*The 39 Steps* at Interplayers

"A little bit of James Bond, a little bit of Masterpiece Theatre, and a lot of Monty Python" — that's how director William Marlowe describes the farcical Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps (at Interplayers through Oct. 30).

Our hero, a dashing chap called Richard Hannay (played by Damon Mentzer) finds himself up against an international spy ring after a femme fatale (Alisha Gunn) implores him to help her and then gets herself murdered in his London flat. What ensues is a wild goose chase that involves locomotives racing up to the Scottish Highlands and narrow escapes from the coppers while Hannay finds himself handcuffed to a beautiful woman (also played by Gunn, who is the sister of Brian, currently starring as Buddy Holly at the Civic).

All the other parts (and there are many dozens of them) — vaudeville performers, underwear salesmen, Bobbies, bed and breakfast operators, thugs, detectives, orators — are played by two "clowns" (Damon Abdallah and Jerry Sciarrio).

The entire show — innovated by Patrick Barlow just five years ago, though it's based on a century-old novel and the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film — needs to have a frantic and improvised feel. That's why Marlowe — in his directing debut at Interplayers, despite having worked on and off at the joint for two decades as backstage techie and as an actor — has chosen a "found props" approach: Junk will encircle the entire perimeter of Interplayers' thrust stage, with the four actors picking and choosing and making their costume changes in full view of the audience. 

Despite the show's done-on-the-fly flavor, it's

technically challenging, with 200 lighting cues

and 135 sound cues (most of them in the first act, which has Hannay clinging to a speeding locomotive as he tries to outwit the coppers).

Barlow's script is almost verbatim to the movie, and it includes several allusions to other Hitchcock films, like North by Northwest and Rear Window. Marlowe has even incorporated a bit with a birdcage (and guess which 1963 film starring Tippi Hedren that alludes to).

A lot of the sound effects are done by the actors, with Sciarrio vocally imitating the sounds of a 1930s clunker starting up.

Yeah, but will it be funny? Marlowe says that several times during rehearsals, "we had to stop to wipe away tears."

This weekend: Thurs-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm; continues through Oct. 30. Tickets: $15-$21. Interplayers is at 174 S. Howard St. Call 455-PLAY. Visit the theater listings under "Stage Thrust" in the Bloglander at inlander.com.

R3 at SFCC in '11

A year from now (evidently in March 2011), William Marlowe plans to direct Shakespeare's Richard III at the Falls, with Damon Curtis Mentzer (most recently, A Tuna Christmas and Shakespeare in Hollywood, but also The Importance of Being Earnest at Actors Rep; and Irma Vep, Othello and Woman in Black at Interplayers, along with many others) in the hunchback title role.

Mentzer's on a hot streak, since he's getting married on March 22 (a Monday, natch -- we are theater people, after all). 

And all Bobo has to say is that if Damon proposed to Kari McClure in anything like the way that Richard of Gloucester woos Lady Anne in the play, then he's very lucky that Kari said yes.

We wish the soon-to-be-married couple much happiness and (if they so choose) many little thespians, clustered 'round the hearth for familial readers theater performances. (To be held, of course, on Monday nights.)

[ photo: Antony Sher as Richard III in 1984 for the Royal Shakespeare Company; from a North Texas blog called "Art&Seek," with a good commentary about a production of the play at the Kitchen Dog Theater ]

*The Comedy of Errors* photos

The Comedy of Errors offers wacky misunderstandings and madcap hijiinks at Spokane Falls Community College's Spartan Theater, Bldg. 5, on March 4-7 and March 11-14 — Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm, and on Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets: $8, suggested donation; or bring two cans of food for the SFCC Food Bank. Call 533-3592.

[ photos for The Inlander by Tammy Marshall. (1) Michael Brannan as Sir Nicholas of Hillyard, Christopher Lamb as Yoyo of Hillyard, Jamie Smith as Fat-Ass Nell, Geoff Lang as Sir Nicholas of Kennewick and Tony Morales as Yoyo of Kennewick. (2) Rushelle Provoncha as Adriana of Hillyard and Merrin Field as Lucy-Anna Hillyard-Clark. ]

Being reminded

Going through the slog of rehearsals (and all the rest of life) lately, Bobo has been reminded of the time, energy and commitment that it takes to put on a show.
(While I'm playing the Duke in The Comedy of Errors at SFCC, directed by Bill Marlowe and running March 4-14, local theater types will have plenty of chance to sneer at Mr. Critical Critic Head.)



