Tag: Blackfriars Playhouse

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An otherwise brilliant version of The Scottish Play

The lights are on and everybody’s watching K.P. Powell as Macbeth at American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton through November 23. Image courtesy of American Shakespeare Center.

“We do it with the lights on,” says The American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse website about its use of “universal lighting.” So right up front you know that whatever you see in its elegant, woody environs will take place with the house lights aglow. 

Understandably, in its staunch attempt to maintain historical accuracy wherever possible, the ASC’s staging conditions reflect the decision to keep the joint looking like what we surmise The Bard of Avon may have presented himself. Admirable. 

Watching other Shakespeare and Elizabethan plays at ASC, that decision has never been an issue for me. With its engaging acting and uptempo pace, the company’s current production of Macbeth, directed by José Zayas, works on many fronts. Yet, I feel that it suffers at times because of that unwavering dedication to keep the room well-lit. 

And while the Blackfriars of old did it with the lights on, too, the pre-electric powered atmosphere would have been a much dimmer affair. I’m willing to concede that this may be my own hang-up. After all, I hold Macbeth close to my heart as a supernatural bloodbath of a play, more than a political thriller or a treatise on the dark nature of man.

Aside from my personal grievances, it’s a great production. And before we go into my gripes, here’s the gist of the story for anyone who’s forgotten: Three witches tell Macbeth that he’ll be king, and then he and Lady Macbeth murder a bunch of people they’re close with to make that prophecy happen faster. It doesn’t work out, and they both die too.

This production has many positives that have nothing to do with lighting. K.P. Powell does a thoroughly commendable job as the sometimes fierce, sometimes cowering Macbeth, interpreted with an irrepressible warmth. While just about every version of The Scottish Play unwinds a coldly reptilian, and at times weak-willed character, Powell, to my memory, may very well be the only likable Macbeth ever created. He’s almost too charming—and occasionally quite funny—but if we’re to believe that the role he’s assumed convinces those around him of his goodness as he slashes his way up the political ladder, the charismatic portrayal checks out.

Nervous laughter elicited from the crowd at odd times is surely the result of Powell’s continued eye contact with audience members under such illuminated conditions. No doubt they were often laughing a bit more than the script—or Powell for that matter—was pulling for.

Alongside Powell, Kenn Hopkins, Jr. as Macbeth’s ill-fated bestie Banquo, is a mountain of a man with a booming voice that positively fills every corner of the theater with a strength demanding attention. Also excellent, Angela Iannone embodies a commanding King Duncan, summarily slain offstage in Act Two. 

Though there’s clearly a challenge in tasking a troupe of eight with performing no less than 16 characters, it felt like the main looming hindrance—lights—threatened the overall success of this interpretation. For me, the three “weird sisters” have an appropriately otherworldly quality elevated by a trio of grotesque, mascot-like, oversized heads and gauzy flowing shrouds. When they emerge at the start of the play to predict Macbeth’s future, they could be frightful and monstrous. They should be. Yet they are too plainly out in the open, undermining the ability to persuade us we’ve settled into the hazy Scottish moors in the thick of a thunderstorm.

The lack of obscurity works against the action indicated in the text later on as well. Deep in the “thick night” and “blanket of the dark,” Lady Macbeth mentions when she and her husband carry out their regicide, it’s just more difficult to buy. An audience always requires a healthy suspension of disbelief, but it was asking too much of Leah Gabriel (Lady Macbeth); a proposition made even more difficult when she’s wandering about insanely whispering over her part in the king’s murder in the final act. 

During the play’s culminating scenes of war, the light strikes again. Tragic hero Macduff avenges his slaughtered family and rights the wrongs against the royals by killing and beheading Macbeth—yet spirited, compelling Aidan O’Reilly is undermined by the visual clarity of the action. The fight scenes would work well in a more strategic staging, but as O’Reilly and Powell grapple and stab at one another, the brightness of the room casts their struggle as mere pantomime unbefitting such fine acting.

One saving grace of staying historically accurate comes in the incorporation of persistent musical elements, albeit with a 21st-century vibe. The unexpected use of the bass line of TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” (incorrectly credited to a cover version by Lera Lynn) helps build tension. Same goes for other dramatic moments heightened with a cacophonous soundtrack made off-stage with a din of drums and crash of cymbals.

To be fair, I’m not suggesting that the ASC needs to install spotlights and dry ice machines at Blackfriars. Only that perhaps more serious consideration be given to uphold the darker interests of a sinister, spooky play. Yet if you always imagined Macbeth, at its core, as a backstabbing title tussle or a psychological thriller about the power of suggestion, you’ll love this even if you have to wear sunglasses.

