The Troubadour Podcast

Beyond Netflix: Discovering the Thrill of Live Theatre

Kirk j Barbera

Send us a text

Embark on an enthralling odyssey into the soul of the theater with the Artistic Director of Austin Shakespeare, inviting us into the realm where the magic of Shakespearean drama and the communal spell of live performances make us active participants. Our discussion honors the enchantment of the stage, the cerebral feast of its language, and the poignant art of translating classic literature like Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" into resonating theatrical experiences. We unite to not only celebrate these ageless tales but to also savor the communal essence of witnessing them unfold before our eyes.

As my esteemed guest and I traverse the landscape of theater, we acknowledge influential voices that have shaped the appreciation of the humanities, from critics to scholars. Theater's enduring pertinence is put under the spotlight, examining universal themes in the works of Shakespeare and contemporary playwrights. We contemplate the responsibilities and creative intricacies of directing scenes that have captured imaginations for centuries, while also delving into the complexities of age-appropriate casting and the cultural conversations it ignites.

The resilience of theater, particularly in the era of the pandemic, ushers in a reflection on the innovative adaptations and the birth of a new artistic synthesis of stage and film. This episode also peeks behind the curtain to reveal the business aspects of theater funding, the impact of workshops for nurturing writers and actors, and the future trajectory of this art form. Join us for a riveting exchange that passionately advocates for the irreplaceable influence of theater, showcasing its capacity to both mirror and mold our societal narratives.

Speaker 1:

You're the artistic director of Austin Shakespeare. We live in Austin and I want to talk about that broader world of drama, the American theater and theater and what you do. Sure, but first I want to cover something that we definitely talked about a long time ago. I'm curious if anything's changed, or your thoughts. So we live in a world where, for $17 and a short drive to the local cinema, I can watch extravagant stories that take place on distant planets or deep into the recesses of history. These are done with great care as to their accuracy. I could see a group of soldiers trek across war-torn Europe, or I can watch a group of blue aliens protect their home from invaders. At my own home, the couch you're sitting on, I can experience all that same entertainment with a big TV and a state-of-the-art sound system. Just last night, I was transported to Budapest, to Rome and to Virginia in a single episode, a 50-minute episode of a spy thriller. So, given all that, what could Shakespeare possibly offer to me?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think it's a little bit like saying why read a book when you can go watch a movie. It's a different experience. I mean, I love the movies and going to the movies and watching movies at home and really everything you just said. But Shakespeare really does call on the imagination. So you know he has actual ideas of. He calls for the muse of fire, if you remember that in his opening speech, and it's a wonderful call on us to imagine it. Sometimes when we talk about play reading, I talk about making a movie in your mind. So it has that quality and you know from loving literature that novels can do that, narrative poems can do that, imagistic poems can do that. But it's kind of like mental nutrition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, now do you think that this can be accomplished with cinema, or what's the fundamental difference?

Speaker 3:

It is different because you're not using your imagination in the same way. Right, you're seeing what the director, cinematographer, wants you to see, and when you're reading a play or reading a novel, you're creating the movie. When you're watching a play, you have a certain amount of movement, if you will, your eyes might look at one actor and at the other actor. So in that sense you're sort of directing and editing the scene for yourself. But it's a different art form, it really is.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like what you're saying is. One of the differences is the work you, as the audience, has to do. Like it's some kind of imaginative work it is?

Speaker 3:

I don't feel like it's work. It's like saying to a child when you're playing house, are you working? No, you're playing and in some sense it is called a play, and oftentimes with actors, when we go into rehearsal we're in a very playful mode, but when the audience is there, they're participating in that imaginary world together. And it's great to be in a room with 100 people, 500 people, 1,000 people, all participating in that imaginary world together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So, like I said, I've always tried to get at interesting arguments for people to take on this burden in a sense Not burden is not the right word this endeavor, which it is, an endeavor I mean. To me I always the easiest analogy is going to the gym, because you know, like, if there is a difference between watching a movie, even a great movie, and watching a play, or I would say even experiencing yeah and one of the differences I've noticed is the amount of work necessary for me to get a good experience, and I mean even in watching it.

Speaker 1:

Sure, so even when there's pageantry. We just watched a play you put on which, I have to say, is my favorite so far. Okay, and I've liked a lot of them, but I loved this one. This one really touched me.

Speaker 3:

Sense and Sensibility.

Speaker 1:

Sense and Sensibility, which was obviously based on a play I mean a book, a novel by Jane Austen and it was turned into a play. Who turned it into a play, by the way?

Speaker 3:

Joe Hanreddy and Jim Sullivan, two adapters who are you know, doing them now?

Speaker 1:

This is a model.

Speaker 3:

Yes, they've done Pride and Prejudice, but they're trying to be faithful to Jane Austen and I think part of what you're sensing is the heightened language in theater. That's part of it. That is, a movie is made for a very general audience.

Speaker 3:

There are arthouse movies that are going to maybe be more poetic, but generally plays are created for audiences that are interested in literature, and you know, in fact we call it dramatic literature, and the language is heightened. I mean, austen, shakespeare is definitely into Shakespeare, but we're also into other authors that have that heightened language, and Jane Austen is surely one of them.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So yeah, that's a good point to bring in. So it's part of what you're interested in as an audience member. But there seems to be something universal that it's like. I guess it sounds like you're making almost an argument of.

Speaker 3:

There's the specialized vision of the literary, and then there's this other thing for everybody else that's not literary well, I mean there are, there are, you know, comedies and there are musical theater pieces that are not heightened language. Yeah, right, that people really enjoy and have a lot of fun, at sure, but generally when you're talking about shakespeare, the work that Austin Shakespeare does, we're talking about language that has a poetic or imaginative bent.

Speaker 1:

No, so I'm agreeing with that. What I'm saying I guess I'm trying to get at is you know.

Speaker 1:

Again, my goal is to make a argument and to inspire people to go do this, even people who don't see themselves enjoying the heightened language and all that stuff and I know you do the same thing, like you're out there all the time trying to motivate people to come to austin shakespeare, come see this, and I'm sure you get the same resistance. You know people are nice to your face say, oh yeah, it sounds great. But you know, and when they're honest with you, they're like I'm not gonna go see a shakespeare, and I'm sure you get the same resistance. You know people are nice to your face, oh yeah, it sounds great. But you know, when they're honest with you they're like I'm not going to go see a Shakespeare.

Speaker 3:

Well, it's a little bit like going to listen to classical music, right, okay, that you're going to have a special experience, but you were sort of talking about it's a little bit like work You're going to have to be there. So when you're going to a rock concert, it's coming at you, it's on you, right. It's not like you have to really listen carefully. You're singing along, generally, you're bopping, but when you're at a classical concert, you're really allowing the music to infiltrate, if you will, your mind and your brain. And it's not narrative form, of course, but that's a different experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I have found much more profound experiences through drama, literature, poetry, of course, and I find it to be one of the sad realities of our time and I just resist having this kind of oh things were all great in the past type thing.

Speaker 3:

Right sure.

