who like edgier plays—they may not be a majority, but they’re also part of our community. We have a responsibility to offer plays the community will like, but not just what is safe and guaranteed.”

 “I never use the phrase—or like to hear the phrase—‘well, it’s just community theatre.’ We don’t operate that way,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t enter into my consciousness. We do the best we can with the people we have and the money we have, just like every theatre does.”

 “I work with people who are here because they want to be here, because they want to be part of creating a particular production, not because this is their job. I don’t say that lightly. It’s significant to the atmosphere of what goes on in this building.”

 Thanks to a California Arts Council grant (“before their funding was cut”), NCRT began a policy of paying actors and everyone else involved in a production. They’ve managed to continue it. “It’s not a lot of money—we call it a stipend. But everybody gets something.”

 There are difficulties, not only because NCRT can’t pay a living wage to theatre artists and staff, but because there is no such professional theatre anywhere near here. People tend to go where they can make a living doing what their expensive educations qualify them to do. That limits the talent pool.

 “The most challenging thing is to find competent people to work with,” Thomas says. “I’m always looking. Actors, designers, technical people—it’s difficult. There are talented people here, but not a lot, and they’re busy with other things in life, like making a living. The challenge is to find people who are available.”

 But in the end, theatre is theatre. “In professional theatres you have stronger shows and weaker shows, stronger actors and weaker actors. You have that in community theatre, too.”

 “Part of our mission as a community theatre is to maintain a ticket price that is reasonable for this community,” Thomas said, “ and that means controlling costs.” It also leads to a complex set of mutually beneficial relationships between theatre and community. “We welcome people who are new to theatre, and we’ll train them and use them, when appropriate. Of course, in auditions any director will choose the best actor, and the director defines ‘best.’"

In September Michael Thomas will begin his eighth season as managing artistic director, a self-selected title that reflects the jack-of-all trades nature of his job—everything from paying the bills to critiques of shows in rehearsal-- as the theatre’s only full-time employee.

 Thomas studied theatre at Northwestern University, near the North Shore Chicago suburb where he grew up. “My parents took me to theatre in Chicago. It was amazing. I’ve always been grateful they did that.” After studying mime and performing in Paris, he returned to make his fortune in the U.S. Postal Service. “It seemed like a lot of money to me at the time.”  From Sonoma County, he came to Humboldt with his daughter to earn his theatre MFA at HSU.

For most of its life, NCRT has been housed in this former Salvation Army store, built in the 1923, and they’ve owned it since 1996. Improvements are ongoing. “The building’s been painted this year, we’ve had some foundation work, a new ventilation system—air conditioning for the first time—all thanks to the Arkleys. We got a computerized light board with a grant from Simpson’s. We get a lot of support from local businesses. Sometimes they’ll loan us furniture and props for a show, sometimes donate materials or give us a discount.”

 The 139-seat theatre “seems to work well for us. We sell out some nights for any given play, which tells me it’s a good size.” Still, it’s cramped quarters backstage, and a relatively low ceiling above the stage limits second and third levels, and also means “we’ll never do Peter Pan.”

The stage itself is rough and uneven, which is especially hard on dancers. “We’d like to redo the stage, it’s on our wish list. But really, this space can work just fine,” Thomas said. “It’s what we do with the space that counts. This crack on the floor is not important compared with how the acting’s going. If the product is good, that’s secondary. I’ve seen enough to know that.”

Simon Says

A pair of reviews of two Neil Simon plays, performed at North Coast Rep in 2006 and 2007.  It turns out it is too difficult to assign them to their actual dates in this site's chronology, but at least now they will be here, and are searchable through the labels.

Broadway Bound (2006)

Broadway Bound is about two brothers trying to break into TV as sketch comedy writers. It’s set in 1949, just a year or so before Neil Simon began writing for Sid Caesar along with his brother, Garfunkel, (or if you prefer his real name, Danny).

 By the 1980s, playwright Neil Simon was integrating the comedy that brought him Broadway success with the character drama he admired in Chekhov and Tennessee Williams. Eugene, his young alter ego in this play, is just discovering that his repressed anger in response to family tensions is a source of his comedy.  As this play’s author, Simon goes beyond unconscious reaction to careful and eloquent examination of the individuals in the family, as they prepare to go their separate ways.

 This is the third (and, according to Simon, the most autobiographical) of the “Eugene” trilogy that began with Brighton Beach Memoirs and continued at Army boot camp towards the end of World War II in Biloxi Blues.

 Eugene and his brother are working on a sketch for CBS, hoping it will be the ticket to their own apartment in Manhattan. Their socialist grandfather, is resisting the pleas of their Aunt Blanche to join his wife in a move to Florida. Their parents are coming to the end of their marriage.

 On the writing team, Eugene is the funny one and his brother Stan is in charge of structure. Stan says that even a comedy sketch requires conflict, which begins when somebody wants something. In this play, each character becomes very clear on what they want, and their thoughts about that and about each other become the play’s structure.

 Though that shape is lopsided for a well-made play, the individual scenes and provocative moments are likely to stay in your head for a long time, rearranging themselves in new webs of meaning.

 Henry Kraemer is engaging as Eugene in the current NCRT production, making the all-important connection with the audience as the play’s eyes and ears. Eugene is still pretty callow for a 24- year old Army veteran, but Kraemer’s ease wins the audience’s confidence while his energy propels Gene Cole’s fast-paced direction.

 With his measured deadpan delivery, Ellsworth Pence is the perfect counterpoint as the grandfather, especially at the start. The second act belongs to Gloria Montgomery as Kate, Eugene’s mother, and not only for the central scene of the play—the justifiably famous recounting of the night she danced with future movie star George Raft. Montgomery creates a memorable and individual Kate with great economy, honesty and emotional power.