Those of us who have theater hobbies do it because we love it. But it's salutory for Bobo to be reminded, periodically, of what it all entails. How will I do at auditions? Will I get the part I want? Are these other actors any good? Are they better than me? Will they like me? And how bad will the dressing rooms smell?
What kind of director will he be? Is he going to subject us to some outlandish interpretaion? Will I be able to memorize my lines? What am I gonna look like in my costume? Do the tech people know what they're doing? Will anybody show up to watch? Will I get along with the other actors? Are they really that young? Am I really that old? Is there an alternative to pounding my lines by reading, typing, annotating and reciting them in the car on the way to work? (No, there is not. And as for mouthing the words while riding the bus -- well, people tend to give you concerned looks.) And does it all feel, in the days just before opening, as if it's all going to crash and burn? (Of course. It always does.) And is there anything like that can't-wait-to-open, ready-for-an-audience, got-a-wonderful-story-to-tell feeling? (No, there isn't.)
We MAY crash and burn -- I'm taking a stereotyped chance with my character that some are going to hate -- but Bill has proven to be a master at directing physical comedy, and the cast is great. (They're just kids. Old enough to be their father, I don't fit in, not really. And yet, as usual, there's that don't-really-know-him, I-only-know-her-first-name nodding acquaintance, and yet when running lines or experimenting with a new bit of comic business -- and Marlowe LOVES his bits of comic business -- there's also that wonderful sense that we're all in this together, walking the tightrope, might belly-flop but also might not, we're just adults playing and creating and trusting one another, exposed to public glare and to hell with the nay-sayers.

None of which is unique or special -- there are millions of people bitten by the bug. But as a kind of corrective to the next time I might feel like savaging a show, it's useful about once a year, when scheduling permits (and even when not), just to do what the people I criticize do. And be reminded that it ain't so easy.
And yes, I savaged Honky Tonk Angels. But then apparently the director of that show, Reed McColm (who I am honored to call a friend) is going to review our Comedy of Errors right on this very blog.
(And I adapted the script, too, so if you're a Shakespearean purist who's offended by the replacement of archaic insults with words like "wanker" and "douchebag," then you're also going to get all riled up about that.)

[photo: Royal Shakespeare Company actors rehearsing Henry V; from rsc.org.uk]

On translating Shakespeare and keeping theaters alive

[ from tasss.com: "Totally Awesome Super Sweet Stuff / Fighting the forces of lame" presents the William Shakespeare Celebriduck ]

Two articles in the January issue of American Theatre magazine -- an issue devoted to vocal training for actors — caught Bobo's eye in particular:

pp. 94-99, John McWhorter's "The Real Shakespearean Tragedy," arguing that all that 400-year-old language needs to be updated in ways that today's theatergoers will find understandable
and
pp. 104-07, Eliza Bent's "Save Our Ship," on what marketing strategies should be followed by theaters that are in danger of dying a slow (or sudden) financial death (which I'll examine in my next post).

First, the Shakespeare. Using numerous examples, McWhorter points out that even people who are trained in Shakespeare don't understand Shakespeare anymore.
Beowulf, written 1,200 years ago, may be in English, but nobody denies that it needs translating (as in Seamus Heaney's great example), or else nobody but grad students would read it ever again. McWhorter's basic argument is that Shakespeare has reached the same point.
"Shakespeare is not a drag because we are lazy, because we are poorly educated, or because he wrote in poetic language," he says. "Shakespeare is a drag because he wrote in a language which, as a natural consequence of the mighty eternal process of language change, 500 years later we effectively no longer speak."
(The "500 years" is a bizarre mistake -- 400 is much closer to the truth. But that's a minor point.)