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Alice in Blunderland: Arden of Faversham’s murderously funny mishaps

Chris Johnston (left) plays the role of Black Will and John Harrell (right) is Shakebag in ASC’s Arden of Faversham. Photo by Lauren Rogers Parker

“Comfort thyself, sweet friend; it is not strange / That women will be false and wavering.”—Franklin, Arden of Faversham (Act 1, scene 1)

Maybe the scheduling was merely coincidental, but witnessing the debut performance of the early modern true-crime drama Arden of Faversham on International Women’s Day felt particularly wrong—and perhaps more comical because of it.

The anonymously written 1592 play, which in recent years has gained extra traction by crediting Shakespeare with co-authorship, remains remarkable for the depiction of one of England’s most infamous domestic tragedies, capturing a snapshot of real-world 1551 news. It’s a simple story of a lady desperate to get out of a rut: cheating wife schemes with lover to kill husband. Though the pair enlist a pack of self-interested conspirators and criminals to complete the task, each proves incompetent until near the very end of the play.

Is this straightforward work about ordinary citizens shedding blood a rare artifact about smashing the patriarchy? Did the American Shakespeare Center’s actor-led Renaissance winter season choose the play because of its frighteningly strong female lead character? Sure, the plot-propelling decision to off a husband could be taken as the ultimate expression of self-empowerment, but even the most progressive people would agree there are less severe alternatives for fixing an unsatisfying marriage than stabbing.

Alice Arden, the wife in question, is no role model—and like any great villainess, her evil disposition is what makes the piece exceptional. Played with mischievous conviction by Abbi Hawk, Alice is the sultry femme-fatale mastermind who ultimately sees her darkest wish satisfied. Behind lipstick smiles and on crossed coquettish legs, she flaunts humanity’s worst traits, those which ignorant women-haters have feared and contradictorily ascribed to the fair sex for ages: deceitfulness, capriciousness, emotional weakness, gross lust, and cold cruelty. And though it is her murdered husband Thomas for whom the play is named, her lover Mosby who hatches the last successful plan, and the retaliatory former tenant Greene who employs the hoodlums Black Will and Shakebag, Alice is clearly the one running this bitch.

Arden of Faversham may have originally been a drama—complete with requisite Elizabethan morality dooming the majority of the cast to death for their savagery and willful rebellion against the strict English hierarchy. But centuries of aging have left Arden ripe for a comedic take.

Self-costumed to the nines in threads echoing those 1930s white-gloved escapist movies about dancing urbanite aristocrats, the ASC cast squeezes yucks from the text with exquisite smoothness. Deftly, the actors freak out, fall off stage, howl in shock, and deliver deadpan looks and sly over-the-shoulder glances at the audience with precise comic timing.

As the straight men in this drama-reimagined-as-black-comedy, David Anthony Lewis mops up our pity as helpless Arden, while Rick Blunt, as Arden’s close friend Franklin, is convincingly serious and well- meaning as the voice of reason.

The ne’er-do-wells are equally wonderful. Benjamin Reed as aggravated Mosby brings rage to the role, fluctuating between anger with Alice, their adulterous situation, and the dumb luck that keeps her husband alive. Chris Johnston’s spastic, short-fused, hired henchman Black Will is mined for a fortune of clownish frenetics, and is nearly outdone by John Harrell’s rich Shakebag; pointedly played with a cartoonish wise guy accent, Harrell does genius work as the thuggish yutz. No less riotous, KP Powell in the role of devilish painter Clarke offers up big laughs from his preposterous murder formulas to his side-splitting use of protective glasses.

Despite the historically accurate laxness of being free to kick back with a few beers during the show, there’s still an unspoken reverence framing the ASC experience that was gleefully absent during this latest production. Though the cast and crew always put forth honest efforts to loosen everyone up, the atmosphere in the seats can feel a little like going to church or having been urged into a field trip by an uncomfortably familiar English professor. You notice it most when the jokes, swirled up in iambic poetics and murky 500-year-old slang, prompt the loudest audience members to crow more like they’re showing everyone how smart they are by “getting it” rather than how much of a good time they’re having. Arden is different.

No, the play doesn’t generate any PR for the virtuosity and righteousness of women, but that’s hardly the point. Arden excels thanks to the ASC cast’s inventive way with the words, and they are funnier than hell. I haven’t laughed as hard since the last time I watched Kathleen Turner prank call Mink Stole in John Waters’ Serial Mom. Could be that I just find female killers hysterical, but please don’t let my personal issues deter you from driving over to Staunton for a great time at Blackfriars.

Arden of Faversham is at Blackfriars Playhouse through April 12.