 Jerry Nusbaum, Dmitry Tokarsky and Adina Lawson bring lucidity and feeling to their roles and especially their most vital moments. I felt the production lacked enough variation in the rhythm to separate moods and highlight particular moments, but the most important function is presenting the moments with clarity, and it accomplishes this with conviction. It’s a thought- provoking and moving experience, and funny, too.

Jake's Women (2007)

There's a particular interest in a writer seeing a play about a writer who is too much the observer and not enough the participant in his own life, especially when one is among those reviewers who began as a participant in theatre - as a playwright, actor, director and even a song composer, and whose role now is as journalist and judge.

Well, when you get a role, play it.

 In Neil Simon's play Jake's Women, a writer in his 50s imagines scenes with the women in his life as the fate of his marriage in crisis is decided. The current production at the North Coast Rep features fine performances.

 On opening night, a slow start with shaky (presumably New York) accents got a burst of energy and definition from Suza Lambert Bowser as the psychiatrist with the heart of a chorus girl. Young Derby McLaughlin, who played Jake's daughter Molly at 12 years old, provided not only another hit of vitality but of reality: She was winsome and wonderful, inhabiting her part completely. Christen Condry Whisenhunt also created a credible and funny character (Sheila, Jake's current girlfriend during his separation) with economy and comic grace. Theresa Ireland as Molly at 21, Shelley Stewart as Jake's sister, Karen, and Jolene Hayes as Maggie, Jake's wife at the start of the play, all had their shining moments.

 Kim Hodel had the plum part of Julie, Jake's perfect first wife, who he fell in love with when she was 21 and he was 24, and who died at 35. She played it with the moral beauty and physical radiance that forces us to wonder where the line is between Jake idealizing his dead wife and remembering her accurately - was she really this wonderful? Hodel is convincing as both fantasy and tragically lost reality, in a memorable performance.

Michael Thomas as Jake had the longest and most difficult role, as he was required to hold the stage and hold the play together for the entire evening. Some of the most taxing scenes come late in the second act, when Jake's frenzy accelerates and then must be transformed into the resolution of acceptance and vulnerability. He did yeoman's work, keeping the audience involved, and laughing.

 After 30 years and almost that many plays, Neil Simon knew how to generate laughter and tug at the heartstrings by the time this play was first produced in 1992. There are lots of laughs, some provocative remarks, and scenes that play like crazy. A dead wife gets to meet her daughter at 12 and 21 - how can you fail with a scene like that? (In this production, it doesn't fail.)

 Simon's laudable efforts to go beyond his usual stage presentation with imaginary encounters often succeed individually -- he plays with how much control Jake actually has over what he imagines, and over the characters in his fantasies.

 But even given all these audience-pleasing and thought-provoking elements, this play doesn't quite hold together. I hadn't seen it before, either on stage or what I suspect is the more successful television version (which Simon rewrote completely), so I strongly suspect its weaknesses are in the writing rather than James Read's efficient direction, the fine performances he nurtured or any other element of this production.

Beyond even the sometimes mawkish lines, the unlikely and too-perfect anecdotes explaining Jake's too-pat problems, and the strained clichés that go by in the last moments like stray bullets, the play as a whole totters on our not really knowing who Jake is. Jake's life beyond his fantasies has no reality, and neither does he.

This is also important because the central tension comes from Jake being unable to stop fantasizing his life (which gives him control) long enough to trust it and live it. Certainly there are some rueful truths about writers in this play. I've been known to complain that the problem with life is that you can't revise. But Jake's fantasies aren't demonstrably related to his work, which neither he nor anyone else talks about or seems to care about, but to some generic and one-dimensional image of The Writer.

 There are credible moments, as in his second-act frenzy of rapid-fire fantasies of vacations spots and new homes, like a writer brainstorming plots. But the writer thing becomes a weak conceit, and a very wobbly basis for a play.

 Thomas and especially Hayes (in the second most difficult role) are very good in the final scenes, when the script has other significant problems. Though I found the play unconvincing, the North Coast Rep production is certainly worth seeing for wit, emotionally indelible scenes and the array of satisfying performances.

A Funny Thing

This review of the 2006 production of A Funny Thing on the Way to the Forum at Ferndale Rep was originally paired with a review of Broadway Bound at NCRT-- hence the references to Sid Caesar.  The "Eugene" mentioned is the main character of Broadway Bound, based on Neil Simon himself.  Simon wrote for Sid Caesar, and wrote about that in Laughter on the 23rd Floor.  Larry Gelbart, who wrote "Forum," had also written for Caesar.  Sid, that is.

Along with Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen, Sid Caesar was a comic innovator in exploring the particular opportunities of the television medium, but sketch comedy goes back through radio, burlesque and vaudeville to Rome, where most of the comedies were variations on the plot of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. The aforementioned Larry Gelbart wrote the book, with Bert Shevelove. Gelbart wrote for the TV M*A*S*H, and also authored the kind of political satire that Eugene’s grandfather would like, like the teleplay about media barons, Weapons of Mass Distraction.

“Forum” was Stephen Sondheim’s first Broadway show writing music and lyrics. The story is an extended Sid Caesar sketch version of Roman comedy, with increasingly frenetic farce—characters with names like Hysterium and Erronius running around in togas-- punctuated by frequent songs.

 Except for the too-few melodies sung by the extraordinary Minderella Willens and the pleasing voice of Evan Needham, and a rollicking number featuring comic stars James Read, Steve Carter, Bob Wells and Lonnie Blankenchip, the songs are largely a distraction (but then, I’m not a Sondheim fan anyway.) But most of the cast is gloriously comic and energetic (including Carol Martinez, Evan Needham and Rob Service in crucial supporting roles), and the production is well served by all its other elements—lighting, costumes, set and Dianne Zuleger’s fast-paced direction.