Speaker 1:

Which I think. I love the technology, I love movies. I was a film major, I mean, I love this stuff. But there's something different. That is a magic that I chase once in a while and I'm, you know, bottling and explaining that magic is very difficult to explain because it's not readily available and it's, you know, when, I'm being honest, it doesn't even happen. Very often, I'm being honest, it doesn't even happen very often. So a lot of times, you know, I've had the experience of reading hundreds of pages that I thought was okay and I enjoyed it. Yeah, so I was like this is like I'm studying for a test, right, and that's not enjoyable, but part of it is the effort question meaning.

Speaker 3:

I always say people have seen many bad bands. I mean many, but they don't stop going to a club and it is not as unlike that. It's just easier to listen to pop music. I wish I were more literate in terms of classical music because I think I would feel more. But, as you say, going to the theater is my thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think there's something. Let me transition and talk about critics. I was going to bring this up later, sure, but it seems, maybe, natural. So you've had to deal with critics your whole life, most of your adult life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's not like I'm getting critics from the New York Times. If you were in New York City, you'd be much more under that spotlight. When you're in a town like Austin, you have one critic, maybe two critics and they're writing more reviews. Right, they're not going too deeply into the criticism but honestly, I kind of love critics meaning I read critics all the time and that's how you learn about theater history. If you're reading the New York Times reviews, you're learning something about a play that you may never see.

Speaker 1:

But you were thinking more about taking in criticism to all of this, my view of the role of a critic is to bash theater, basically, or to bash modern literature or to, you know, tear things apart, like the popular movie site is called Rotten Tomatoes.

Speaker 1:

And it's like rotten tomatoes and you know they do have it where there's a positive or it's 100% fresh tomato, but the name of the site is rotten tomato. I just I've found it that bashing is the essence of criticism today, which I think separates people from what theater and drama and literature could be that's an interesting point and there's, you know.

Speaker 1:

So we think there's a, and especially in america, we're talking about the america show right, there's there's a, and especially in America, we're talking about the America show right, there's there's a real separation of like vaudeville, of just pure entertainment, and the highfalutin hoity, toity stuff, right, which I think is associated with Shakespeare wrongfully so in my opinion. But that's that. That split obviously is. I think I don't know about other countries as much, but it's very prominent in America.

Speaker 3:

But I think if you think of the best literary criticism that you've read, it makes you see more, it makes it richer. Yes, right, it gives you insight that than you might have noticed without that person. So I hear what you're saying about contemporary or pop criticism and of course in the Internet everybody's got an opinion. Yeah, you know, but in some sense you want people to have an opinion. You just don't want them to foist it on you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's my overall point is I've read some essays from many major critics over the last couple hundred years Samuel Johnson, a more recent one, harold Bloom, henry Hazlitt, samuel Taylor. Coleridge is one of my favorites and there's a few others. And one of my conclusions I'm curious what you think about this is it's basically what you just said, but so I think the role of a critic and one of the failings in American criticism and American art is we don't have this is the role of the critic is to enlighten, enliven, enlargen the senses.

Speaker 3:

That's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, To kind of help you understand, even if they're tearing something apart, as in terms of it's a bad play, the only motivation they should have in doing that is to help the audience better understand the mechanics and and why what they, you know, could be looking for and what else is out there. And rather than like this is trash and who could come up like anytime I've ever read anything modern, or maybe this is my, you know, bias, but it's always it seems like it's just who can come up with the most flippant oh, to really trash something, yeah.

Speaker 3:

But I think what's great is if you can find a critic that has your taste. So there was a critic for the Wall Street Journal called Terry Teachout.

Speaker 1:

Terry T.

Speaker 3:

Teachout, teachout, and he just died, like a year or two ago. And he was right, I mean, he died young. But his writing, even though I didn't agree with everything he said, it was like oh, we're simpatico. So if you can find that critic, that really helps enliven and enlighten. Do you think that still exists?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, really Okay, yeah, well, if you see one, let me know, because I don't read. I mean, I had a poor education, I think, growing up, and so so much of my adulthood has been trying to rectify that, particularly in the humanities, which is part of the motivation of the show.

Speaker 1:

Like I'm not an expert on America, this is an exploration for me and for the listeners but you mentioned harold bloom yeah and he's a great critic of shakespeare and enlightens it in live in shakespeare's work yeah, so he's definitely inspired me to see, you know, as have you to, to see, to understand, to experience. Uh, stephen greenblatt has done that like a whole. They're out. I mean, shakespeare is an easy one, of course, in terms of so many books.

Speaker 3:

I think you know, every year there are more and more books yeah put out on shakespeare for sure um, okay, so so that that's critics.

Speaker 1:

you know, I've more and more thought of myself as maybe that's something I should be doing more of, because I do love the history of literature and that aspect of it. I see myself as a teacher. But okay, let me ask you now about Austin Shakespeare. So you're the artistic director of Austin Shakespeare, and how long? When did you start as artistic director?

Speaker 3:

15 years ago 15 years. The organization is 37 years old, but I started the job 15 years ago.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so the organization's as old as I am.

Speaker 3:

There you go.

Speaker 1:

As is the Ayn Rand Institute. They're both like something magical happened in 84, 85. I was born in 85. So that's a magic time. It all started there. Okay, so your mission says I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just a little thing about connecting the truths of the past with the challenges of today. Right, so what do you think? Shakespeare and other playwrights that you choose? Do you have examples? Of what that is like.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I immediately thought Hamlet, is you meaning? You've all experienced the. I don't know Should I believe in this person or not. What should? I do. Should I do this or not? Yeah, so I think the greatness of that classical literature is that it still lives. And you know, we're going to be doing a play by Tom Stoppard. Okay.

Speaker 3:

And Tom Stoppard wrote this play called the Real Thing and that's what we're working on and I'll read a lot of criticism of it. You know I'll read biographies of Stoppard and all sorts of essays on Stoppard. But it was a play where he felt ready to start exploring kind of true love, Like what's true love, and before this he did not. You know, he wrote rosencrantz and gildenstern are dead and so on.

Speaker 3:

so he was always very clever yeah, yeah and he was playing a lot the theater game. But this play is more about um. Do you care about fidelity? Yeah what happens when the person that you're in love with is fooling around with somebody else? Do you let that go? Do you fight for it, and so on. So those questions are questions that Shakespeare asked and answered in different ways, and I, just you know, I love the vision of different playwrights who really are telling their truth.

Speaker 1:

So, so Austin Shakespeare is a local theater and I wanted to get into how, like, before we moved on to some of the other things I want to talk about, I want to talk about, like, the finances and the way that it, because it's. I've actually studied the history of filmmaking and how fine and of course that's a much more. You know the easy term is commercial, much more. You know the easy term is commercial. And unless it's Broadway, it seems like it's harder or a different model.

Speaker 3:

So what's the model that Austin Shakespearean Well contemporary? What we're called, is a small professional theater. Okay.

