Just a quick post to let y'all know that I was on Connections with Evan Dawson on NPR this afternoon. Evan had myself (in my role as a dramaturge), WallByrd artistic director Virginia Monte, and performer/scholar Jamie Tyrrell on the show to chat about issues related to putting on plays like The Taming of the Shrew in the era of the #MeToo movement.  Jamie, Virginia, and I started the conversation 20 minutes before even going up to the studio, and continued the conversation long after the show had ended (I think the ladies at the front desk of WXXI thought we had moved into the lobby permanently, haha).

See below for a link to listen to the show, if you are so inclined, and a couple of photos from the visit! 

Now back to the dissertation revision!

Be good!

Link to the show:  HERE

​Or go to the web address directly: 
http://wxxinews.org/post/connections-reexamining-taming-shrew-era-metoo

            Wallbyrd is still kind of the newcomer to the Rochester theater scene.  Virginia Monte’s emerging company has put on a few shows in recent years.  If you saw The Winter’s Tale (MUCCC), The Duchess of Malfi (MUCCC), The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged, Romeo and Juliet (Highland Park Bowl), or The Importance of Being Earnest (Lyric Theater), then you’ve seen a Wallbyrd show.  Wallbyrd productions tend to have several recognizable features.  They like to do interesting things with light and stage effects, they like to re-imagine familiar concepts in new, unexpected ways, they put a priority on movement, and they go out of their way to make their shows accessible to a younger audience (this is not a “tights and ruffs” company).

            Their production of Macbeth is right in line with all of this. In Wallbyrd’s production, Scotland is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, filled with cannibal witches, warring tribes, and a mishmash of surviving aspects of culture. It is a world where someone who is 30 is old and 40+ is unrealistic, and it is a world where the ability to procreate is incredibly important.  The post-apocalyptic Scotland is staged at the Lyric Theater, and utilizes a minimalist set, with few non-weapon props and a stage area filled with risers and platforms that could have easily been seen in a junkyard.  Basically, picture a world that is one part Peter Pan and the lost boys and two parts Mad Max, and you’ll have a pretty decent idea of the world of this production.

            One of the things Wallbyrd has always done particularly well is approach classic texts in an off-center kind of way.  They did this last summer in their production of Romeo and Juliet, where their Friar Laurence, usually played by a venerable old man, was played instead by Carl Del Buono as a “fresh from the monastery” friar who wanted to change the world. This change led to several heart-breaking moments, such as the one here when Laurence discovers Romeo’s dead body, realizes his role in the death, and can’t bear to look at the corpse of his young protégé:

       In Macbeth, there are several such moments, though two stood out to me more than most: the “banquet” scene and the funeral procession.  In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the title character throws a formal banquet, at which he sees the ghost of a man he’s just had murdered.  It unnerves him, and he disrupts the mirth of the dinner party, giving the gathered nobles a first reason to start suspecting Macbeth’s role in the murder of the former king. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the play, primarily because there are so many different ways to do the scene. Does the audience see what Macbeth sees or do they see what the nobles see? It’s also a scene that lends itself to quite a bit of dramatic experimentation. The production at the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival last year added a second ghost (Duncan, the murdered king) to further torment the title character. I was eagerly anticipating this scene in Wallbyrd’s production, and for the first time in ages, I didn’t see it coming.  With little warning, the actors all stormed the stage in a highly choreographed dance number, complete with strobe lighting and a bit of mosh pit action.  I initially had no idea what was going on.  In fact, I turned to my neighbor to ask if we had fallen into an episode of In Living Color.  Only when the ghost appeared did I realize that we were in the banquet scene, and once that connection was made, it made perfect sense. Wallbyrd loves to incorporate dance and contemporary music into their productions (as you can see from the attached clip of the Capulet Ball from last summer’s production of Romeo and Juliet), but this wasn’t superfluous in any way.  A world with, effectively, no old people WOULDN’T have a formal, sit down banquet.  What would a group of tribal teens and 20-somethings have as a social gathering?  A rave, and that’s exactly what Wallbyrd gave us.