 Among the fetching dancing courtesans, Kim Hodel in particular uses the spacious Ferndale stage to sinuous advantage. It’s naughty, it’s nice, it’s a sprightly evening (or afternoon) of summer fun. So let us bury our troubles and praise the Alumni—and all hail Sid Caesar, the mightiest Roman of them all!

TV or Not TV? I Hate Hamlet at NCRT

Another version of this review has appeared in the North Coast Journal.  There are additional notes below.

Several blocks from where a royal henchman cleverly castigates Shakespeare to his face in Redwood Curtain’s Equivocation, some contemporary Americans (and a distinguished ghost) are very conflicted about the Bard in the 1991 comedy I Hate Hamlet, now onstage at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka.

 After the TV series that made him famous was cancelled, Andrew Rally (played by Evan Needham) has been rediscovering himself as an actor in New York. His agent (Gloria Montgomery) encouraged him to audition for the title role in a Shakespeare in Central Park production of Hamlet, and he is cast.

 His romantic and virginal new girlfriend (Jennifer Trustem) swoons for the Shakespearian hero she wants him to be. But he immediately has second thoughts, especially after his Hollywood director (Anders Carlson) brings him a deal for a network series about a crusading young teacher in an inner city school who also has superpowers (he can fly, “but only about ten feet up. See, we’re keeping it real.”)

 All the action transpires in a vintage Manhattan apartment that Rally’s real estate agent (Kristen Collins) has found for him. It just happens to be the former abode of actor John Barrymore, whose 1920s Hamlet became legendary. A seance summons Barrymore from the beyond to advise Rally on his own portrayal of the conflicted Melancholy Dane.

 Should he or shouldn’t he? To be or not to be? TV or not TV? Does he hate Hamlet, or himself?

 I Hate Hamlet is a comedy by Paul Rudnick, rich in jokes but with a bit more substance than it pretends to have. It is also awkwardly constructed, especially at the start. With all the set-up, exposition and unfamiliar New York and German accents, the first act at NCRT wobbled gamely forward until Anders Carlson as the irrepressible Hollywood director infused the stage with comic energy. The character certainly provides it, with lines like: “Am I like the most self-obsessed person you’ve ever met? My answer? Yes.”

Carlson's character is also very funny on the supposed obsolescence of the stage.  After theatre and movies came television, he says.  "That's like, art perfected...I mean, when I go to the theatre I sit there and most of the time I'm thinking, which one is my armrest?"

The first act climaxes with a sword fight between the reluctant Rally and the buoyant Barrymore (choreographed by Jasper Anderton) that sparkles like the champagne Barrymore is simultaneously imbibing. Christian Litten is a lithe and athletic Barrymore, and even looks like the actor, especially in Laura Rhinehart’s costume that reproduces Barrymore’s Hamlet togs as seen in old photos.

 Most of what the play says about Barrymore is historically accurate and relevant to Rally’s dilemma. Barrymore was the theatrical equivalent of a sitcom actor until he triumphed as Hamlet on Broadway and perhaps more impressively, in London. Then he left for Hollywood.

 Director David Moore and cast seem to have elected to do a fairly subdued version of this sometimes raucously produced play. That choice perhaps allows for more human feeling in the Barrymore-Rally scenes in the second act—in any case, this is where Needham and Litten especially excel. Gloria Montgomery also delivers a moving set piece in Act II.

 On opening night some comic timing and delivery wasn’t yet sharp, a not uncommon occurrence. There seems to be more potential in the script for vocalizing (and projecting) some lusciously comic lines. Fortunately there are three more weekends in the run to discover such opportunities and possibly make a funny show funnier.

 Calder Johnson is scenic designer, Telfer Reynolds designed lighting, Michael Thomas the sound, Laura Rhinehart properties as well as costumes. I Hate Hamlet is performed weekends at NCRT through October 11. 442-6278, www.ncrt.net. 

[Aside]: In portraying a stage legend, I Hate Hamlet's 1991 Broadway production itself became legendary. The brilliant English actor (and former Hamlet) Nichol Williamson was increasingly erratic in his performance as Barrymore. In the sword fight one evening, he swatted costar Evan Handler in the back. Handler immediately exited the stage and kept on going, out of the theatre and out of the play forever.

I Hate Hamlet: Additional Notes

Why John Barrymore?  Why is he the Hamlet actor that returns from the beyond to counsel our TV-star protagonist in I Hate Hamlet?  After all, there have been more recent and therefore more familiar Hamlets: Laurence Olivier certainly was identified with the role, while Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole famously played it.

A short answer is that it was John Barrymore's former Manhattan apartment that playwright Paul Rudnick was shown (some online articles say that Rudnick lived there, but he doesn't make that assertion in his script notes.)  This coincidence sparked the writing of the play.

But there are meaningful parallels between Barrymore and our protagonist as well.  First, however, who was John Barrymore?

Perhaps even in 1991 it was too early to mention that John Barrymore is Drew Barrymore's grandfather.  The first generation of Barrymore actors were Georgiana and Maurice Barrymore (Drew's great grandparents.)  The next and most legendary generation was composed of the siblings Lionel, Ethel and John.  They all are best known now for their movie performances, but they began on the stage.

  Ethel was the first to become a star in 1901, in the unlikely Broadway show Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines by an early Broadway playwright I've been reading a lot about lately, Clyde Fitch (His play Her Own Way was the first ever done by Humboldt State, and is being restaged as a radio-style drama by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance on October 3 and 4.)