All this hit Bobo with resonance because he just had the pleasure of adapting The Comedy of Errors for Bill Marlowe's upcoming production in March.
Actually -- to back up a bit — I started modernizing the Errors script a couple of years ago for Michael Weaver and Actors Rep; Michael wanted to do a relatively simple, straightforward and funny Shakespeare in some upcoming, never-to-happen season (so that explains the choice of Errors) AND he wanted to reduce the cast down to just eight, or preferably six or seven, actors. I had the idea that the same actor could play both master-twins AND another actor could play both servant-twins (thus reducing cast size AND increasing the audience's confusion -- I wanted to put viewers in the same position as the onstage characters -- that is, of not being at all sure which twin was going to come through that doorway next.)
Alas, ARt went kaput and so did my Errors dream, until I noticed that Marlowe was going to direct it.
So Bobo set to work with several goals. First, I tried to persuade Bill about my twins idea, but at a community college, cast size is not a problem, so that went by the wayside.
More important, I set about
1. Cutting out the boring parts. I cut the script by about 21 percent. There are a lot of four-century-old jokes that just ain't funny anymore.
2. Modernizing the language: "reft" became "robbed"; "carcanet" became "necklace new"; "carriage" became "manners"; "situate" became "living"; "Diet his" became "Tend to his"; terms of insult got changed from "huh?" to slightly off-color disparagements; most of the "thee's" and "thou's" got thrown out, and so on.
3. Changing place names and character names. One of the main characters in the original is named Antipholus of Ephesus. Sounds like a disease. (Plus, Ephesus isn't remembered much at all today, outside the Pauline epistles, as a place of sorcery and magic.) In our production, he has become Sir Nicholas of ... a place you'll recognize. (Indeed, the place names have all been changed to Inland Northwest locales.)
Most of this needed to be done within the constraints of the 10-syllables-to-the-line requirements of iambic pentameter.

The point being: McWhorter's right. Perhaps especially in the comedies, we have to get rid of the "WTF?" moments and all the head-scratchers (and worse, all the words that we THINK we know the meaning of, except that Will used them in a completely different way). Comedy isn't funny until it's clear. We need to make The Comedy of Errors, written about 420 years ago, clear. It's come time to admit it: Shakespeare may be in English, but he still needs to be translated for us.



[ from Getty _Images_and_London's The Independent ]

A Goth *Othello*

Director William Marlowe has given a Goth look to his production, coming up March 5-15 at SFCC. (See the Feb. 17 post here.)

Q&A:

Bobo: Does the production have a concept or non-Jacobean historical setting?
Marlowe: As you can tell from the photos, the concept is to put it in a modern romantic context with strong “Goth” overtones. Think *Underworld* in flavor. Much of the play takes place in the dark and I thought it would bring in the younger demographic.

Bobo: During table work, what misperceptions did students have about Shakespeare or Jacobean London or iambic pentameter or revenge tragedy?
Marlowe: I did not delve into discussions about revenge tragedy. We did some comparative talking about this play and *Titus Andronicus* as a reference. A good amount of time was spent on the language and scansion. We used the *No Fear* version to help the many first-time Shakespeare actors with what they were saying.

Bobo: How much cutting of the text did you do?
Marlowe: Many cuts, to say the least. I just can’t imagine my audience sitting through the entire play and quite frankly, some of it needed to go. The musicians are gone and most but not all of the clown. We have changed some words to a more modern translation: "horologe," for example. I have included a 1.2 battle between Brabantio’s men and Othello’s soldiers. I also couched the 3.3 Iago and Othello insinuation scene as a practice with quarterstaffs. It makes for some nice visual punctuation of the dialogue.

Bobo: Is Iago gay, envious of Cassio, racist, angry over Emilia's infidelity, or what? In other words, is Coleridge's formulation ("the motive-searching of motiveless malignity") correct, and he's satanic -- we simply cannot explain his evil, or what?
Marlowe: We did discuss the idea that Iago is in love/lust with Othello and becomes satisfied when he gets Cassio’s position. I will not have Iago die between Othello’s legs as Mr. Brannagh did. Iago embodies evil but not evil just as a device. He has real jealousy about his position and his perceived infidelity of his wife.

Bobo: In their own ways, how are Othello and Desdemona a) naive and b) admirable?
Marlowe: It is important to the play that we clearly see Othello as the outsider who has overstepped his social status in marrying Desdemona. I like the idea of full and true love between them and that Iago is primarily motivated by the loss of being lieutenant. We do provide a sort of “Branded” moment to make that visually clear when Cassio is demoted and then Iago becomes the lieutenant. Othello is inexperienced in domestic matters and I think the script supports that idea. Desdemona is in complete love and cannot see the danger until 5.2. Even then she does not understand it and forgives Othello at the end by naming him “kind lord."
Stylistically we are playing the fourth wall with everyone but Iago. He is taking the audience in and sharing all his secrets with us in his asides.