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Cups up, blades out: Self-governed actors make their own rules in ASC’s Henry IV, Part 1

American Shakespeare Center’s Henry IV, Part 1 follows King Henry Bolingbroke’s (David Anthony Lewis) mounting tensions with a rebel alliance and an estranged heir. Lindsey Walters

To a lay audience member who hasn’t been involved in a theater production since fifth grade, directors seem as essential to any play’s success as a script. They’re the boss of the show. If the director goes into a coma at the start of the first rehearsal or has a crisis and runs off with the box office manager, what sharp-eyed, astute-eared taskmaster keeps everyone and everything in line?

During the annual Actors’ Renaissance winter season at Staunton’s American Shakespeare Center, it’s completely up to the players to get their proverbial acts together.

It’s no small challenge. Roughly 13 actors are responsible for 79 roles through the course of four plays: darkly hilarious Early Modern true crime bonanza Arden of Faversham; Amy E. Witting’s new piece Anne Page Hates Fun; Shakespeare’s domestic sitcom The Merry Wives of Windsor; and the revered second installment of his historical tetralogy, Henry IV, Part 1.

On the well-lit stage of the enchanting Blackfriars Playhouse last month, the acting company previewed their work on Henry IV, Part 1. The January 24 debut performance revealed completely actor-made choices on staging—down to the costume design, music, props, and the minutiae that would otherwise fall under a director’s purview. And on top of that, the actors had learned their lines in under 10 days.

Why suffer so? According to the ASC, the yearly test aims to empower the players by giving them the “unique blend of scholarship and practice” necessary for undertaking the “deepest dive into the Elizabethan era.” And despite the potential for chaos, it syncs perfectly with the ASC’s respectful and historically guided approach.

The result of leaving the direction of Henry IV, Part 1 to those performing in it is not unlike the best kind of self-released punk rock record: rolling on a steady current of gross humor, powered by blasts of lusty rage, true to the intent of those involved, and peppered with thrilling, unexpected turns. Performances hit the pinnacle of emotive perfection or, in some cases, sail just beyond the well-intentioned grasp of those outsized by their desire to execute.

The script follows King Henry Bolingbroke’s mounting tensions with a rebel alliance fueled by hotheaded Hotspur, and tackles the monarch’s estranged relationship with his heir, Hal the Prince of Wales. After Hal grows out of his frivolous London tavern lifestyle—and tomfoolery with his scene-stealing, boozehound buddy Sir John Falstaff—the young noble assumes his rightful place at his father’s side. Together, Hal and King Henry lead an army that puts down the upstarts seeking to overthrow the crown.

While the play is named after the highest rung on the hierarchy, it could easily bear the name of any of the aforementioned key roles, as each has more to say than the titular character. Yet in reenacting this embattled royal, David Anthony Lewis commands the performance with resonant authority and manly poise. Instinctive, unstudied, and wholly convincing, he seems more comfortable with Shakespeare’s words than anyone else in the play. If some of the production’s choices skirt the border of questionable interpretation, there is zero doubt in Lewis’ Henry.

Henry’s problematic princely son is played with a cautious focus by Brandon Carter, who became more at ease as his character grew fully self-aware in the play’s latter half. It’s possible that Carter’s smooth-voiced delivery is marked by tentative restraint since he’s sharing many scenes with the comedic bulldozer and big-bellied bravado of John Harrell’s Falstaff. The latter’s costume choices paint Sir John as a ’90s grunge wash-up, complete with bandana, Nirvana tee, combat boots, and requisite plaid shirt—tucked over a fat-suit paunch. Despite being a bit young and thin in the limbs for the lovable drunk liar, Harrell is appropriately slurry, sloppy, cowardly, and as hysterical as anyone could hope.

Another of the King’s major headaches, rebel leader Hotspur, is set afire with an irrepressible rage by KP Powell. Cocksure and indignant, the charismatic Powell only relents from boiling over when he’s in the lap of coquettish Lady Percy; as played by Abbi Hawk, she charmingly presents Hotspur’s wife as sultry and impossibly headstrong. Powell and Hawk display authentic chemistry during the play’s few romantic moments.

But as Henry IV, Part 1 is built on barroom banter and war, zingers and vengeful aggression frame Prince Hal’s journey from loaf to promising successor; ultimately, the Actors’ Renaissance finds its best staging choices in the slapstick of the tavern and botched vaudevillian thieveries. Putting the full Blackfriar’s space to excellent use, the actors hurdle the seats, scramble up the aisles to escape the stage, and Hal even chugs from a beer bong hanging off of the second-floor balcony. And though the too- careful, slo-mo choreography of the final act’s sword fighting could use tightening up, the group prevailed thanks to its nimble humor, righteous ire, and genuinely poignant performances.