       The other scene that really stood out was more of an addition to the Shakespearean material than anything else.  After Duncan is killed, a solemn funeral procession is performed.  The scene opens with a priestess chanting a familiar tune (more on this below).  The body of Duncan is brought in, and his signature battle axe is then handed to another priestess.  A ceremonial passing of the torch of authority (in this case the “torch” being a pendant that is passed from Duncan’s corpse to Macbeth) follows. Finally, all of the cast files out through the audience, led by Duncan and his pall bearers.  Two things impressed me about this scene.  First, it is another example of Wallbyrd finding meaning between the lines.  Second, it put the rock star cast on display.  There were well over a dozen actors on stage for this scene.  I don’t think any two actors were conveying the same emotion.  Jonathan Lowery’s Lennox was stoic, with a set jaw. Eddie Coomber was beside himself with grief.  Ged Owen’s Banquo was mourning, yet preoccupied, lost in his own thoughts.  This was not a scene where everyone went out and just “acted sad.”  Each actor—from star to unnamed extra—clearly had an idea as to how their character was specifically reacting to Duncan’s murder.  This show rewards those who pay attention, as the characters along the margins are always doing something (I was particularly delighted by Jackson Mosher in the rave scene—he is desperately attempting to dance with a woman who has no interest whatsoever.  It’s a minor play within a play, and these kinds of moments are scattered throughout the production).

​            This, frankly, is another thing Wallbyrd seems to do well.  They find amazing local actors.  Many of the actors playing secondary and even bit parts have played leads in Rochester area productions. This trend goes in the other direction as well, as actors like Andy Head, who played the relatively minor part of Paris in last summer’s production of Romeo and Juliet, turned in a strong performance as Macbeth.  I’m reminded of one of the arguments made by Bart Van Es in Shakespeare in Company, about how Shakespeare’s distinct style could be traced, in part, to the fact that he had an entire company of excellent actors to write for (an oddity at the time).  This production featured several stand-out performances.  Head’s Macbeth drove the action. The highlight moment, for me, came in what is Macbeth’s one big “Hamlet” speech (“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”).  It features one of the most quotable lines in the play: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Head began that line and then paused for a significant period of time before blurting out “by an idiot.”  It was his character’s moment of realization—the first point since he actively decided to clutch the dagger and murder the king that he thought about what he had done and realized that none of it was worth it.

            Another stand out was Shawn Gray, who played Ross.  Gray, who played a manic, almost childish Benvolio in last summer’s Romeo and Juliet was the consummate warrior in Macbeth.  He played one third of the Macduff family unit—in this post-apocalyptic world, the family unit has been reimagined as collections of warriors and those who can still reproduce; Macduff (played by Caitlin Kenyon) is played as an infertile warrior woman who serves as the husband to Charlotte Moon’s pregnant Lady Macduff (with Gray’s Ross as the brother in arms, breeding male, and third member of the marital trio).  In the text, Ross is a relatively minor character.  In this production, Gray’s performance is impossible to ignore.  While there were several other excellent performances, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the tandem of murderers played by Eddie Coomber and Kiefer Schenk.  These two local actors—who played the leads in Wallbyrd’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest earlier this year—simply belong on stage together. They are Beavis and Butt-head but with an absurd ability to simultaneously convey affect and nuance while they play such roles. Somewhere out there is a buddy cop movie with their names on it, and I’ll be the first in line to go see it.

            Many of the best moments of the play featured the young actress who played Banquo’s child, Fleance. Andy Head’s Macbeth and Fleance (played by Serene Selke-Fisher--thanks to Diana Louise Carter for the help with the name!) have a playful “uncle/niece” kind of relationship. One scene, before the murder of Duncan, shows Fleance trying to sneak up on her father—unsuccessfully. Moments later, Macbeth does succeed in sneaking up on Fleance and grabs her from behind. Macbeth, Banquo, and Fleance all clearly revel in this kind of game. Only a few scenes later, after the murder of Duncan, Banquo and Fleance prepare to leave on a short trip when Macbeth again grabs her from behind. Only this time, Banquo’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword.  It is the first clear indication that he no longer trusts his once beloved comrade, and it adds to the trauma of later scenes in the play.

            I also enjoyed the casting of a girl to play the role of Fleance—traditionally portrayed as Banquo’s son.  The role is an important one, textually, because of the prophecy the witches speak that states that Banquo would not himself be a king, but he would sire a long line of kings.  King James I, who ruled England during the second half of Shakespeare’s career, famously claimed to be a descendent of Banquo.  As such, Fleance is a key character because even though Malcolm is king at the end of the play, we know that Fleance will, at some point, do great things (and pay attention to the final moments of this production—Fleance offers the audience a glimpse of things to come).