Captain Jinks was also John Barrymore's first Broadway appearance. As I Hate Hamlet says, he started with mostly light comedy, but he did try more serious drama before Hamlet, including a role in Ibsen's A Doll's House (again with sister Ethel) and more individually in an adaptation of a Tolstoy play,confusingly retitled Redemption (since that was the title of a different Tolstoy novel.)  He also did an historical drama called The Jest with his brother Lionel--and this made Lionel a star.

John Barrymore warmed up his Shakespeare with voice lessons and a reputedly very uneven Richard III.  But then in 1922 came his triumphant Hamlet.  His erratic behavior and lack of concentration and consistency were on hold for awhile.  He prepared for Hamlet "meticulously," writes famed critic and theatre historian Brooks Atkinson.  The result: "John Barrymore played a Hamlet that most people ranked with Edwin Booth's, by tradition considered the greatest."

Another critic wrote that Barrymore had revolutionized Shakespearian acting by ending the "school of recitation."  Barrymore's performance was "alive with vitality and genius--a great, beautiful, rare Hamlet--understandable and coherent."

John Gielgud, whose own Hamlet would eventually break Barrymore's Broadway record for performances, saw the Barrymore performance and "admired it very much," noting that he had "a wonderful edge and a demonic sense of humour...Of all the actors in my time I felt he must be the nearest to Irving, with the same kind of extravagance and flowery, sinister power."

Barrymore's Hamlet is also notable for his interpretation of Hamlet's relationship with his mother as Oedipal.  This Freudian approach was adopted wholesale by Olivier, especially in his movie version of Hamlet, which he directed. (Gielgud also mentions that Barrymore "cut the play outrageously" so he could extend the scene between Hamlet and his mother that exemplified this approach.)

A few years later Barrymore took his Hamlet to London, and triumphed again.  He then gave up the Broadway stage, moved to Hollywood and made movies, where  he fully earned his reputation for womanizing and especially for drinking (apparently emphasized more in the original I Hate Hamlet Broadway production than at NCRT.)

But it is not true, as stated in I Hate Hamlet, that he never returned to the stage.  He made one last Broadway starring appearance.  In a reputedly mediocre play (My Dear Children) he gave "a first-rate performance," Atkinson writes.  "There was a kind of admirable, if perverse gallantry about this final fling at the stage..." (Atkinson saw this play himself, and may have seen Barrymore's Hamlet.)  This play ran for four months in 1940.  John Barrymore died in 1942.

So the parallels between Barrymore and Andrew Rally, both obvious and subtle, underlie this "boulevard comedy" as Rudnick describes it.  Rally comes from commercial TV but at least part of him longs for artistic challenge and expression (so he auditioned five times for this Hamlet.)  Barrymore came from commercial theatre and was uneducated and untrained for classical roles, yet he pursued such roles and worked hard to excel in them.  Barrymore also knew the temptations of Hollywood--in his case, the movies.

They are both conflicted.  And of course they are talking about the most famously conflicted character in classical drama: Hamlet.

The contrasts between Rally and Barrymore--notably involving women and drink--also figure in the comedy, but the relationship they build in the second act is based on these common threads, as well as one more: the brotherhood of Hamlets.

Playing Hamlet is a kind of rite of passage for actors (which is partly why there is a new Hamlet somewhere in England almost continuously.)  Especially for a young actor it is the most complex role, offering the most challenge and the most breadth of opportunity for interpretation.  (Lear is the equivalent for older actors.)

David Warner Hamlet 1965

There is a kind of brotherhood established by the actors (a few of them women) who have played Hamlet, and a feeling established in theatre lore that after playing Hamlet an actor is never the same.  You get some sense of this in the conversation that David Tennant has with other Hamlets like Jude Law and David Warner  in the BBC's "Shakespeare Uncovered" series, which is viewable on YouTube.  I remember Tennant talking about this brotherhood of Hamlets and the mystique of the role in an interview, which I can no longer find.

A personal note: I don't recall actually meeting Paul Rudnick when we were both writing for Esquire, but I heard about him from mutual friends and editors.  The word was that he was very funny, and very New York.

An Unequivocal Success at Redwood Curtain

David Hamilton and Ambar Cuevas at Redwood Curtain

It is 1606 and the chief minister to the new English King (James I) commissions the most popular playwright of the day to write a play about the notorious Gunpowder Plot that sought to blow up the Parliament building while the king and his family were there. That playwright is William “Shagspeare”--one of several ways Shakespeare’s name was spelled by his contemporaries. The English weren’t big on consistent spelling at the time.

 So begins Equivocation, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka. It is a comedy and a political whodunit, told in contemporary language by a playwright who also wrote an episode of TV’s political potboiler “House of Cards,” but it's set in the early 17th century: Shakespeare In Love meets All the President’s Men.

Shakespeare’s sleuthing begins with a motive unknown to Woodward and Bernstein, or even Sherlock Holmes. He’s worried that the official version of events just won’t make a good play. For instance, the gentlemen conspirators were supposed to have dug a tunnel. How could they? It needed supports, and pumps to keep the river out. And what did they do with the dirt? “There will be 700 penny-a-place standees at every performance, all of whom make their living with their hands,” Shakespeare says. “And if there’s anything these groundlings will want to know about, it’s the dirt.”

 But the bigger dramatic problem is that the plot was foiled, so the explosion didn’t happen. What was good for the King is bad for Shakespeare, because the play has no ending.

 The actors of the company are very funny as they grapple with these problems (as well as Shakespeare’s latest confusing play about a crazy King Lear. “If we could get through his comedies-don’t-have-to-be-funny period,” lead actor Richard Burbage reassures the company, “we can get through whatever this is.”)

