"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?"

Sick yesterday so I took things easy. Now I'm ruminative and I been thinking...

The end of the play is horrifying! Every time I've seen it (including the time I directed it), it's done as this "aw, shucks", "will you go to the prom with me?" sort of afterschool special thing, like it belongs in one of the "earlier, funnier" comedies. It stuns me continually that audiences accept this treatment of the scene. Consider what's come before: England has, with little recent provocation, invaded France and killed or captured over 10,000 soldiers, 126 of them nobles, a fact that no doubt leaves Charles' castle feeling a little empty. In the scene itself, Burgundy delivers a speech that exhorts peace but in his words he can barely conceal his loathing for the continual aggression of the English. Henry basically says "Sign the paper and everything's cool, but if you don't, we have a problem." Oh, and by the way, can I talk to your daughter quick? Try to imagine Harry Truman hitting up Hirohito's daughter on the deck of the Missouri and you come close to the ridiculousness of this scene.

I understand that, despite the horrors of war on display in earlier acts, Henry V is essentially an historical adventure play for your average Elizabethan Londoner and every adventure needs a love story. But how the crap are we supposed to think this is cute? If I wrote a scene where a girl's dad made her marry the CEO who was taking over his company against her wishes and everyone was totally cool about it, there'd be rioting in the streets. Oh, but the CEO is cute and tells a self-deprecating joke or two, so don't worry about it.

We're going to block and work this scene tonight and I'm hoping for a breakthrough or five but I've got some serious issues about how this scene should be portrayed and how it'll be received. I know that, by the end of the play, people are ready to laugh and enjoy something light-hearted, but it seems like a disservice to make this scene fulfill that role. It ends up being more chauvinistic than people claim Taming of the Shrew is.

"Darling, being out of your box is a privilege, not a right..."

"Why should a man whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?..."

First week of rehearsal down. Our director for Taming took the week off so I was able to focus more on Henry V. We got a lot done in three days of rehearsal, including doing Harfleur, Bardolph's death scene AND St. Crispin's day all in two hours. Once more into the breach, indeed.

General thoughts? I'm gonna need a lot of water, but I'm not sure when I'll get to drink it. Also, it's FUN. Lots of fun. The general idea of the St. Crispin's Day speech is to act like you're jazzed about winning the upcoming battle and to joyously exhort the men, but truthfully, there's not much acting required. It's a bunch of fun to jump up on the platform and see all those expectant faces looking super jazzed already. It's gonna be great if I can avoid...

Yellitis. [ye·li·tis] :when a young, inexperienced (usually male) actor mistakes vocal volume for gravitas or intense emotion. see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in "The Tudors", Hayden Christiansen in Episode III, or Kenneth Branagh in any frickin' scene of Hamlet. Yellitis is a stone killer and it's out there. Sure, your character is upset. Sure, it's outdoor theatre. But yelling at the top of your lungs isn't acting; it's brachiating. There are other ways to convey emotional intensity. Look at Anthony Hopkins. How much yelling does Hannibal Lecter do? Those at highest risk for Yellitis are 20-30 year old male actors who are taking on more responsibility than they think they can handle. I'm watching plenty of "The Tudors" in an effort to inoculate myself against Yellitis, "the Noisy Killer".

I like the rehearsal process, so far; as previously mentioned, our director is extremely familiar with the play and is bringing some great ideas to rehearsal, but encouragingly, he is also open to other people's ideas and things that spontaneously happen during the work. I mean, we were only BLOCKING last week and we've already had a few "Holy Crap! let's do this! moments.