            On a side note, there are a couple of fun little “Easter egg” moments in this production, connected to J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.  The tune the priestess chants to begin Duncan’s funeral procession is the same tune as the “Mist and Shadow” song that Pippin sings in Return of the King, and several of the battle cries uttered by the cast as they (frequently) engage in battle are Dwarvish words (again from LotR).  This is a fun tip of the hat by Wallbyrd to the idea that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings in part due to a dissatisfaction with the way Shakespeare cheated his way out of the prophecies in Macbeth (Tolkien had Ents marching and a woman kill the witch king, as opposed to Shakespeare having the army cut down bits of trees to hide their numbers and having Macduff born via Caesarian section).

            Although there is much to praise, there were some things that didn’t necessarily work in this production.  The witches were a mixed bag.  I loved the idea of a post-apocalyptic witches’ coven, particularly the idea that they would only be capable of speech when enough of them had gathered.*  I also enjoyed the move to replace several servant characters with Hecate, played by the delightfully evil Alma Haddock.  But the concept soon became overly complicated.  In one scene, the witches have a choreographed, ballet-like dance number that feels entirely out of place in this post-apocalyptic world. There is another scene—the one where Macbeth returns to the coven to hear more prophecy—where puppets are utilized.  It is a moment of prop-heavy action in what had been, to that point, a fairly barren stage.  It might have been more effective to do the effects for the prophecies with light, as Wallbyrd has done so often in the past, or to have constructed more terrifying puppets. The movement in the puppet scenes was suitably eerie, but the puppets themselves, particularly the large one with a "monstrous" face just didn't convey terror. The scenes with the witches thus became some of the best and most flawed scenes in the play, because they had a phenomenal concept, but it felt like the concept was a little over-thought and possibly a bit too ambitious (regarding the puppet construction) for the time constraints of community theater.

            Another moment that concerned me was the level of violence in the murder of Macduff’s family.  It is effective, and it is disturbing, and it is visceral.  I completely understand the point of that scene and what it is supposed to do. It does, however, take this play to a very dark place—it is the darkest and most violent of any of the many productions of Macbeth I have seen—and I would be wary of bringing small children to see it (very “Red Wedding” for those of you who are Game of Thrones fans).  A final concern/critique is one that the cast and crew of Wallbyrd couldn’t do anything about: the acoustics.  The Lyric is a beautiful venue, and having a new venue for local theater is always a good thing.  But it was a church in a past life, and the acoustics are designed to carry ONE voice through that domed roof.  The odd part is that the echoing was worse when the acting was best—when actors changed pitch to convey emotion and nuance, the pitch changes created echoes.  This was especially true of the scene where Ross reveals the fate of Macduff’s family (though Kenyon’s primal scream of anguish was powerful and believable) as well as the final battle between Macbeth and Macduff.

            Ultimately, this was a show I had long been looking forward to seeing. Virginia Monte’s concept for the show was everything that makes a Wallbyrd production worth seeing and her all-star cast of local talent took that concept and made it a reality.  To be honest, this show doesn’t quite hit the same highs as last summer’s Romeo and Juliet--though it will likely be a while before anything does hit that mark; Wallbyrd's Romeo and Juliet set a standard for quality in Rochester community Shakespeare--but Macbeth felt like it had the potential to be even better with a little more time and some editing.  That, in itself, is remarkable, and what they DID achieve is still an excellent show, and well worth seeing if you are in the Rochester area. 
 
Ticket info HERE.

​
* Disclaimer—I was the dramaturge for this show.  Virginia and I had several conversations about the links between Banquo and James I, as well as many coffee-fueled talks about the witches. I was basically the walking reference text in the early stages of the show’s conception, and was not involved in any of the rehearsals or world-building. As such, my review is based entirely on my experience watching the show for the first time. 

            One of the great things about Facebook and social media is that it provides an informal record of what you did and when you did it.  According to the Book of Faces, January 13th has, personally speaking, been a fairly eventful date for me.  Two years ago, it marked my acquisition of the coolest wine-storage system in all of Henrietta, NY (see photo below).  Six years ago, it marked the date of my application to the graduate program that I would eventually attend.  Four years ago, it was the date that I returned from my first trip to London, which included (on January 12th) what was, to date, the best Shakespeare Production I had ever seen--Phyllida Lloyd's all-female cast production of Julius Caesar, set in a women's prison.  On January 13th, 2017, after four years on the outside, I was thrilled to once again go back to prison--this time, in New York City.