 In search of theatrical reality Shakespeare speaks with two of the alleged conspirators, and the play moves into the darkness of the time: political intrigue involving religion and the state, with the King’s chief minister and spymaster, Robert Cecil at its center. Shakespeare begins to wonder who profits from the Gunpowder Plot, and why.

 Equivocation is by Bill Cain, a Jesuit priest and writer who started a Shakespeare company in Boston. Another Jesuit (Henry Garnet) features prominently in the story, especially in regard to the concept of “equivocation” he championed: telling the truth, but indirectly. The moral questions raised by equivocation turn out to have significance as well for Shakespeare (who wants to "tell the truth but not get caught at it")  and his plays.

 Eventually Shakespeare completes a play, though not exactly the one commissioned, and it is the occasion for more mesmerizing action, including as a sword fight. Prior knowledge of Shakespeare and these times aren’t required, but they’ll add to the appreciation.

 Even more than usual for Redwood Curtain, the acting is excellent. This time the clarity and conviction of the acting are elevated as the actors meet the challenges of a witty, theatrical and multi-layered script. They respond with performances that rank among their best, at least in my experience.

 David Hamilton plays Shakespeare through the moods of his journey, revealing his humanity. Gary Sommers as Burbage and others, especially the Jesuit Garnet, is precise and evocative. James Hitchcock navigates both the wily Robert Cecil and Nate, the most grounded of the players, with economy and force.  Dimitry Tokarsky likewise inhabits his roles with an assurance we share. As both Richard Sharpe (the youngest player) and King James, Cody Miranda has a startling moment playing a scene between the two. With his posture and his eyes, he conveys the cruelty hidden in the cocksure King.

 The play also involves the central role of family, especially the relationship of Shakespeare and his daughter, Judith, whose cynical skepticism is eventually transformed. Ambar Cuevas plays all those colors well, but her performance in the closing scene is exceptionally moving.

 The other elements of this production are equally admirable: the elegant and spacious set by Ray Gutierrez, dramatic lighting by Michael Burkhart, pleasing costumes by Jenneveve Hood, among important others. Director Catherine L. Brown knits all these elements together into a convincing and entertaining world. Though not perfect in preview, this show is an unequivocal success.

This is an unusually rich and thematically ambitious play, and one that takes chances.  After all, it is a play about a play that doesn't get written about an event that doesn't take place. It even violates Shakespeare's rules (histories end in battle, comedies in marriage, tragedies in death): it is a history and a comedy that ends in death.

 To mention more about it would involve too much space and too many spoilers for an opening review, so I’ll suggest some of its textures in the notes below, especially for those who see it. But playgoers should be prepared for some enacted and mostly suggested violence, including torture. (It’s no coincidence that this play was written during the Bush administration.)

 Craig Benson is the fight choreographer, Brandi Lacy the dialect coach, and various effects are engineered by Jared Sorenson, Jillian Park and Hanah Toyoda. Christopher Joe is sound designer, Shea King assistant director and dramaturg. Equivocation is on stage at Redwood Curtain weekends through September 27. 443-7688, www.redwoodcurtain.com.

Equivocation: Notes and Spoilers

yesterday and today: The Globe

These notes contain spoilers, but mostly they address questions that might be raised by seeing the play.

 Equivocation is so rich in characters, themes and resonance (too rich for some tastes) that to do much more than introduce the basic action, as I did in my review, would just be confusing.

The play is set in 1606, yet in style it's contemporary.  Previous productions in fact have been done in modern dress, as the playwright suggests.  Redwood Curtain chooses a modified period style.

"The Shakespeare Code"

Since at least Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, there have been a number of plays that use Shakespeare's stories with a twist, or in which Shakespeare himself appears, usually as a more or less contemporary person in historical circumstances--from Shakespeare in Love (Stoppard again) to a classic episode of David Tennant's Doctor Who ("The Shakespeare Code.")  Equivocation follows in this "tradition", and depends on what are now the conventions of it.  Especially that we aren't thrown off by people in 1606 talking a lot like 2006, minus contemporary references.

Yet the play purports to show the interplay of  English politics and William Shakespeare's theatre company in the early 17th century, and involves a famous historical event--the Gunpowder Plot, which is still the focus of holiday celebrations in the UK. (We mostly know it as Guy Fawkes Day, celebrating both the anarchic spirit and the survival of the British government, with bonfires and fireworks.)

 So the first question that might arise after seeing the play could be: how much of the history is made up?

Robert Cecil

Most if not all of the characters named are authentic historical figures.  The play begins with Robert Cecil commissioning Shakespeare to write a play about the Gunpowder Plot, based on a history written by King James himself.  Robert Cecil was indeed Secretary of State to both Queen Elizabeth and then James, and was widely regarded as James' spymaster.  James did write essays etc., though perhaps not this particular history.

Elizabeth's long reign had ended in 1603.  She died without children and without naming an heir.  Cecil was (as noted in this play) instrumental in having James installed as King.  James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and was ruling Scotland at the time.  By becoming King, he became head of the Church of England.

Since Henry VIII, the official religion in England was the Church of England, with the King as its head.  Previously England had been Roman Catholic (with the Pope as its head), and ever since Henry there had been religious and political conflict between outlawed adherents of "the old religion" and the official Protestant religion.

The Gunpowder Plot was ostensibly a conspiracy of various English gentlemen and perhaps clergy to overthrow the government and establish a new monarch (Mary's young daughter Elizabeth, with a Catholic regent acting on her behalf.)  The idea was to plant a large quantity of gunpowder beneath the room where Parliament had its opening ceremonies, with the King, his family and ministers attending.  (Wikipedia has an extensive entry on the topic.)