Speaker 3:

So we pay everybody something, we do, hire some union actors, and then there are what's called community theaters, which may not pay you anything, but you have the experience of being on stage, your friends and family will come and see you, and so on. We're trying to do something a little bit more ambitious, but this really happened in the mid-20th century, meaning actually the Ford Foundation gave out some huge grants to try to get regional theater, so that theater wouldn't just be in New York City. Yeah, that theater would be all over the country. So major theaters that still exist, like the Houston and the Alley Theater, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Or the Dallas Theater Center. Those were from that initial effort and they were modeling themselves after Britain, right? Because Britain has what's called the provinces, so there might be theater in London and in the West End, but then there is provincial theater and some of that theater is really excellent. So they wanted to the Ford Foundation literally wanted to bring that to America, and that started this whole process. Right now we're in a more difficult time, meaning it used to be that there were Shakespeare companies and there's the Shaw Festival and so on, but they too now are getting to do more commercial musicals and so on in order survive, because budgets have gotten bigger and bigger and, you know, it's just so much money that people want to spend bringing their kids to see Shakespeare. In the summer they might want to see Shakespeare and Matilda, you know wait, wait.

Speaker 1:

You're saying budgets have gotten bigger, as in the, the revenue has gotten bigger the demand meaning uh what?

Speaker 3:

as the theater grows okay each theater either grows or dies. The budgets have gotten bigger in that regard, so the pressure is on both raising more money, and nonprofit theaters are raising far more than the ticket price that we're paying, and paying actors and so on, so both the income and the expense rises over time.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so this sounds like a good thing. Is this a good thing?

Speaker 3:

It is a good thing. The problem for me is that some theater companies that I've loved for a long time are not as pure as they used to be. They're not just doing Shakespeare and the classics. Now they're doing Peter Pan, which I love, Peter Pan but it's not what I expect. Oregon. Shakespeare in the classics. Now they're doing Peter Pan, which I love Peter Pan, but it's not what I expect Oregon Shakespeare Festival to do, but they do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the Oregon Shakespeare, which is one of the more famous ones in America, right?

Speaker 3:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

One I want to go see.

Speaker 3:

Good, you'll have fun.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, so you're saying they also do Peter Pan, right? Because there's more of a demand to go see plays in general.

Speaker 3:

Well, in the summer, if you want to take a trip, so it's not in a. You know, Ashland, Oregon is not where everybody's going, but it's a beautiful little town so if you want to bring your kids, they're also going to do some plays that you could take your kids to, and that's part of the draw.

Speaker 1:

So there's okay, so my perception of so one. Thank you for clarifying between community theater and what did you call? It Small professional, small professional, can we just call it professional theater?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, regional theater is what you think of as the bigger one. So Zach has grown. It was a community theater to start and then it became a small professional theater and now it's a professional theater which gets to literally it's a contract level. So they're they're in the league of, uh, resident theaters, of regional theaters.

Speaker 1:

yeah so how do we get austin shakespeare to get to that level? What do we got to do? Well, it is about raising money it's so raising money is number one um well, you and you also work at it.

Speaker 3:

You know you get better and better, each show, each season yeah more people see you, they connect to you and you know we have a tremendous base of donors. They're just uh modest in their contributions. We don't have a lot of the big money donors that the opera, symphony and ballet might have the opera symphony in in austin.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, um, that's interesting and that's normal all over the country.

Speaker 3:

Meaning yeah, there will always be yes, and houston has a world-class opera company and so why is that?

Speaker 1:

that's an? Is that just like the perspective of the prestige of these? Yes?

Speaker 3:

When people see we printed our programs all the donors and when people who are in Austin see those donors, they'll say they should be adding a zero to that. You know, if they're giving you $250, they should be giving you $2,500, et cetera. But it's always been that because the costs of opera, symphony, ballet are so much higher that people who have capacity generally will give them a lot more money than any theater, not just Austin Shakespeare, but theater in general.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so the first step, of course, is getting more people engaged in the theater, which is, hopefully we could do some of that together get more people engaged in it and it's about doing plays in a creative way.

Speaker 3:

It doesn't mean that every play is perfect, but you want to pick plays that are both challenging and fun.

Speaker 1:

Okay, they're challenging and fun and you're. You're getting well like sense and sensibility was a packed house every time.

Speaker 3:

I went there twice, thanks Jane Austen, and it was a packed house and yeah, jane, it was. I mean it's a good story and you know, but I think I think it was just everything was perfect for me on that one. I love that's great, that's great. But you want dramatic stuff like we're doing master harold and the boys, which is an ethel figard play about, uh, south africa and apartheid and what that meant to human beings, and those are not ha ha shows. Right, those are more challenging shows. But you want a variety. You don't want. You want meat as well as dessert. What's a dessert? And I think sense and sensibility is pretty frothy yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so yeah, I saw on your website, like you have um, you know, 1500, 2500, 5000 circle, and so the ballet, the opera, they get the 50,000, they get the 50,000.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so that's that's like their opening and part of that's the prestige. So what's the pitch for people who, let's say, they've you know they they were talking're talking about educated, smart people, but they're not big theater goers but they live in austin san antonio what's the pitch to give? And not all the goodies, like, just the value. Yeah, we've talked about the value of it for yourself and we'll talk more about that. Um, I have some more arguments, but just there's a. There's a serious value of having you know bill helping austin shakespeare build you know a regional theater one day.

Speaker 1:

And just having even more of that.

Speaker 3:

Sure, I do think when you experience great theater and you value it, you tend to want to share it and you want to perpetuate it, to perpetuate it. So that's why people like you, kirk, will come and bring other people, yeah, or will make a donation in whatever level they can to support it. But I think it's about getting people to come. Some people never come and they do donate Really Because they want. They think, well, this is a good thing, yeah, and they want it in their children's lives, or they want us to be in the schools, for instance.

Speaker 1:

That'll be oftentimes why people will give, but, um, generally it's because it impacted you yeah, so basically it's about finding, um, what is ayn rand called like flame spotters or something like that, right like so you're looking for champions, right to go out and champion theater as such, and you know more than that. You know, and then bring people and get them engaged and things like that.

Speaker 3:

And oftentimes it's about doing shows other than Shakespeare. So somebody might be Shakespeare, might be at an arm's length, but Sense and Sensibility is easier. Tom Stoppard, they know from movies and you know the show was written in 1982, so it's not so far away. And I will say, doing free Shakespeare in the park, where you don't have to pay for a ticket, you're not in a seat, you can come and go as you want. That's a very attractive way to engage people in theater, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean's it, you did. Was it 12th night this last or midsummer's this last summer? Yeah, I mean those are wonderful. If you're in austin you should definitely go see that. I mean, come to see.

Speaker 3:

I go to see pretty much all the shows you do yeah well, and people will come to austin and see what's going on and say, oh, there's free shakespeare in the park, we'll go there, we'll bring a picnic, and so on. So that's an exciting aspect of tourism, meaning it's called cultural tourism. Right, you go to a place and you might go to the symphony or go to the museum, as you're going to restaurants et cetera.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so one other thing Austin Shakespeare doesn't just put on plays for adults. One of the values of supporting it is the general support for education of young people and teenagers. So every summer, so far since I've moved here, I've gone to the teen version of a shakespeare play, or teen shakespeare play, yeah, yeah yeah, very good, and it's done at the globe or what's it called.

Speaker 3:

It's called the curtain theater and it's a replica, replica of the globe, but it's, like you know, 120th of the size. But it's adorable and it's on lake austin yeah so it's a fun location and it's early summer, so hopefully it won't be too hot in Austin.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then, um, and well, and then, so you, you also go into high schools and help up to fifth grade.