I need to amend a bit some of my earlier statements about the Falstaff Gang. The great thing about getting older is that you're supposed to get smarter, although for myself (and Congress) that curve seems to be irregular sometimes. I've been reading an old book of Shakespeare commentary recently for ideas. How old? It was one of my mother's English Lit textbooks when she was an undergrad, written back when Harold Bloom was deconstructing his high school prom. One of the things the book points out is how the action "in the trenches" (i.e. in the Boar's Head, on the battlefield) provides important contrast and commentary on the actions of the king and court. This is easy to forget, mainly because any stage or film production that wants to tell the story in 90 minutes usually cuts the counterpoint scenes first. I mean, people would rather see Henry yelling up on a platform than hear Gower complain about how they had to kill all the prisoners, right? We've cut those scenes as well, but we can hardly be blamed as our show length is as much about astrophysics as it is about audience interest; we only have so much daylight. Still, Shakespeare planted obvious parallels in both the action and dialogue of the "courtly" scenes and the "common" ones, even down to having characters echo each other literally. The best example I can think of is when Henry is reading the sentence of the conspirators and either honestly or politically invokes God in his God-like judgment of them:

"God quit you in his mercy!"

"...the taste whereof God of his mercy give you patience..."

"Since God so graciously hath brougth to light.."

"Let us deliver our puissance into the hand of God..."

Henry is both speaking for God and essentially holding up the idea that his war is approved by God. In the next scene, Mistress Quickly is describing Falstaff's last moments and remarks "So 'a cried out 'God, God, God' three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." It's a strange parallel between Henry and the men he's rejecting and the man he has already rejected, Falstaff, and between what "God" means to a conquering king and what He means to a dying rogue.

Henry V is (or at its best, should be) about the nature of leadership and how a leader relates to his constituency, and vice-versa. It's not about a guy who doesn't like tennis balls and wants to kick Frenchy butt. In fact, I wish that there had been similar commentary embedded in the French court's dialogue and possibly even the French rank-and-file, detailing their opinions of their king and the situation their country finds itself in. Instead, it's mostly about their horses and how bad-ass they are. If Shakespeare had made his examination of wartime politics dipolar by seriously examining the French viewpoint, this might've been a truly great play instead just an okay, rah-rah English one. Speaking of opposite viewpoints, is there a French-authored tragedy contemporary with Henry V that deals with the terrible loss at Agincourt and how the French dealt with it? Like "The Madness of King Charles VI"? Just curious; might be a good one to do in rep with Henry...

"My lord? The upstairs neighbors are complaining about the yelling again..."

"The flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold..."

Read Henry V finally, on Thursday night. I think every cast member has at least one role in the show, not to mention one of the directors. We didn't talk too much about the "concept" for the show, but it's obvious our director is very familiar with the show and he had some interesting things to say about it.

Some of my thoughts, post-read-through:

THERE ARE A LOT OF LINES. Nothing that was cut will be too sorely missed.

Canterbury/Ely conversation cut...oh, well...Making the audience sit through both that and the "King Pharamond" would be a little much to ask.

Henry's charge to Canterbury to "take heed" with the impawning is a warning to be fully open and truthful or is it Henry divesting himself legally of responsibility for what may happen later, because "we hear note and believe", i.e. Colin Powell said they had W.M.D.s and we trust him so...

Levels, man...it's all about the levels. It'll be a real Roman holiday finding the right tone for the various speeches Henry has. "We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant..." could end really angry, but then you steal from "You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy", which gets sad around "so finely bolted didst thou seem", but can't be too sad anticipating "O, not today, think not upon the fault", which is somewhat cowed, similar to "tell thy king I do not seek him now"...etc. etc. The only part of this show that I feel 100% comfortable with is the tacked-on comedic ending, because it's funny and cute and I can do that.

The Falstaff Gang is fun but I wonder if they're completely necessary. There are plenty other "common" soldiers to play with in the show, like MacMorris and Gower (my girlfriend says they're the superfluous ones). What strikes me is that it seems they really were included because it's a continuation of Hal's through-line from the earlier history plays. You don't have to know anything about Falstaff to enjoy Henry V, but it helps. It's like when I saw Major League 2; I think I was able to work out the basic connections without having seen Major League 1. It's interesting to see Shakespeare paying service to his faithful audience members that way. "Sequels" seem so movie-ish but I guess we didn't invent them.

