a poor player

Dunkirk NY – It’s going to be a very nice day here in western NY. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s, the sun is out, and the humidity is low. Last night I sat on my back porch, listened to the Yankees drop a game to Tampa Bay, played with a new stargazing app on my iPad, and then went to bed. It’s these kinds of situations that keep me from getting on my computer and writing on this blog. But hey, I don’t do this for a living, and I really don’t have any deadlines to meet, so I figure perhaps you don’t mind so much. Besides, at least in my neck of the woods, nothing much is happening.

Last week, though, while I was on vacation visiting family in Massachusetts, I did manage to squeeze in two days taking in the three Shakespeare offerings at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox MA. In fact, I got to do a fairly quick buzz around the Berkshires, from Lenox down to Stockbridge, then up to North Adams, across to Williamstown and back down through Pittsfield to Lenox. It was interesting. I liked Pittsfield the best, because it seemed to preserve most if its working-class history, and there was much more diversity visible in the community.

Having completed my own Shakespearian stint at my hometown Shakespeare Festival, it was quite interesting to compare the two and see what a difference money and location can make. When we talk about class, culture and the arts in this country, to me it becomes readily apparent that theatre has become the domain of the white and the wealthy. Comparing the way the two festivals go about producing Shakespeare, as well as looking at the eventual product, makes this pretty clear.

Shakespeare & Company – indeed, the entire Berkshire area – appears to cater to people with means, or at least the ability to scrape up the means for a short period of time. The audiences for all of the plays I saw were what you’d expect: elderly, white and predominantly female. Scattered within the audiences were families bringing their children for some cultural education. No people of color, with the exception of the matinee audience of Comedy of Errors, which had an audience composed of a few elderly people and a group of Upward Bound students from the Boston area on a day trip. More on those kids in a minute.

The town of Lenox is composed mostly of small, expensive shops of many kinds. I stopped in a bookstore, a leather goods store, and an art and chocolate store. My wife and I ate in a small Mediterranean restaurant that was not in any of the guides, and it had very reasonable prices and only one other family group in it (we visited the area over a Wednesday-Thursday). The atmosphere was one of cultured genteelness. Lenox is also home to Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Company, and the mixture of classical music, dance and Shakespearian theatre is very heady. The whole place gives out the vibe that smart, sophisticated, successful individuals live or vacation here. The town was not totally void of non-white faces, but it was always a long period of time before you saw one.

The shows themselves were overall not as good as I would have thought. The grounds of Shakespeare and Co. used to be an old private school for boys, and the Founders Theatre is a converted gymnasium. The first show I saw was Richard III. I did not much care for it. The actor playing Richard was all about effect, and never once did I see a crafty mind at work. The measure, to me, of a good Richard III lies in the Richard/Ann wooing scene; if that’s not done well, the rest of the show usually falls apart. It felt to me like the two actors were mostly standing there speaking well, but not really trying to affect or be affected by the other. The only scene I really enjoyed was IViv, the scene between Elizabeth and Richard where Richard tries to convince Elizabeth to let her daughter marry him. The actor playing Elizabeth was the best in the cast, and she made the scene work because she was actually directing her speech right at Richard. Shakespeare & Co., since it was founded by Tina Packer and Kristin Linklater, does stress vocal work, but it appears that work seems to give the actors the idea that acting is just the act of speaking. Only Elizabeth seemed to conbine speaking with intent and human motivation. Additionally, there appeared to be no real directing in the show, but rather a sense of just letting the “star” of the show go out there, be intense, play for effect, and do his thing. No crafting of pace, style, or intent was really evident.