Speaker 3:

You know, we just were in a fifth grade. Oh, fifth grade, we feel like, yeah, in terms of reading level, that's where you can start to even put the, put your mouth around the words. And they do I mean fifth graders absolutely can speak Shakespeare. There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I taught fifth grade and we did Julius Caesar.

Speaker 3:

That's great. I bet you had fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, of course we acted out some of the battle scenes, because that's the fun, where you get the kids, even the girls, boys, everyone got engaged in it, and then we had them doing some parts and it was a little chaos because it was my first year teaching, but we figured it out and it was yeah, julius Caesar was always a high school teacher, and one thing we do is help teachers feel more comfortable teaching Shakespeare.

Speaker 3:

It's a very common experience of people who might have read Shakespeare in college but then when they go in to teach it, it's a lot more challenging when you're trying to teach it to middle school and high schoolers.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So I wanted to read a quote from a speech from Shakespeare, if that's okay while we're still on him, and then hopefully we can talk a little about Leonard Picoff's course and some of your favorite stuff. But you know, the last thing for for support, you know, as I, I'm passionate about it. That's why I wanted to talk about it. Um, I don't have a ton of money to support personally, so I support where I can, but I think it's, you know, if you have a thousand, 1500 and you're in the central Texas area area, I recommend people's support well, thank you for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 1:

I mean, if you have 5 000 or 50 000, you should definitely do that as well. We'll do a parade in your honor and you know we'll talk to you and things like that. We'll do a lot of stuff. But I I think the more you know like if you, if there is a big checks and more big checks that means you could do more right plays right.

Speaker 1:

So there's there's a good amount of plays that you do, but you could definitely do more um and have you know, eventually, even like a contract with actors I assume right to have a just a constant, sure you know stable of events. Okay, so any other things on that before he's opening a book? Yeah, this is my Norton anthology.

Speaker 3:

Oh, right right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I recommend everybody. Well, okay, before I do this, one of the things I've thought about with Shakespeare unlike other people, although there's some similarities is for me, it's not reading like. Shakespeare should take the center of your education and the humanities. In my view, he should be the center, and I don't just mean like some of his plays, I mean the totality of what he's done, and there's an. It's not just about understanding 15 or you know, the 1500s in england, or this, the, the, or the early 17th century England. He's doing something very dramatically different in the history of literature and I think we're all such a byproduct of it that we can't really wrap our heads around it unless we have a sense of the Western canon right, and that's kind of Harold Bloom's drum right.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's Mortimer Adler. It's a lot. I mean, any great books of the Western world series has the whole Shakespeare collection at the center, essentially. And so I don't think every high school kid needs to have read every shakespeare play, but I do think that a serious study of the shakespeare, not any particular play or a couple poems, but I mean like the real, you know the oeuvre, the works.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you, I think. Well, I think of harold bloom's book titled, yeah, the invention of the human right. Do you agree with that? No, okay, but I mean so I think shakespeare has a very particular point of view that is fascinating yeah but I don't know if he really created the trajectory and that's what bloom is. If he really created the trajectory, and that's what Bloom is saying right he created the trajectory for the rest of the history of literature. I think that's quite a statement.

Speaker 1:

Well, so I'll read you a quote that I wrote down from him, from Harold Bloom Cool, from that book that I thought was really interesting, because he's talking about why Shakespeare, what did he really do? That's at the center of this. That's unique. And here's the quote from Harold Bloom. In Shakespeare, characters develop rather than unfold, and they develop because they reconceive themselves. Sometimes this comes about because they overhear themselves talking, whether to themselves or to others. Self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation and no other writer before or since Shakespeare has accomplished so well the virtual miracle of creating utterly different yet self-consistent voices for his lots of characters, yet self-consistent voices for his lots of characters. But to me the interesting thing is self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation, and I think that's part of what he's saying is, before Shakespeare there was a lot of humanity in Aeschylus and.

Speaker 1:

Sophocles, homer. It's not to say Dante didn't have that, but I think what Harold Bloom is arguing in that book, if I recall I haven't read the whole thing, but is this idea of there's a real self-consciousness and development that they're really having and all the characters are consistent in that manner. That, I think is an interesting projection. What do you think?

Speaker 3:

I don't know if I agree, but I do think it puts the spotlight on thinking, right. So Shakespeare's characters are always thinking. Sometimes they're alone and sharing their thoughts with the audience, right, but sometimes they're sharing their thoughts with the person who they're speaking with, but that is something that, when you're dealing with Greek tragedy, for instance, that's not what Greek tragedy is about. Greek tragedy is about action, right, yes, but this is about feeling and thinking in a different way.

Speaker 3:

So I think he's interesting and I think he puts spotlight, just as what we were saying before about critics putting the spotlight on things that you want to notice, yeah which should be what they're doing, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Not rotting tomatoes, not rotting those tomatoes.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, with rotting tomatoes, people, people just want to know what should I not see? Critics are telling you what you should see.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I think there is a role for Rotten Tomatoes, because there's so much stuff produced.

Speaker 3:

Unbelievable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean just even this podcast. I mean I've already done seven episodes of this darn thing and it's like why should anybody listen to this? No, I've enjoyed them.

Speaker 3:

But I will say you know, when you're working on a play and the audience is going to see a play, I often say to my cast people have seen thousands and tens of thousands of stories, so you really want to help them get through this story and understand this story that you're telling. So, whether it's a Tom Stoppard story or Jane Austen story, because they're so savvy, I mean, the audience knows stories more than any other audience in history. They know stories. They've seen a lot of television.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's nothing new under the sun for them, in a sense, like it's going to be hard to have some kind of unique plot twist that they're not used to or that we as the audience that's. That's a good point, and I think with shakespeare it's especially true because his plots are not that interesting they're very well, it's how it's happening it's yeah, the, the language, the, the, you know the different emotions.

Speaker 1:

So, measure for measure. You've done that before, of course you like that one. I love that one. Is that your favorite? No, okay, what's your favorite?

Speaker 3:

I don't, you know, it's one of those. It's always the one you're doing that kind of thing. But I like Midsommar very much, even though I've done it many times. I like Romeo and Juliet, and I've done it many times. I mean, there are less interesting plays, but I think Measure for Measure is fascinating, don't you?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, yeah, and it's been a long time, so I have never seen that one, I've only read it. Cool, but one of the. So this is a story that is actually again another story that's been done a lot before Shakespeare and it's essentially a woman has to sell herself sexually to a man because he has I think it's her brother under the chopping block. He's going to kill him, execute him unless she sleeps with him. Now, my understanding and this I think comes from Harold Bloom, or maybe it's one of the Stephen Greenblatt or one of them that I read and so this is where I've thought a little bit about like what's unique about Shakespeare that maybe is getting to something really core in the human.

Speaker 1:

You know, the invention of the human is what shakespeare does. According to them, that's unique is that he has her refuse. So that's unique. It's always like what happens before this shakespeare in the story is that she accepts or denies it or whatever, but or no, she accepts it and then he kills her any or kills the brother anyway, or something like that, or it's the father or whatever. With Shakespeare they said that this is the first time where she refuses. But the whole, or really the whole story is about the that tension of what she's going to decide. I think in like it's the clash of these two deep values, her chastity versus her. I don't know what the other like not love for their brother, but virtue, or something.