All three conspirators are being played by women. As if this show wasn't chauvinist enough, now we can't trust them devil women! Lets make the whole French court female (and Montjoy a post-op transgender)!

Well, the French lords that aren't suffering from organic brain dementia or who are suicidally stupid end up sounding like Henry's press agents. No one listens to the constable, anyway. Let's just say, I feel that this side of the battle is under-portrayed. It's like when you watch a Pearl Harbor movie (not Tora! Tora! Tora!, because it doesn't do what I'm describing) and Toshiro Mifune or whoever is playing Yamamoto and he's basically just a guy in an office on the phone saying "Yes. Bomb them now!" in English. Nationalism gets the better of historical accuracy here, for sure. Fun fact: Mifune Toshiro played Adm. Yamamoto in four separate films.

Just a note on Fluellen, Gower, Jamy and MacMorris: archaic racial stereotypes are always funny.

We'll see how a scene entirely in French and broken English (Frenglish?) will play with the good people of White Bear Lake.

Hanging Bardolph on stage FTW!

The French love their horses. Let's just hope the French don't LOVE their horses.

Ah yes, the war debate scene...good stuff. Of course, they're debating the cause of the war AFTER they've invaded the Continent...what does Petruchio say? "Better once than never, for never too late."

St. Crispian's Day rah rah. Up on the balcony maybe? It might be interesting to have the army up on the balcony and on the stage and Henry on the grass DC, exhorting the men but the audience, too by proxy. Heh heh, supposedly the actual historical speech given by Henry was a bit more pragmatic, running more along the lines of "All these French guys are rich, so if they get captured, they'll all be ransomed and get to go home. You poor bastards are broke and will be slaughtered to the last man if we don't win this thing. Uh...on ST. CRISPIN'S DAY!!!"

The battle is, of course, a mess, with both sides breaking the "rules" of war and inventing new ones, as well. Shakespeare inflates the losses a bit; it's more like 250 English lost to 6,000 French. STILL. Those are US Army vs. the Republican Guard type numbers. Those longbows must have come with a money-back guarantee. The French were not really as eager to fight as their scene implies; they were actually waiting for even MORE men to arrive and so the battle didn't start until 3 or so hours after dawn, with an opening volley by English bowmen. Our fights at S&C, whether cavalier, old Scottish, Edwardian, whatever, always feature two to four guys wailing on each other with longswords. It would be cool if we could capture the total quagmire the battle turned into...mud, blood, guys hatcheting each other and knights drowning in their own armor. I'm sure the mud will be vetoed by the costumer, but I'd like this one to be pretty vicious.

And the last scene, which is really cute if you can ignore that this chick is basically being auctioned off to a foreign conqueror so she can crank out a few future kings. Ah, love.

Well, more to come once we start blocking!

"Is it gone? Did I get it all?

"Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage."

Read Taming of the Shrew last night. Fun, fun stuff. Loooong post to come about that show and what everyone's afraid to say about it, namely "It's not sexist!"

Cast for the show is great; a good mix of new people and old standbys. My girlfriend is playing Katherina to Petruchio, so we'll see if we survive the summer months. More to come in that promised post...

"When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools."

First company meeting last night. I have to start doing these as soon as I get home from rehearsal or I know I'll fall behind. Lots of new people this year and lots of healthy enthusiasm. All the new folks seem talented and hopefully they'll be game to let it all hang out this summer. There are 23(?) actors this year and 11 of them are virgins (White Bear virgins, that is) and we have one former alum who's come back to play (woot, Eric!).

We read Doctor in Spite of Himself last night...just glanced at it, really. Scanned it, if you will. At 33 pages, I think it's the shortest show I've done at S&C, and saving true one-acts, definitely one of the shortest shows they've produced. There's never a dearth of business that S&C actors can invent to lengthen a classic comedy (or, for that matter, a tragedy), but it's kinda surprising to see Jeff Altier, the Cecil B. DeMille of the Northeast suburbs, do 30-page show with a ten person cast. Like Joe Montana coaching pee-wee fooball...no, wait...like Patton overseeing a snowball fight. Yeah, I like that one better.