The matinee of Comedy of Errors was performed by the company’s collection of interns in their newly-built blackbox theatre, and it consisted primarily of recent graduates of university programs. It was performed as if it were a circus comedy, and it was energetic, physical, and boisterous. The performers had a lot of energy, but lacked polish. And again, the hand of the director, while present in some of the concept (such as a bell chiming whenever the word “chain” was utter, which grew absolutely wearying because it had not ultimate payoff), was not much present in helping the young actors shape their performances. Occasionally the actors executed the physical bits to some good effect (with one outstanding performance by a young, tall, black male with an extremely lithe body playing the Courtesan as a cross-dresser), but more often than not they did not have their intended effect due to lack of precision. It was interesting to note that the Upward Bound audience, which was polite and well-behaved throughout the performance, really only laughed at the most broad and bawdy physical humor. I think the rest of it went right over their heads despite the high energy of the cast. If this is an intern company where the actors are supposed to be there to learn better craft, I can’t say that was the case. And had it not been for the Upward Bound kids, there would have been no more than 30 people in the house. The humor, I think, also became overkill for the elderly generation, as one woman turned to her friend towards the end and said “I think this is the last scene coming up, thank God.”

The final show I saw was The Winter’s Tale in its final preview. This was the best of the three. This show is hard to make successful, as Shakespeare seemed to have lost interest in good plot structure with this one. It’s actually two plays in some ways. When the scene moves to Bohemia, the play feels completely different. The director’s hand in this one was most strong, as he clearly was making an effort to create very clear worlds inhabited by very specific kinds of people. The actor playing Leontes, however, was a bit of a disappointment. He’s clearly a very good actor, but he appeared to playing for mood and emotion more so that clarity of story. He kept breaking up the lines in odd places, running sentences together in strange ways, and accelerating and decelerating his pace in what appeared to be an attempt to handle the language with the appearance of dexterity. His presence on stage was very strong, and he’s clearly a fine actor, but his speech patterns were so unusual, broken up in so many strange ways, that his thoughts became hard to follow. He was better in the second half of the play, although his subdued melancholy became somewhat affected after awhile. The courtroom scene was well-staged (as was the whole production), but alas, Hermione’s defense speech was also chopped up for the sake of mood. The actress played the character at that point as very weak from the aftereffects of childbirth, and I think it took away from the strength inherent in the scansion and language of her presence in that scene. Particular kudos have to go to the actors playing The Shepard and his son. Their comic timing and characterizations were spot-on; and indeed, the production was at its best during the Bohemia scenes. I think it was the best staging of the rustic’s festival I’ve ever seen.

Now I point all this out because, in my opinion, the presence of all this money and charm and sophistication did not buy any better Shakespeare. It bought a more comfortable surrounding, and more of a sense of high culture, elegance and art, but it did not buy better Shakespeare. I am no doubt prejudiced, but Shakespeare in Delaware Park is, to me, much closer to what I think Shakespeare was really after. Our production of Much Ado did not feature the kinds of actors you get to see at Shakespeare & Co. (NY credits and the like, although there are quite a few young, non-Equity people in the company). The grounds don’t feature the same genteel, wealthy atmosphere (heck, we don’t even have running water; we have port-a-johns as bathrooms. Very Elizabethan). Our productions do not have the same production values in terms of set, lights and costume. We play a broader style suitable for outdoors.You can hear traffic and airplanes and all manner of noise as the show progresses (two years ago there were even two streakers who crossed the stage during a performance).

But it does afford the opportunity to everyone of any means whatsoever to come and enjoy Shakespeare for free (we take up free-will donations at intermission and suggest a $10 donation. The cost of our three shows at Lenox was $191). It does offer solidly performed shows done mostly by local talent or actors with roots in the area. There are always people of all ages, all economic means, and all ethnic backgrounds in the audience. There can be up to 1500 people present on a good day. The wealthy and the poor alike mix in the same location, just as at the Globe. And for better or worse, it’s quintessentially Buffalonian. In short, it has an appeal capable of attracting everyone. It’s more along the lines of what I’d like all theatre to be in an ideal world. If Shakespeare himself had the choice, I think he’d come to Shakespeare in Delaware Park before he’d go near Shakespeare & Co.

Either tonight or tomorrow night I’ll be attending the all-female production of MacBeth now playing up in SDP. The buzz for this show has been outstanding. I’m looking forward to it.  -twl