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean, and the way Shakespeare tells the story is, he makes her a novice. She's going to be a nun, yeah. So that makes her really interesting, yeah. And he makes the guy who's going after her be the most pure man ever, until he meets her. And when he meets her, that's when the match lights for him. And there's a wonderful Shakespeare line about Angelo, who is that character? And somebody speaks of him and says his very urine was snow broth. Snow broth, like the broth you would make because he's so cold. Yeah, I got it. So it's not. Oh, he can't go after a woman. His very urine is snow broth. So I mean, that's shakespeare is to to make these people the most unusual yeah of that sort of trope, if you will.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, because if I remember the brother, what's the brother's name? The nun's brother.

Speaker 3:

Claudio.

Speaker 1:

Claudio at first admires her for her chastity.

Speaker 3:

Well, he says that anyway.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 3:

It's up to you as an actor. Oh I see, is he just jiving her, or is he really?

Speaker 1:

So this is the interesting thing about like reading versus watching is you're getting different interpretation? Yeah, because that was what I remember. And then he like, when it gets closer to the time for the execution, he starts like freaking like, are you?

Speaker 3:

kidding, yeah, like would he just sleep with him exactly exactly now I will say talking about movies and and, uh, watching television. There are great versions of all these plays online, so I'll find one for you of measure for measure. That I think is exciting, but but it is. It can be useful to to see it executed, if you will. The bbc did all 37 plays. They've actually now it's a little more mid-20th century, it doesn't look as contemporary. Yeah. But there'll be one there for sure.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, I want to. First off, I want to. So the idea for the Harold Bloom argument was that Shakespeare's really inventing this clash within her. So it's a clash of values. This is something that Ayn Rand talked about, even as the core of drama is the clash internally between two values. For the nun, it's chastity versus love of her brother.

Speaker 1:

There's other terms, I've read for it, but yeah, something like that where she has to kind of decide between the two and all the language, the characters, the discussions, the thinking, the monologues, soliloquies, whatever they're all around. That clash and that's what I think Harold Bloom was talking about with this overhearing is their royal road to individuation and it's the creating and the self-talk and the talking to others, or the thinking, as you said, that makes it and they're arguing that it's really unique to Shakespeare and that is a fundamental shift.

Speaker 3:

That from then on, Well, and it definitely does impact other playwrights. It impacted 20th century playwrights, for sure, even though we don't use soliloquies anymore, right?

Speaker 3:

yeah, we don't speak directly to the audience anymore, but the audience is very interested in what you're thinking. I mean, part of what you're watching in the movies is you're watching somebody think and you're kind of projecting what you think they're thinking. And you knoweryl Streep is probably one of the great actors who's she's thinking but she's hardly doing anything with her face. But it's so subtle and we're so used to reading from when you're an infant. You're looking at eyes and making projections about what they're thinking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I mean this, I think probably leads to the rise of the novel, which introspection and internal monologues or narrative Well, and the narration itself is. Yeah, is a kind of internal thing.

Speaker 3:

Right, whether it's giving you a third-person point of view or you know one of the characters in the novel.

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, and I think like if we thinkiel defoe um as the first novelist, he only comes what 50, 60 years after shakespeare, something like that, and and so there's. So anyway, I was just thinking like shakespeare does do something magical, that's not in well, it's genius, it is genius. That's not in ancient greek, it's definitely not in the medieval period and it's not in other it's not in dante.

Speaker 1:

Even I mean dante is have you read? You've probably. I don't know if you've read dante. So, like there's, he's definitely going through a transition. That's the whole point of it. He finds himself at the midway point and he does, but he's kind of led along by the character virgil and he has to see hundreds of examples to kind of get the point across. I don't know, it's not the same thing of Shakespeare really doing an internal monologue. For me it's Milton that comes as the big one, where the Satan is having a giant monologue trying to come up with these understandings. Anyway, I was just trying to think about the grandeur and the wonder of Shakespeare and why, as someone who I've never even read all of his plays I'll admit it, I've read most of them at this point, but it just, you know I can't imagine people not experiencing and exploring the plays more, but I do think you want to see them.

Speaker 3:

Yes exploring the plays more, but I do think you want to see them. Yes, because reading them is just a different experience. So Dante is a spoken word, right, that was meant to be spoken, sure. And when you think of Shakespeare, it was never meant to be read. I mean, only the sonnets were meant to be read. But you will want to read the plays after you see them, because you'll know there's so much more to be gotten from reading them.

Speaker 1:

I think. Well, so this is like my hesitation for watching the movies.

Speaker 3:

Uh-huh, I could feel that you were a little when I said watch Measure for Measure.

Speaker 1:

I could feel you'd be like, well, I don't know if I want to watch it yeah, I mean because like my tastes at this point for movies, television are a certain way, where I really expect kind of action. So I like what I like about theater and I mean we're a country that's wealthy enough to have very, very wealthy theater companies and it's a. It's such a different experience, like Like, why not just have more theater? Let's have more theater. And I mean I have nothing against creating the story on film. I think, given the technology and what we're capable of doing with film, we should just be inspired by Shakespeare and create Like I like kind of actually inspired by Shakespeare type stories that are kind of like what is it?

Speaker 1:

Uh, there's, there's, well, this one's Cyrano de Bergerac, but like Cyrano de Bergerac is in so many adaptations of high school dramas of that that I looked up on Wikipedia. There's like 12 or something like that. Wow, and of course you know shakespeare, um, you know there's.

Speaker 1:

there's like the oh, there's a lot of basketball, yeah, basketball well, but that one's a more traditional one, but I just mean, like, inspired by like I'm just saying, let's just go to the theater and experience it there as its own unique experience, because it's the height of theater in a sense, right like it's theater is, and this is going back to this is peek off. Uh, what he talks theater in a sense, right Like it's theater is, and this is going back to this is Peikoff. What he talks about in a book I recommend everybody get, discovering great plays as literature and philosophy. So Peikoff has this great thing about theater and I'll read a couple of questions.

Speaker 1:

Eventually he is a big theater fan, and that's great, yeah, and if you don't know, leonard Peikoff is Ayn Rand's intellectual heir and he spent 30 years with her. But he just talks about the. Theater is the essence of drama or of literature in the sense that it is. He calls it the most abstract, the most vivid form of literature. All the interior life of the characters this is a quote their introspection and most of the narrative and visual detail you supply in your imagination, or at least the actors do.

Speaker 3:

And he's talking about reading, play reading.

Speaker 1:

I think in this case, yeah Well, he says, or at least the actors do so the author gives you only the bare essence and drama, just some key conversations, and I like that, that phrase right the dramatist just gives you key conversations.

Speaker 1:

You really do have to fill in the rest yourself and that's just why it's. You know, this is just going back to my hesitance to the cinema, because with that there's cinematography, there's the mise-en-scene, there's the sound, there's the dialogue in terms of what they edited out and didn't edit out, there's the acting, there's just the pacing of the editing, uh, the music, the, the, you know footsteps and the sword, like all that stuff adds up to what is this play or this, the meaning of this thing? That to me, the deep motivation for me reading shakespeare is the experience I see, which is different than what I get in movies. I don't know, know, if that makes any sense.