Somehow during introductions last night, "profession" got added to name, roles, and years in company, so I had the distinct honor of informing everyone that I do "nothing". I'm not totally comfortable presenting myself as an "actor" yet, mostly because I haven't earned enough at it to buy a pot to piss in. George suggested I was a "kept man". Touche', big guy. You just made the list.

"It was always yet the trick of our English, if they have a good thing, to make it too common..."

Okay, so first...how we gonna do it?

Henry V, taken all-in-all, is not particularly complex: young king wants to solidify his shaky dynasty with a conquest or two, so he sets his sights on the rude French (type-casting). His plucky, rag-tag army, against-all-odds beats a superior force and unites the kingdoms of England and France. And Henry marries the beautiful princess. And the Ewoks sing "Yub-Yub"...wait, that's the third movie...or the sixth one, whatever...

Anyway, this play (like the presentation of any play, I guess) is all about intent or what you want to "say" with the production. Except Chekhov. No matter what you want to say when doing Chekhov, it still ain't gonna mean shit.

Author intent is always a good place to start (excepting Chekhov, natch). Scholars have called Henry V nationalist propaganda, a critique on politics and the motivations behind war, a coming-of-age story for the nascent King Hal (who in Henry IV 1 & 2 was sort of the Paris Hilton of Lancasterian England) and also "a gripping, spine-tingling thriller! Four stars!!!" (Rex Reed). Mostly, it's just about how those English guys beat those French guys that one time. It's an Elizabethan action movie. Henry, as a character is refreshingly free of hand-wringing once the decision to invade France is made; just ask the Governor of Harfleur. Hamlet wishes he was Henry V. Shakespere manages to say some stuff about war and patriotism and who really runs a kingdom, but I have a feeling the groundlings mainly hung aroung for the Agincourt scene, just like you watched the Matrix again only for the subway fight. There may have been something in there about Eastern philosophy and the nature of life and simulacra and...oooh! Helicopter crash into building!

Though it's safe to say that Henry may be the shallow end of Shakespeare's dramatic intention pool, there's still plenty of meat there. Did I just mix a "pool" and a "meat" metaphor? One of the things that makes Shakespeare so interesting (and enduring) is that he is so effective at layering multiple themes, ideas and intentions into his works. You get insightful comedy in the midst of tragedy (see: Gravediggers in Hamlet; the Clown, Poor Tom and mad Lear; the porter in McB, et al.) and show-stopping tragedy in disarmingly innocent comedy (see: Hero's shaming and fake death in Much Ado; comedies that start with tragedy like Twelfth Night, Tempest and Comedy of Errors; being eaten by a friggin' bear in Winter's Tale). Then you get odd ducks like Measure for Measure, which is a LAUGH RIOT. Shakespeare himself didn't want his works to necessarily point to some obvious moral or solution, which leaves a director and her company plenty of room to play. In Shakespeare, character is the car, plot is the road, but you decide where the highway leads.

So what's the destination for this particular family trip? Well, we haven't discussed that yet as a company, but it could go a couple of ways (are we there yet?). The political themes are always a popular hook to hang the show on. The last time I was in Henry V, America was in the process of invading Iraq for the second time in 15 years, so the Dubya parallels were irresistible for most reviewers. A young, untested, highly-religious ruler (who is the son of a former ruler) is using a military campaign to bolster his public opinion ratings. One state, two state, red state, blue state. I have a problem with this interpretation which has nothing to do with the fact that it was mostly master-minded by Dominic Papatola (the interpretation, not the war). From the first, Henry doesn't really WANT to go to France. Yeah, he's full of the Kool-Aid of the Divine Right of Kings and dieu et mon droit, but he full well knows that they could lose and worse, a lot of people, both English AND French would surely die. Henry spends most of his alone time in the play ruminating on the justness of his cause and the caprice of fate that makes one man a peasant and the other a king. Henry's "cabinet" and greedy ecclesiastical advisers assure him that Salic Law is crap and the war will succeed. Our kingdom's little war began with our fearless leader doing the urging and drawing a stark line between "us" and the "enemies of freedom". In this analogy, yellowcake uranium evidence will stand in for Salic Law.