____________________________________________________________________________

Henry IV, Part 1

American Shakespeare Center

Through April 13

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Arts

American Shakespeare Center discontinues The Santaland Diaries

Chris Johnston stars as Crumpet in The American Shakespeare Center’s final run (for now) of The Santaland Diaries through December 26. Photo by Michael Bailey

Backstage at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, actor Chris Johnston pulls on a red turtleneck and green velvet knickers, a green velvet smock and red-and-white-striped stockings. He ties up a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors with jingle bells on the shoelaces and dons what he calls “a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles.”

He reads a few pages of text—lines he began rehearsing months ago, while he was walking his dog or holding his newborn daughter—to get the words in his mouth. And right before he goes on stage, Johnston reminds himself to just tell the story.

The story Johnston tells this holiday season isn’t one of Shakespeare’s, but one of a cynical, out-of-work slacker actor who takes a job working as an elf named Crumpet at a New York City Macy’s department store during the holidays.

As the star and sole character of The Santaland Diaries, the elf regales his captive audience with an insider’s view of Santaland: the interactions with other elves (some were extras on daytime soap operas), the various Santas and their lecherous and drunken habits, the angry, greedy and harried parents and all of the snot-nosed, sometimes stupid and sometimes smartass children.

The Santaland Diaries, an adaptation of essayist David Sedaris’ story about working as a Christmas elf, has been a pillar of the American Shakespeare Center’s holiday season every year since 2004, but Johnston will be the last actor to play Crumpet at the ASC, at least for a while.

“The time was right to make a change,” and the reasons were many, says ASC co-founder and artistic director Jim Warren. “I’ve been saying for years that I want us to stay ahead of the curve and figure out the right time to change our holiday season programming before ticket sales took a nose dive,” he says. “And, to be perfectly transparent, being denied the rights to perform Santaland with the all-star female actor who has played dozens of male Shakespeare characters—Allison Glenzer—helped me to decide that the time was now,” Warren says.

Warren has directed more than half a dozen actors in the role of Crumpet, and “each actor brought their own personality, their own take on the character and their own bag of tricks to the rehearsal process for us to create something special and different every year,” he says.

Johnston’s take on Crumpet has been in the works for nearly two decades. He saw a dress rehearsal of Santaland when he was in high school in Utah and thought it was “hilarious. I just thought it was really, really, really great.” Then, in 2006, during his first holiday season with the ASC, Johnston started playing the pre-show music for Santaland and has done so every year since.

After being around the character for so long, Johnston says finding something that he shares with the character on the page helped him bring Crumpet to life. He identifies with Crumpet’s ability to see—and subsequently reveal—the true nature of things. When a parent whispers to Crumpet, “We’d like a traditional Santa, if you know what I mean,” Crumpet leads the family to a Santa who is decidedly not white, exposing the quiet undercurrent of racism.

It’s not easy to be alone on stage for an hour and 10 minutes, Johnston says (Andrew Goldwasser and René Thornton Jr., who played Crumpet in 2013 and 2014, respectively, agree). Actors often rely on one another for cues, establishing a rhythm not just for lines, but for knowing when a scene is going well and when it needs to pick up a little. But in Santaland, the actor’s scene partner is the audience…and every night, the audience is different.

There’s no exiting the stage after a bad scene, regrouping and coming back on to nail the next scene. And Johnston knows quite well when a joke doesn’t land—he can see their faces. The ASC’s mission is to explore the English Renaissance stage and its practices, namely Shakespeare’s staging conditions of leaving the lights on the audience and thereby including them in the world of the play, Warren explains.

But really, Johnston says, he’s only alone on stage for the first 10 minutes, as he gets to know the crowd. After that, Johnston, his audience and Crumpet are all in it together.

“It’s a good challenge as an actor, and I like that,” he says. “I don’t want to get bored, and I don’t want to get complacent.”

By the end of the play, it’s Christmas Eve, and on that night, the Macy’s customers reveal the season’s worst evils, cranked up a notch. Crumpet has had it up to here with Santaland; he’s ready to snap.

“I loved every time the show would wind down to its final stanza…and that last Santa, a Santa who’s a bit different from the rest,” former Crumpet Goldwasser says. After more than an hour of sarcasm and cynicism, “suddenly there’s this heart, and this room full of people (myself included), who had spent the last hour laughing about how annoying this time of year can be, suddenly remember why it’s also the most wonderful time of the year.”

“I love doing that and being able to see what it does to a room,” Johnston says with wistfulness in his voice, glad for the house lights that afford him a full view of the audience as he’ll tell Crumpet’s story a few more times before the lights go down on ASC’s The Santaland Diaries.