Speaker 3:

It does. I still think you will get more out of reading the plays if you watch them. Sure, because you'll see how they operate.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So like this is something I've said pretty much every time I've seen you and we've done a recording and I'll say it again. I'll keep saying it is. I think everyone listening to this should use their local you know um the, the regional theater near them, as an excuse to explore that week, months or that semesters play and that's it, like you don't have to have it take over your whole life, just read. You know, I read the book Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and I did not read the play, but I saw the play a couple times and I watched the movie.

Speaker 3:

And it was interesting to me. A lot of people read the book in preparation to see the play and so they couldn't understand the book very well, but once they saw the play then it was very clear.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's. That's true of a lot of these things. I think I'm often confused if I read a new shakespeare play, especially reading it. Quote-unquote naked yeah yeah, like not just no help and references yeah um, and then I see it and I understand a little bit more, and then I watch a movie and then maybe I read something about it.

Speaker 3:

Right, I think reading with glossary is fine.

Speaker 1:

For.

Speaker 3:

Shakespeare, that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's why I like the whole Norton anthology of all the Shakespearean works. I think every home in America should have that. That's my pitch to everybody in America. Okay, so I, yeah, so that's my argument against measure for measure watching it first, but so I want you to put it on for me so I can go see it, and then I'll watch the movie as well. So that's what I'm saying is like. For me, it's the totality of all. You know, I read it. I'll watch your, your, your performance, and then I'll watch a play. Okay, so one of the things I hear a lot is, uh and this is something I think I'm biased because of my time spent with so many objectivists is the desire for uplifting. You know, art in general.

Speaker 1:

Sort of inspiring, yeah, inspiring, uplifting.

Speaker 3:

Well, cyrano always has been my favorite play, yeah, and even though it kind of ends tragically, that character is so inspiring and that's what I was trying to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's what I was going to get to, and so, yes, is it's. I'm always curious what they mean by inspiring and uplifting, because they, they sometimes, or they seem to, and I might be projecting, but against tragedy, like it has to be, like a fountainhead level success story, I say nothing. I think you're right.

Speaker 3:

I think you're right okay, and I I don't think that that some people value tragedy and value that the, the, the storm and stress of tragedy and what it is to go through that. Uh, we were watching fed the other night, which is on the national theater of great britain, and I saw that production which is probably now like 15 years ago and and the same production was on of this national theater of great britain. That can, you know, buy a monthly subscription and it's a spectacular and it is Racine, so it is a neoclassical tragedy but it is phenomenal and the language is so heightened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so the beauty of the language is there and the characters are extreme right.

Speaker 3:

It's not like she sort of loves him and the characters are extreme right. It's not like she sort of loves him. It's like she's willing to die and go kill him or destroy the world. I've never heard this story. Oh, it's great you love him.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I need to check it out. So I love what you just said. Just made my week. What did you say? She didn't sort of love him, and I love that. That's true and that's the world we live in, though. Yeah, right, and that's why keep your distance. Yeah, like, and that's what theater is about. It is, I think, in art in general is because one I don't think life has to be like that. I think you can love with all, with everything, totality, like, and just commit, and you know there's plenty of stories of.

Speaker 3:

We want to be cool, we want to be a little stoic.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, stoic is big in America, especially today. Yeah, and I think like that total commitment where she clearly doesn't sort of love him is just wonderful and we need art to show us that and that's inspirational, even if they both die in.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Just to see that, and that's that's part of my argument. I think that's the crux of my argument, for why great tragedies hold great inspiration and aspiration.

Speaker 3:

And you know, when we started this conversation, you said you experience a play. It's not just see it, you experience it. And I think that's what you want. You want to go on that journey, yes, and and have that kind of commitment to your own values.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, you want to go on the journey and you want to. I mean, you want to meet the characters. That's no-transcript. You really need to step on stage with the actors and you need to. You know, talk to them, Not literally you're empathizing, yeah, but you did like.

Speaker 1:

what would you do? I mean, I think why I love sense and sensibility so much is because the uh Colonel was my age and experiencing the same exact thing that I was experiencing in terms of loving younger woman who's not at all interested in him and she thinks he's like an arthritic old man. And not to say I'm in love with a young woman, right? Now but I definitely have been yeah and it's just like his experience.

Speaker 1:

I like I could totally see myself there and that made me, like, understand the totality of the story more. Now some plays are more challenging because I don't necessarily see myself immediately there, but if it's a good play there's likely a universal element to it um, I think it's king. Is it king henry, or one of one of shakespeare's kings that you know steps outside of him being a king and talks about like I?

Speaker 1:

don't remember he says something like um you know, aren't I a man too, or something you know, it's like a speech that, like he does this all the time, shakespeare does this all the time where it's like I mean romeo julia. Where it's like you're a capulet, you're, you're a montague, why can't you not be this and just be a boy and I'd be a girl? And and the things that are that define us to society is not necessarily what is us and that and so, like the connections or disconnections and all that stuff gets in the way. I think sometimes we could as readers in 2022, can get confused by that or by the language and the confusions of it, that we aren't able to empathize with these things that are very relevant to our own lives, which is what I asked you earlier about your mission right.

Speaker 1:

Also Shakespeare mission of connecting the truths of Shakespeare to our lives.

Speaker 3:

Well, I also think people tend to want to talk about plays after they've seen them, and that sometimes happens with a good movie, sometimes happens with a difficult movie. But I will say that theater does have have that social quality, you know you're in the room together. You're experiencing live actors on stage and, uh, it does have that quality of wanting you to to talk about it afterwards, you know yeah, and yeah, I mean it.

Speaker 1:

It's an interesting charge because I think the desire to not make noise, for instance, is heightened because you don't want to destroy, like in a movie. It's there and they say the shh don't talk in the movie, but I don't know if it's there as much in a movie, because it's just a movie, but when the actor's right there, there's that and so there's. You know the kind of focus that you might have. You don't want to fall over and snore or something like that. You want to like, you pay, I think. I think there is, like that, the heightened element and that's a kind of silly way well, you feel.

Speaker 3:

I mean you feel that the actors knows you're there, right, that they're watching you and you're watching them oh, that's true.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like they're. Oh, is she looking at? Me yeah, yeah like, yeah, that's true, and sometimes they do yeah, because they're humans, they can see you. It's like, oh my gosh, I hope I don't have anything on my face. Uh, probably they're focused on the scene more than you but still, yeah, um, okay.

Speaker 1:

So uplifting and tragedy and and the value of tragedy. So I was going to read you this from clear Anthony and Cleopatra, which I think is the best example that I've read in literature of the value of even tragic, the uplifting, heightened, enhancing admiration and hero worship. And I don't know if you know what I'm going to read, because you've put have you put this one on before? Have you put all of them on? No, okay, I have like, probably not the histories as much. Right, okay, the histories would be fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So this is shortly after Antony is dead, has been killed, and Cleopatra, of course, who was the queen of Egypt. She's talking to Dolabella, one of Caesar's men, and basically she's supposed to go back with Caesar right, that's my remembrance of this, back with Caesar, right, that's my remembrance of this. And she talks about Antony and the memory of him, and this is what she said. This is Cleopatra.