Before I get into the details of the show I saw THIS weekend, I want to take a moment and set the stage.  The first time I saw this cast/director was four years ago, at the Donmar Warehouse.

       

     At that show, the set was the first thing that caught my attention. There was a sort of wire-like material on the railings in front of us.  There were musical instruments, television screens and—the part I was most interested in—the performance space seemed to occupy three potential levels—the main acting space below us, some platforms and catwalks at eye level, and another set of catwalks above us.  I thought it would be absolutely fascinating if they ended up using all three—I thought it would make the show feel like it was going on all around us.  I couldn’t figure out how they would utilize the upper catwalk, however.  When a random light from above caught my eye in the middle of the show, I looked up and realized that prison guards were patrolling the upper catwalk—and that we, the audience, were cast as inmates (the always important mob in Julius Caesar).

            The prison setting helped to create a constant sense of real danger that I've never seen in a production of Caesar before.  Scenes that I had previously only seen delivered as rhetorical moments were now loaded with tension and the potential for violence.  One of these scenes is one often played for comedic effect, such as Caesar's wish in 1.2.190-195 to only have "men about me that are fat." Caesar mistrusts thin men like Cassius, who have "a lean and hungry look."  Of course, this scene is a way for Caesar to both poke at Cassius and highlight Cassius' ambition.  In this production, Caesar force-feeds Cassius a Krispy Kreme donut, while Cassius, aware of the hierarchical nature of the prison inmate power system, accepts the abuse with a look of utmost rage on her face.  That sense of real danger also came through in the inspired decision to have Antony begin the “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech in a prone, passive position.  The prison population is one of the few modern parallels we have to the violence of the Roman mob as depicted in the play, and setting the play among that population made the production feel more dangerous and less “history channel.”    This prison violence was sudden and unexpected in a play that features perhaps the most predictable violence in all of Shakespeare.  Shakespeare in prison settings is not exactly a new concept, but what Lloyd does so wonderfully here is to create a more serious take on the prison/Shakespeare concept.  I've seen it done before.  HBO's show Oz, in its final season, featured the inmates putting on a production of Macbeth.  The pseudo-documentary Caesar Must Die offers a treatment of the same play, with interviews mixed in featuring Italian inmates (some real and some actors).  But while Oz was going for comedic effect (every character to be cast as Macbeth died by the end of the episode) and Caesar Must Die was going for an artistic approach, Lloyd's play was authentic.  This could have been a real prison populated by real inmates.
 
            The prison motif—particularly the big reveal at the play’s end that the woman playing Caesar was one of the guards rather than one of the inmates—also served to address my biggest fault with Julius Caesar (the play).  One of the reasons I’ve never been overly fond of the play was that the title character is dead and gone by Act Three, yet the play continues (largely in dragging conversations between an increasingly whiny Cassius and an ever more pitiful Brutus).  It is mentioned in the play that the conspirators see Caesar’s ghost as they prepare to kill themselves, but I’ve never seen that idea expanded upon so thoroughly as is was in Phyllida Lloyd’s production.  After Caesar’s appropriately grisly prison murder, she routinely begins popping up where we least expect her.  When the cloaked standard bearer is shot dead and stays prone on stage, we don’t give it a second thought—long minutes later, in a quieter moment, however, the standard bearer stands and drops her cloak, revealing herself to be Caesar’s ghost.  Caesar never quite vanishes after her death—moving around the background, glaring at the conspirators and, in one fantastic moment, Caesar mans the drums, providing the drum-beat sound effects for the gun shots that take the lives of the lesser conspirators.  The ghost of Caesar is present in this production in a way that I’ve never seen before, and when we find out at the end of the play that Caesar was the only prison guard in this “play”, it adds a whole new dimension to how we understand the almost omniscient constant presence.  The play is rehabilitative in part—the inmates are clearly dejected that their acting time is over, and despite this, they fall in line to be taken to another part of the prison—but guard/Caesar also perpetually re-establishes authority.  It’s a warning that they are always being watched, and that insurrection (i.e.- prison riot) can only end in the deaths of those who lead such insurrection.