King James

The official version of these events--the letter that eventually alerted Robert Cecil to the plot, the arrests that foiled the plot--are as described in this play.  The conspirators were said to have dug a tunnel to a room under Parliament--Shakespeare has problems believing this in the play, and subsequent historians have found no evidence for a tunnel.  Such a room existed (and still does.) Oddly it was in private hands at the time and no such extreme measures as a tunnel were needed to store gunpowder in it.  If the gunpowder said to have been found in this room really was there, it was more than enough to demolish Parliament and kill everyone in the room (according to a British TV experiment.)

Equivocation

Garnet

Two other historical figures and characters in the play are Thomas Wintour and the Jesuit priest Henry Garnet.  They were among those imprisoned, tortured and executed in the manner described in the play.  The play faithfully follows the version of his involvement that Garnet asserted--he knew only what had been said to another priest in confession.  He did in fact write a treatise on "equivocation," although he was not the only one or even the first to relate it to "mental reservation", a concept within Catholic and specifically Jesuit ethics, though it has earlier origins.

"Equivocation," as Garnet defines it in the play: "Don't answer the question they're asking. If a dishonest man has formed the question, there will be no honest answer. Answer the question beneath the question. The equivalent question. Answer the question really asked. And answer it with your life."

This play suggests that Robert Cecil himself was behind the gunpowder plot, or at least the story of it that he wanted told.  This was a suspicion of the time, and was developed as a theory by Father John Gerard in 1897.  Others refute these claims.  That Cecil learned of the plot and let it develop for awhile before exposing it is more credible, and more credible still is that he used it for his own political ends.

Cecil, by the way, was a hunchback as suggested in the play, and both his family's prior history he refers to, and its subsequent important history in British government he foresees into the 21st century (including a Nobel Peace Prize), are broadly accurate.

Besides Cecil and other figures involved in the gunpowder plot and its aftermath, Equivocation makes William Shakespeare a character, as well as depicting members of his theatrical troupe.

Shakespeare and all the King's Men

from Shakespeare in Love

 I could verify all the players in Shakespeare's troupe--the King's Men-- that this play names, except "Nate," but in an interview, Equivocation's playwright Bill Cain claimed that an actor by that name was in fact among them.  Richard Burbage was Shakespeare's lead actor.  Robert Armin played the clown roles and had an excellent singing voice.  He was a more verbal comic than Will Kempe, who he replaced.  Richard Sharpe was indeed a young member, who before he joined the company started out very young playing women's parts.

Shakespeare in fact did have a daughter named Judith, and she was the twin sister of his son Hamnet, who died at age 11.  But it does seem she was back with her sister in Stratford and not living with her father in London, as in this play.  The play also shows her reading and even editing Shakespeare's texts, but (according to Shakespeare biographer Peter Ackroyd) in fact she was probably illiterate.

There are many witty lines about Shakespeare and his present day status made by Cecil and others.  He's all things to all men, Cecil says, and adds later, "People will go to your plays as they used to go to church. Reverently. And they will leave exactly as they went in, unchanged but feeling somehow improved."

  It's also suggested that Shakespeare was a long-retired actor in his troupe, and not a very good one.  However it's probable that he stopped acting just a few years before, in 1603 or 04.  And there are those (including Orson Welles and Peter O'Toole) who looked at the parts he played and concluded he must have been one of the troupe's better actors.

This play shows the company rehearsing King Lear, and then performing Macbeth.  In fact Macbeth was performed for King James probably in the spring of 1606. King Lear was probably performed that December, so the earlier rehearsals aren't outlandish.

Equivocation begins with Shakespeare being given a commission to write a play based on the official version of the Gunpowder Plot, as written by King James.   Being named the King's Men was an honor but it also meant that the company performed many plays a year before the king and the court.  Still, there's no record of such a commission.

But the idea might have been inspired by a slightly earlier event, in which Shakespeare and his company may have been deliberately used as an adjunct to violent political plot, with potentially disastrous results.  In 1601, supporters of the Earl of Essex paid for a performance by Shakespeare's company of his play Richard II, which involves the deposing of the king.  Some of these were also conspiring with Essex to start a rebellion against the government.  It was alleged later that they were using the performance both as a cover for their activities that day, and as inspiration and justification for overthrowing the monarch.  But the revolt failed, and after some uncertainty, Shakespeare and players escaped punishment.

Orson Welles as Macbeth

Shakespeare, in this play and in reality, never wrote a play about the gunpowder plot, but as in this play, the next play he wrote and produced was Macbeth.  Scenes from it, with some theatrical additions, are the climax of Equivocation.

The relationships of Macbeth to James I, the gunpowder plot and the concept of equivocation drawn in this play are drawn elsewhere in the critical literature. From one point of view, Macbeth is about the consequences of killing a king.  It's the Scottish play, James was a Scot, and (according to Ackroyd) "King James had been greeted by three sibyls at the gates of an Oxford college and hailed as the true descendant of Banquo."  In Shakespeare's play, Banquo is declared the father of kings by three witches, and Macbeth murders him.  Shakespeare differs here from previous stories about Macbeth, in which Banquo is among the conspirators against the rightful king Duncan (who Macbeth also murders.)  This can be seen as illustrating of the charge Cecil makes in Equivocation, that Shakespeare, a master of equivocation, made sure to stay on the right side of the powerful.

In Equivocation, much is made of King James wish that there be witches in Shakespeare's play.  James was known for his interest in occult or malign spirits, and had written on the subject.

Judith Shakespeare

At the end of  Equivocation, Judith makes a powerful point about Shakespeare's last plays, and the father-daughter relationships within his general theme of family.  Peter Ackroyd makes much the same point in his biography of Shakespeare--in fact, since this book was published in 2005, it may have suggested this observation to playwright Cain.  "The essential bond is father and daughter. It may not be the pattern of his life," Ackroyd wrote, "but it clearly is the pattern of his imagination."