Speaker 1:

I dreamt there was an emperor, antony. Oh, such another sleep that I might see, but such another man. His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck a sun and moon which kept their course and lighted the little O the earth. His legs bestrid the ocean, his reared arm crested the world. His voice was propertied as all the tuned spheres, and that to friends. But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, he was as rattling thunder for his bounty. There was no winter in it, and antony it was that grew the more by reaping. His delights were dolphin, like they showed his back above the element they lived in. In his livery walked. Crowns and crownettes, realms and islands were as plates dropped from his pockets. And then, um, cleopatra says to della bella think you were, think you there was or might be such a man, as this I dreamt up. She asked her do you think this man actually existed, in a sense right? And dolabella says gentle, madam, no.

Speaker 1:

And then cleopatra says you lie up to the hearing of the gods, um, but if there be, nor ever were one such, it's past the size of dreaming. Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy. Yet tis, imagine and Antony, were nature's peace against fancy condemning shadows. Quite so for a lot of people listening to that, you probably didn't understand a lot of it, right?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's poetry, it's poetry, it's written in poetry, and it is poetry. You know, his spirit, even in dream state, is so big, right, that's the size of him, the magnitude of the man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and to me, like you know, it works on a lot of levels. So it's Cleopatra bemoaning the death of her lover and you could think of her like I think of her as like maybe there's obviously the aggrandizing her lover in death, and saying like maybe she could be saying he's more than he was, which I think is what she's kind of asking at the end. But then she says no, you lied, he was that big. And again, this is it's tragedy. It's sad. You should be, you might be crying and sympathizing I mean, I've never seen this again, so but I can imagine cleopatra playing this with such emotion that it really, you know, could get to me um but let me make sure it's okay.

Speaker 1:

yeah, so that that's, we're still good. But it really made me think of the value of Antony in her life, of a hero, and dreaming that and what it meant to dream that you know his legs bestride the ocean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, his reared, arm crested. He was larger than life and when I think of you, know so any objectivists who are listening, which I think is most of think of you know so any objectivists who are listening, which I think is most the audience you know, or Ayn Rand fans and who maybe got into art because of her tragedy, offers the beautiful of the I hope you go back to that speech and look at it again the beauty of that speech.

Speaker 3:

but also that is what a hero worship looks like, even though it means that is what a hero worship looks like, even though it means even though he died Right and even though Shakespeare loves antithesis. So he will, he has he.

Speaker 1:

Shakespeare has Cleopatra yell at Anthony oh throughout the story.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, it's not like she's treating him like oh, you're my hero, right? But after he's dead her images of him are huge, right. Yes, and I do want to say this is nothing to do with the elizabeth taylor, richard burton movie. So if anybody thinks what is what tell me about this? Well, there's a. There's a movie called cleopatra. Yes, it is not shakespeare's play it's a totally, you know, yeah, schlocky, I love it, it. But oh, it's really schlocky, is it just?

Speaker 1:

about.

Speaker 3:

Cleopatra and Antony mainly. You know there's Caesar in it and so on that romance.

Speaker 1:

I mean, have you ever seen the TV show Rome?

Speaker 3:

You know I have HBO show.

Speaker 1:

So I mean, I found that to be fascinating. I like that a lot because I thought they created their own thing. This is what I was saying is I think tv film allows for something so fundamentally different from theater that people should, they can learn from that. So, like there's, they did their own thing. So there's caesar's death and season at the end of season one. That's what it all builds up to in a sense, and it's the. You know they're not doing shakespearean language, they're doing um, but they're still doing heightened poetic language sometimes and it's in terms of its their imagery and things like that.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, so I didn't know if that was gonna spark anything because, uh, we might have already talked about that, but the value of that hero worship to me is everything worth the reading of Shakespeare. Okay, so I wanted to ask you some questions about you know what I really want to ask you about staging something for Shakespeare? Sure, because I did a study of this elsewhere, but I've never staged anything before.

Speaker 3:

So, Romeo and Juliet a simple one for all of us.

Speaker 1:

So one, I could do it. Or I don't know if, off the top of your head, you can do it, because I'm sure you know it so well, I could do it. Or I don't know if, off the top of your head, you can do it, because I'm sure you know it so well. When you're staging something like that, I mean, we all know the basic idea of it, but how are you getting meaning from it? I don't know if there's anything you could tell me about that scene and what's going on and how you. What scene? Sorry, the balcony scene.

Speaker 3:

Oh, the balcony scene.

Speaker 1:

Sure yeah, the famous one that everybody probably knows right sure, sure it seems to be one that has a lot of meaning in it. It's very simple, but there's like what I learned now you're thinking of the first. There are two the first, the first balcony scene. Yeah, where he's hiding and she sees him yeah, then he, you know, says you are the east and yeah, yeah yeah, you know the wherefore art thou that's the first one right yeah, that whole, like the famous one, I think, is the first one, right?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so like what I, what I hope people just real quick, what I was going to move to something else but I it might be interesting for people is how to approach Shakespeare and trying to understand a play, right, so forget the movies and all that stuff.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'll tell you, the Zeffirelli movie of that scene is pretty damn good.

Speaker 1:

The Zeffirelli yeah, okay.

Speaker 3:

It's spectacular. Well, let's talk about how you and it's like a 15 year old Juliet, you know. And it's like a 15-year-old Juliet, you know it's Olivia Hussey, a 15-year-old. Juliet and she's great, and she's a great actor.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Isn't that?

Speaker 3:

weird it's the one that everybody's seen in high school, you know, no, the one I saw in high school it's Leonardo DiCaprio. So it is thought that Shakespeare's stage itself had a little balcony on it and that's where the musicians played. So when you're doing it at the Curtin Theater, you definitely want to use that balcony. Now there are later you know, there are a lot of Shakespeare scholars and they've done a lot of scholarship. There are later people who think that's not how it was staged, that it was staged on the ground, you know, on the stage floor.

Speaker 1:

Um, as a balcony scene.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so that she could be at one post and he could be at the other post, and they could just play the scene maybe she was just up one step. Yeah, so yeah, imagination yeah, but um, tell me what you. I want to make sure I answer your question. Yes, when you say about staging it, do you mean physically? I mean casting it. You say about staging it, do you mean physically? Do you mean? Casting it? Do you mean designing it? What do?

Speaker 1:

you mean All of it. So like, what I'm interested in is like the outsider is not going to be interested in, I guess, like the actual practicalities of auditioning or something. But in understanding the meaning of Shakespeare there's the words, words, words, mentality of like really looking at the words. But then there's taking each scene, so like when we read it it says scene you know, act two, scene three, and we sometimes don't register that and like what, why that's important. But the structure is really important to everything. And so I just thought about, like this scene, I've seen something here that I was interested in of getting meaning out of it. And then you as a director, how do you juice the meaning?

Speaker 3:

out of it. Well, I do you. Talking about auditioning, though I do think it's about you know.