I called my "theater adventure" cousins (Brenna, Al, and Katie--we had forged our NYC theater adventuring back in 2013 with a trip to see Alan Cumming's one man Macbeth.  See photo below of me with Cumming.  Then be jealous, haha), and we started planning our next adventure.  This trip would be split on my end, half with the biological family crew and half with my theater family.  My friends Jilly and John Christensen moved to NYC a year or so ago, and graciously offered to host my weekend visit.  Jilly was the director of my first ever show as an actor (I joke about how she took my "theaterginity") and she showed me around her new city with a grand tour, which included an amazing view of the city and multiple trips to the most mouth-watering pizza places.  But, as fun as the touring was, I didn't come to NYC to eat pizza (well, not just to eat pizza).  I came to NY to return to prison.

The venue at the St. Anne's Warehouse is just stunning.  The view from their patio is worth the price of admission alone (and on that point, the price point on this show was absurdly low.  I snagged primo seats and the tickets were under $60 each after fees).   This theater is tucked right under the Brooklyn Bridge in the DUMBO neighborhood.  As the start of the show arrived, I admit that I started to get a little nervous.  The bar had been set so high by the Donmar production in 2013.  What if this show seemed derivative?  What if it not only didn't live up to the prior show, but also somehow tainted my feelings/memory about that earlier experience?  I needn't have worried.  The easiest way to sum it up is with the words I said to my cousin Katie immediately after the curtain call.  "They did it again!"

I could literally write a blog post on each of the major actresses in this production.  There was not a weak performance in the entire show.  That said, this is already likely to be one of my longest blogs, so I will try to limit myself to just the performances that drew strong reactions from me personally.

Jade Anouka's Ariel was absolutely flawless.  The character was simply alive on the stage, and Anouka's performance gave Ariel the sort of mercurial presence that is often gilded over with a more waifish/other-worldly aesthetic.  The Ariel of this production was anything but otherworldly.  She was rooted firmly in modern culture and this was reflected in the way Anouka deployed a variety of dance and musical genres.  It is rare for a show to add to Shakespeare, because the modern additions often feel out of place.  Anouka's Ariel shifted from a more R & B sound to an island beat, to an absolutely haunting "Full Fathom Five" with so much skill that anyone not already familiar with Shakespeare's play would likely have difficulty figuring out which music was from Shakespeare's Tempest and which was added by the inmates of St. Anne's/Donmar.  Anouka's costume changes were frequent and effective, and she had a particular talent for moving about the venue unseen so that it appeared as if she could transport herself via magic (there were no secret passages in this venue, so movement happened in plain sight).  Finally, she often moved to a sort of "crinkle" sound (I'm not entirely sure what to call it, to be honest), which indicated her magic at use.  It was a nice touch, and allowed Anouka to continue to use her movement (a definite strength) to portray magic.  Her character reminded me of Morgan Freeman's character in The Shawshank Redemption.  The skills at her command seemed to be part magic and part "being a person who knows how to get things."
 
The three clowns of the show, as is usually the case with The Tempest, were favorites.  Jackie Clune and Karen Dunbar had brilliant chemistry as Stefano and Trinculo (respectively).  They even managed to add a bit of power-hierarchy to the show (via their underpants) as Clune's British Stefano took command over Caliban and Dunbar's Scottish Trinculo.  There wasn't really any particular moment that these characters had on stage that stood out.  It was more that these characters truly seemed to be having fun with each other in a way that could not be faked.  Sophie Stanton's Caliban was another revelation.  She played the role in a far more reserved tone than what I'm used to seeing.  It worked wonders for this production though, as it kept the comedic spotlight on Clune and Dunbar, and helped to build to another moment that I'm going to discuss a bit below.  On a total side note, Clune and another performer (Liv Spencer) came out to the lobby while we were still milling about.  They were both extremely warm when I gushed a bit about this show (and the one I saw four years prior).  Clune broke my heart a bit with her first question for me though (she asked if I had seen their 1 Henry IV.  Still kicking myself over that one).
                       
Leah Harvey's Miranda and Sheila Atim's Ferdinand, the young couple at the center of the romantic plot, were energetic and charming.  Atim brought an awkward but roguish charm to Ferdinand coupled with a clear sense that this inmate had NO idea what he was doing, either in her interactions with Prospero or her flirtations with Miranda.  The focus of Ferdinand's love, Miranda, was delightfully petulant, walking a line between being the dutiful daughter and being independent and in love, which was, of course, the transition being explored both in this production and in Shakespeare's play.  The energy of this pair (combined with the similar energy of Ariel, Trinculo, Stefano and more) set off the sometimes dour, perpetually reflective aspect of Dame Harriet Walter's Prospero.  It also made this two hour play fly by, with the well-deserved standing ovation seeming to come right on the heels of Walter's opening monologue.
 