Contemporary Flavors

Equivocation was first produced up in Ashland at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009, so it's reasonable to assume Cain wrote it during the G.W. Bush administration.  There certainly are echoes of the Bush administration's use and justification of torture.  There's suggestion of the political exploitation of the plot that succeeded (9/11) as well as the plot that failed (the gunpowder plot.)

There's also some echo of today's polarized politics. In the play Robert Cecil admits that his political purpose is to keep the country sharply divided. "When a country is evenly divided - and plots can be so helpful for that - the slightest touch of a royal finger on the scale changes the balance."

But contemporary as well as historical relevance go beyond these specifics, at least in Cain's stated intent.  He'd visited the Tower of London, seen where prisoners had been tortured, and noticed that the Globe theatre was close by.  He said that this play is about "the relationship of the Tower and the theatre," and that Shakespeare's troupe "was the only functioning democracy anywhere in the world in 1605."

Symmetries

There are several witty comments on Shakespeare's dramaturgy, and the nature of plays in general that this play turns into elegant symmetries.

In Equivocation Shakespeare complains that the gunpowder plot can be made into a dramatic play because the explosion never happened--it's a story without an ending.  He tries various ways to write this play, but does not succeed.  Yet what is Equivocation itself about? A play that never gets written about an event that never takes place.

But this Shakespeare also wants to revolt against the strictures of what must be in a play. He tells Judith he yearns to write "A new kind of play. Not the clash of opposites, but their union. Not tearing; joining. Forgiveness, not blame." "A play that's not about revenge?" Judith retorts. "It can't be done."  But he does it in his later plays.

Several times Shakespeare also bemoans other conventions of the stage--histories end in battle, comedies in marriage and tragedies in death--and longs to write a play that defies these.  Arguably Shakespeare also did this in his later plays, but so does Bill Cain: Equivocation is a history and a comedy that ends in death (Shakespeare's.)

A Midsummer Night's Stage: Review

When the play calls for an enchanted forest, why try to fake it on a stage, when you can take the stage to the forest? That’s the solution in the Plays in the Park production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, now at Redwood Park in Arcata.

 Down the grassy hill from the Arcata Community Forest, tucked in a corner bowered by real redwoods, a few stump-like platforms dot the uneven ground that is strewn with feathery wood shavings to pillow a stage. Bleachers hug its fringes. Behind them is a canvas-covered concession stand with hot drinks, cookies and popcorn. There’s a restroom in a lighted building nearby.

 The play begins at 7 p.m., in the last clear light of a midsummer evening. We first meet the nobles: Theseus, a duke of Athens, and his betrothed, Hippolyta, as they discuss their upcoming nuptials. Some productions obscure the fact that Theseus has won her in battle, for she is queen of the Amazons. This production suggests it in an intriguing way, by staging their first conversation during a friendly fencing match.

 The other nobles include an irate father and two young couples in a complex love tangle. Then we meet a group of commoners rehearsing a play they hope to perform as part of the duke’s wedding celebration. Then the spirit king (Oberon) and fairy queen (Titania) of the forest appear, continuing their ongoing argument that’s causing weird weather and unnatural events. Among the other creatures of the night is the magical prankster Puck, also called Robin Goodfellow. All three of these worlds will intersect in a comedy of confused enchantments.

 Much of the action and the beginning of the resolutions occur in this production’s first act. Dominating the second act is the commoners’ performance of a “merry and tragical” story about the star-crossed lovers Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakespeare wrote his midsummer play within a year or two of Romeo and Juliet, and this playlet is its comically absurd version. Children in the audience on opening night led the laughter.

 The final scene, in which the magical creatures greet another night and address the audience, takes place near 9:30 p.m., surrounded by the real night’s first deep darkness. It is a living midsummer night’s dream.

 In many ways, this charming production could have been mounted any night in the past four centuries. Some features of it probably were part of the original: fairies played by children, a dog (Elizabethans loved a dog), and actors playing more than one part. In Arcata, Kenneth Wigley is appropriately imperious as both the duke and the spirit king, with comic notes of irony and vexation. Kim Haile creates a real character for the Amazon queen—sensuous, strong and thoughtful—and varies these qualities for the fairy queen.

 The most spectacular doubling is accomplished by Chyna Leigh who changes from a bespeckled commoner to the sprightly Puck before our eyes. Megan Johnson portrays Bottom, the commoner who is transformed into an animal particularly apt for the name, and who becomes the love object of the bewitched fairy queen. Leigh’s lithe, mesmerizing Puck and Megan Johnson’s buoyant, open-hearted performance as a gender-bent Bottom propel the action, the comedy and the magic.

 Yet for all its classic elements, this production is also subtly contemporary, without making a big point of shifting period or place. This is most evident with the thwarted lovers, who dress like North Coast students and make Shakespeare’s words seem natural expressions of their feelings. Eva Brena especially incorporates the hint of a familiar teenage whine in her character’s timeless complaints.

 The other lovers—played by Thsnat Berhe, Ethan Frank and Julia Hjerpe—are spirited and convincing. Ken Klima plays the irate father Egeus with authority.

 Especially important to audiences of Shakespeare in an outdoor setting: almost all of the time the actors speak clearly and loudly enough to be heard. The play’s bright surface is emphasized but Shakespeare’s psychologically acute explorations of conscious and unconscious, dream and reality are readily available in the words.

 Director Evan Needham makes some apt and inventive theatrical choices for troublesome moments while providing seamless entertainment. Calder Johnson designed scene and lighting, Marissa Menezes the costumes, Chyna Leigh makeup and hair. Performing as fairies are Sydnee Stanton, Emily Martinez, Zoe Osborn and Melina Ledwith. A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. through August 30 in Redwood Park.  822-7091, www.playsinthepark.net.