I could go through myriad variations of interpretation, but the best way to approach the show is obviously to ask what it means to us today, and not just politically like the earlier production I described. Equating it with our specific modern mise-en-scene would only serve to distance us from the issues it presents (love of country; bravery, cowardice, arrogance, fealty; the horrors of war; heroism; political machination), just as over-emphasizing its antiquity or viewing it as a museum piece with little to inform our present discourse would only dampen its message, whatever we decide it to ultimately be. People who saw Henry V during Shakespeare's time would have known the story, and they would have taken at face value what was happening: these men can be trusted, these can't. Our leader is noble; our leader is lost. War is terrible; war can be necessary. We have an enemy; our enemy is ourselves.



Special "I'm not crazy!!!" bonus: Here is a link to a site comparing elements of Henry V to Star Wars (Lucas, not Reagan). See? If it's on the Internet, it MUST be true!

O for a muse of fire...

I am quite possibly the world’s worst blogger. Like many aspiring chroniclers on the Intarwub, I get a few honeymoons posts under my belt, and mere days later, my blog is deader than the Three Little Pigs at a Nugent family reunion. When I do end up posting, I usually manage to offend and/or insult anyone who’s had contact with me in the last 6 months. Not to mention the fact that I firmly believe that most people, however interesting their job at the Gap is or how cute their cats may be, are not the Samuel Pepys or Anais Nin they believe themselves to be (Anais is a rabid Abercrombie and Fitch shopper, anyhow).

All these things taken as fact, I am an actor, and interesting things do happen to me constantly (at least, I find them interesting) and there’s this thing that actor or directors sometimes do: they keep a rehearsal or production journal, a chronicle of the ins and outs of getting a show on stage. Vanity project, you say? Maybe, but for aspiring performers or fellow practitioners of the arts or even the curious uninitiated it can be a fascinating look into how a show comes together.

This year will be my seventh at Shakespeare and Company and the company's 32nd season. This year we are presenting The Taming of the Shrew, Henry V and The Doctor in Spite of Himself. Hey! Kenneth Branagh once portrayed Henry V (on stage and film)! Kenneth Branagh also played Hamlet in a film version of the play and kept a film diary that was later published by W.W. Norton and Co. which he undoubtedly made a pile of cash from. Kenneth Branagh is a raging douche-bag! If he can do it, I can do it (the journal, not the doucheyness).

So here it is; nightly will I record for posterity the trials, travails, tragedies and triumphs of Shakespeare and Co. bringing Henry (and also Taming and Doctor) to the stage in a Fox News "Fair and Balanced" manner (maybe not the last part).

"B-but, why?! What don't you like about Sir Ken Branagh?" I can hear you saying because I've hacked your webcam. He's an accomplished performer and director; I'm sure he's an exceptional husband and father. I've never seen him onstage, but his films leave me somewhat cold. My girlfriend calls his performances "somewhat masturbatory", but I frankly don't appreciate most of the Shakespeare he's brought to the screen, and he's kinda the "Shakespeare Guy" in Hollywood. I feel his performances are either too indulgent (see: Hamlet [4 hour version]) or plain annoying (see: Much Ado About Nothing: The Case of the Super Whiny Benedick). I actually appreciate more the non-classical work he did in films like The Gingerbread Man (RIP Altman) and Dead Again (baaaaad movie, good performance). I just don't think he's the right guy to bring Shakespeare to the masses and he's CERTAINLY not the Second Coming of Olivier. More like the Second Coming of Derek Jacobi. It's up to you to find that appealing.

"Buy why?! Why," you say (and you sure talk to your computer a lot), "do you have pictures of him all over your site?" to which I grimly reply, "Forget it, Jake. It's Ironytown..."