            The little bit of acting that I have done has mainly been on the "bit player" end of the dramatis personae (case in point, when I was in the Tempest, I played an amalgamation of three different characters.  All three of those characters were cut from Lloyd's production).  As such, I tend to really watch how the smaller roles are functioning in the play.  As I was doing that during this production, I picked up on something astounding, and that I want to be sure to mention here.  The sardonic guards, Liv Spencer in particular, were one of the highlights of the play for me.  Not because of the dry humor and the insults.  While funny, those additions would not have stood out if they just seemed like a way to move the plot forward or reinforce the prison theme.  No, what hit me, initially as I watched the play and then with full force as I was processing it the following day, was the realization that Spencer and the other guards were the island.  They led the inmates this way and that in a seemingly random pattern.  They took these pampered nobles and removed the comfortable notion of control that they valued.  This metaphor would have been so easy to "over-do," but Spencer presented it with such deft skill that I almost missed it at first.  It must take extraordinary skill to be both comic relief and the metaphorical representation for the entire concept of the production.  The more I work through what I saw, the more I feel that Spencer's performance was one of the highlights for me.

I want to culminate this absurdly long blog post by mentioning two key scenes.  These are the two moments that really made the play for me.  The first happened during the wedding celebration wherein Prospero "conjured" up spirits to entertain Miranda and Ferdinand at their wedding.  The spirits, disguised prisoners wearing masks made out of cardboard toothpaste boxes, played music and followed it up with a lively and energetic dance.  The masks matched the rest of the props, which were all constructed from garbage and the sorts of things that might be found in a prison.  The "wedding feast" was a mishmash of food items that might be found in a prison commissary, including a cake, which appeared to be a massive stack of granola bars.  As the dancing commenced, large white floating balloons were brought out and placed around the stage, each anchored to a water bottle.  Suddenly, with a wave of Prospero's hand, every inmate stopped in awe as video images were projected onto the balloons.  These were images of the outside world.  Nature, cars, fast food (a McDonald's logo got a raucous cheer from the inmates), and more.  In a play defined by prison-issue costumes and props made from leftover garbage, this singular moment was as beautiful as it was unexpected.  In the midst of prison life and prison production values, the show dropped a little bit of magic for just the briefest of moments. A distraught Prospero, in perhaps Walter's finest scene, pops each one of the balloons.  In this production, she doesn't stop the pageant because of a sudden remembrance of Caliban's forthcoming betrayal.  Here she stops it because she is projecting for the gathered inmates that which she cannot have for herself--hope.
 
Prospero is not alone in her hopeless state, however.  At the end of the play, in an incredibly powerful scene, Walter's Hannah character sits on her prison bed, reading.  One by one, each of the other prisoners appears in civilian clothes, offering final words of thanks to the woman who got them through to their release dates.  It is a moment that is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting.  Hannah has done good work for these women and increased her own suffering as a result (getting close to people she knows she will lose).  But there is an even more subtle moment of sadness and loss presented in this final scene.  Caliban, revealed to be Prospero's cellmate, is also still in prison.  She spends the final scene vacuuming Prospero's cell.  Casting Caliban as another "lifer" brings new light to an old (and favorite) passage from this play.  I've always loved Caliban's lines to the clowns about the sounds of the island:
 
"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again."
 
It's a surprising moment of poetry from an otherwise bestial creature.  I love this passage because it always drives home the idea that everyone has that place/thing that they love and can describe better than anyone else.  No matter how bestial Caliban is, he is of the island, and he loves it as a result.  But in this production, I can't help but think that this speech is now reflecting the institutionalization of inmates (i.e.: when inmates are in prison for so long that they are afraid of living anywhere else).
 
Which brings us back to the prison theme.  They did it again.  They used this concept to mine a VERY frequently performed work of Shakespeare for brand new angles and ways to get at the text.  All of what they found and presented on that stage is in that play.  We've just missed seeing it (or seeing the potential for it) for a few centuries.  It's like the balloons:  pure magic.
 
 
Next week's blog WILL be shorter.  I'm going to write a bit about a pedagogical technique I've been playing with for the last few years.  Until then, if you're able, go see this play (it runs through February 19th at St. Anne's Warehouse in Brooklyn).  It is so worth it.
 

Ticket info         Harriet Walter's new book about her performance in this trilogy
 
The trilogy of plays involved collaboration with the Clean Break Program.
 
Be well,
Scott