This summer Plays in the Park also presents Scheherazade: Legend of the Arabian Nights, a family show by Susan Pargman, a former arts director for the Cross Sound Church who currently runs Drama Kids International. It is directed by Charlie Heinberg, with choreography by Shoshanna, sound and music by Christopher Joe, scenic design by Mark Dupre and Calder Johnson, and costumes by Megan Johnson.

 The performers are Alexis Perez, Mia Gonzalez, Chris Joe, Tristan Ford, Caleb Haley, Alyssa Rempel, Jenn Trustem, Christine Johnson, Anaiyah Bird, Cara Pierleoni, Keryl Lopez, Anthony Fleck, Dylan Wilkerson, Mia Rasmussen and Benjamin Smith. Scheherazade is performed (with no admission charge) Sundays at 2 p.m. through August 31.

A Midsummer Night's Stage: Additional Notes

For the sake of brevity (and word count) in the review I refer to the folks who play the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude as “commoners” but they are more specific than that. They are workers (the Plays in the Park production shows them in overalls; this photo is from an Old Vic production) of a specific kind: a weaver, a joiner, etc. In other words, craftsmen or skilled workers. In Shakespeare’s time they were called “mechanicals.”

 Shakespeare wrote his midsummer play within a year or two of Romeo and Juliet, and this playlet is its comically absurd version.

Commentator Harold Bloom writes that this play was composed in the winter of 1595-96, and that Romeo and Juliet was written in 1595. Scholar A.D. Nuttall agrees that both plays were written in roughly these years but concedes that it can’t be proven that “either play preceded the other.” But he feels it is unlikely that Shakespeare would have parodied Romeo and Juliet in The Pyramus and Thisbe interlude before he had written it.  He considers other resemblances--and direct opposites--of the two plays.  The Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe of course predates A Midsummer Night's Dream, which in other respects seems to have no prior play or story as a model, a rarity in Shakespeare.

 Director Evan Needham makes some apt and inventive theatrical choices for troublesome moments...

 For instance, in an early scene the duke speaks a line that suggests his betrothed is not happy about how he handled the conflict involving the irate father and his daughter. Often this is performed as a throwaway, or her displeasure is muted. Needham had Kim Haile stalk out of the scene in anger. So the duke’s “What cheer?” not only made sense, it got a laugh.

 Some features of it probably were part of the original: fairies played by children, a dog (Elizabethans loved a dog)...

A dog act of some kind was a frequent feature of stage plays, including Shakespeare, although Elizabethan tastes in animal acts was also less benign: various cruel forms of bear-baiting and fighting were very popular shows. (Not to worry--the dog in the Plays in the Park is cute and may even get his tummy tickled.)

 But fondness for a dog on stage continued in subsequent centuries to the point that there was an actual version called “Dog’s Hamlet,” in which Hamlet spoke his soliloquies to his dog. This probably is a punning reference in Tom Stoppard’s short play “Dogg’s Hamlet,” in which players speak in an artificial language called “dogg.” Stoppard also made fun of the Elizabethan taste for dogs in Shakespeare’s plays several times in his script for Shakespeare in Love.

 ...Shakespeare’s psychologically acute explorations of conscious and unconscious, dream and reality are readily available in the words. 

Several commentators on this play point out how remarkably well Shakespeare anticipated Freud and Jung. I noticed a couple of examples at Plays in the Park. When Puck douses the eyes of one of the sleeping male lovers with a potion that causes him to fall in love with the first woman he sees when he awakes, and that is not the woman he actually loves but another, he immediately begins to argue in terms of reason why he’s suddenly changed his mind and now loves another. This is precisely how the unconscious works, according to Jung (and maybe Freud, I don’t know, I’ve read much more Jung.) We immediately rationalize impulses from the unconscious, and often actually believe we’ve made a reasoned choice when we’re operating from denial, projection, etc.

 I noticed also an example of the interpenetrating worlds of dream and reality is reflected in Bottom’s mixing of the senses. Awaking from his spell—his dream—he speaks of eyes hearing and ears seeing. But he does so again, in character during the Pyramus and Thisbe playlet.

The opposites that interpenetrate include spirits and mortals (there’s suggestion of a sexual interpenetration among the royals of each world), day and night, light and dark. The place where light and dark meet is the moon, and where reality and dream meet is the imagination. (The moon as a symbol of the imagination runs throughout literature, notably in the 20th century poet Wallace Stevens.)

 In this play there is a lot of moon imagery (noted in detail by literary critic Northrop Frye), including luna-tic. Late in the play, the duke makes a speech about the imagination in relation to madness and poetry that apart from the instant quotations (“What fools these mortals be,” “The course of true love never did run smooth,” etc.) is the play’s most famous speech. Unfortunately, in the Plays in the Park performance, that speech is mostly eliminated, as is at least one earlier reference to the moon as cold and lifeless.

The key lines in the play that unite the theme of love with the psychological and other oppositions belongs to Bottom, responding to the fairy queen when she first professes her love.  "Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that: And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays: The more the pity, that some honest neighbors will not make them friends." 

On Plays in the Park...

This is just the second year for Arcata Plays in the Park in the current incarnation.  There are lots of ways to do plays in parks in the summer, and mindful of this, especially for those unfamiliar with attending plays in these circumstances, I included more description than usual of the premises and conditions, so potential audience members have a better idea of what to expect.  I could have added a few more details: prepare for nighttime chill, bring something to cushion the metal bleacher seats and most particularly to this venue, bring a flashlight to get back to your car.  When it's dark in Redwood Park, it's really dark.