Speaker 3:

They say, uh, casting is 90 of directing if you cast that scene right yeah if you have a romeo and a juliet who you have that feeling of they shouldn't be together, but you want them to be together. It should have that quality meaning. That's why I said 15. It should have that sense of there's something forbidden about that love, and it's not just that she's. You know it can't just be two ordinary Joe Schmoes. You have to want them to get together and feel like it's naughty. You know that they're doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 1:

But I have to ask but you could not do that today on stage right, or could you Like a 15-year-old with like a 19-year-old boy?

Speaker 3:

That's how we did it for young shakespeare oh 15 to 19 well, I don't know if he was 19, but it was, you know, a 15 year old juliet and a high school romeo, I mean well, but yeah, okay, I guess. But you know what I'm saying, like because I get what you're saying you think it's going to be scandalous if they have that well, I'm just thinking about the culture we live in.

Speaker 1:

Like, would they cancel you or something? No, I don't think so, oh, okay.

Speaker 3:

I think it's done all the time Meaning you know you can have a girl who is not 15 but looks 15. But you can also, you know, if you have the right actor. Now, juliet, to be honest, is one of Shakespeare's most difficult roles. Why difficult roles. Why so you want? The language is phenomenal. I mean, her language is even smarter than romeo's. I mean, she's a much more intellectual person than romeo, her language. Oh, yeah, yeah huh, I mean, he's kind of like, you know, a puppy yeah, she does the thinking, she's okay.

Speaker 1:

I mean, she's the one who asks why and she's's always worried, yeah. Yeah, she's like why are you this, why are you that? And yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so she's the questioner. Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3:

Which is great. You know that's part of. I always think that the, the, the guys who played the female roles in Shakespeare were probably on a different tracks, meaning you know people like the Rosalind in, as you Like, it probably was the same actor who played Juliet. I mean, they're very similar smart women characters played by men but, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

So I guess what I'm trying to get at and I maybe didn't formulate it correctly is the, you know, again getting the juice out of the meaning, because if you just look at it as a non-initiative of the bard, you might just see well, it's just a man, you know, a young man declaring his absolute love, in very beautiful language that I don't really understand, to a young girl, and that's it, and that's true. But that's like the surface level and there's multiple layers of meaning and part of the joy of Shakespeare is, on your own, thinking about those different layers, right, and that's what you said, like be a director, so let's help people be a director. So you see this very like.

Speaker 3:

The reason I chose this is because everybody knows this scene on some level but I think on the level of the language you're going to have inner conflict for each of them yes and you're going to have conflict between them, right? He, he wants her. She's trying to be a little bit more removed, and then we do. We do finally get the kiss. So, in terms of juicing the scene, you want to get us to the point where the audience is feeling like oh my God, just kiss her.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, so okay. So part of it is you're staging it and you're building the anxiety.

Speaker 3:

And it's rhythm, some of it is the rhythm of the language is there and the pace and the volume. You know he talks about being quiet at the beginning and by the end of it they may not be so quiet anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I guess the thing that I remember is so part of it is you're dealing with two different, you're dealing with two humans. So if you're reading it and you're trying to project it, you know what you, I think, can do is you can see her up on a. You'll visualize her up on a, visualize her up on a balcony and I think you should cast her.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I think, as you're reading the play, you should. It doesn't have to be a specific actress, but I think you should picture her. What does she look like? What does he look like? What do they sound like? How are they moving?

Speaker 1:

that's yeah, that's great, and and then, uh, and I guess I I always have my own vision of what she looks like, not an actual person, I know yeah if that makes that's great, that's great.

Speaker 3:

That's the imagination we talked about yeah in the first moments of our conversation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I um, although sometimes it's not super clear in my mind, it's not as clear as it could be, but yeah, you definitely want that versus disembodied voices, which I think is what you often or not even hearing voices, just reading just reading the words and, yeah, like you should be hearing a play in your head yes that's the goal of reading it on a page.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, although it's an achievement to get there, um, yeah, so then. So then you have the two players you're thinking about the actors and the characters, and where they are, um is, are there any other things like?

Speaker 3:

so you've cast them well I think you should think about texture and color, and what does it look and feel like and is it dark? And it has to be all those things because, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

but that's part of it, that's part of like, so one, what's happening beforehand in this, like where are we in the story? And then where? Because they just met like 15 minutes early or something, right, right, so that's the other thing that's supposed to be interesting about this is like how, because, like how fast it happens, and then the way I um see it dramatized is she's looking up at the stars, right and that's, and he's looking up at her, which is part of the meaning of it, right, is she's admiring the stars and he is going to make an idol of her, which is a you know what she calls him later of some sort like she he makes idols out of everything, or something like that, and that's part of what she loves about him, because that's the other thing is, how do you find these?

Speaker 1:

how do you understand how these kids actually fell in love? It's not just lust, it's actual love, and part of it is this scene is where it has to be solidified, I think, and it's you know, um, so anyway, I just didn't know. If there's that, that's how I try to think about it.

Speaker 3:

It's it's work. I think that's great um to to figure out well, you know, this is what I said about playing versus working. You know it's work to play baseball, but you're playing, you're, you're using your imagination well, it's the same thing with lifting weights in the gym.

Speaker 1:

It's I, to me. I love, love it, but it's work in the sense that I'm exhausted. Yeah, so when you play basketball, you're playing, but you're going to be drenched in sweat, and so it's work in the sense of exertion Effort, yes, effort, yeah, yes. Okay, that was just a tangent I guess I was thinking about with staging these things and getting more meaning out of the plays.

Speaker 3:

But I do think it's okay to see a play. If you're going to see a Shakespeare play, I think it's good to read a summary before you go. I don't think you need to read the play before you go. I think reading the play after you go is really fun.

Speaker 2:

Reading the play after yes, I think reading a summary before oh, okay, so you kind of know the structure, you know what's happening.

Speaker 3:

But you know, after then you can really sort of remember what it is that you experienced, I think.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would often send over to friends who aren't literary. Necessarily, I would send them a YouTube video that summarizes it.

Speaker 3:

That's great.

Speaker 1:

And in fact I think Austin Shakespeare should do some of that. I don't know, Just like, whenever you do a show as a promotional thing, whenever you do a show, really give a summary and especially if you can get the actors to do it Right and they like. Those are the ones I thought were the most fun.

Speaker 3:

I would be okay about doing a setup. I don't want to do like even in the program, I will not write the summary, because the summary will give you what happens. Well, why are we going to see this play If summary will give you what happens? Well, why are we going to see this play? If you're all like you know, you can just read it. I want you to experience it and I want you to be surprised.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I guess what I'm saying is I don't know, this is a different subject, it's about marketing, but I think the idea of doing the setup you know what's the situation, I think, is great.

Speaker 3:

Well, but you are telling people to go out and read the summary yes, you are Okay.

Speaker 1:

So what's the difference if you do it?

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean people would be motivated to read the summary. If they're not motivated to read the summary, then they're going to experience the way I would prefer them to have experienced it.

Speaker 1:

Which is what? To just watch it without, even if you don't understand it. Well, I hope that in the acting and directing, we're making it understandable. I'm not trying to say it like that, obviously. I mean, like I know, smart, even when you do a great job at that, it's still 500 years of separation. I'm talking about a person who's not a person I talked about at the beginning of the show, who's not into it, sure, and they just don't understand it. Yet they have the ability, they just haven't done it.

Speaker 3:

And so, even if the acting, no matter how great it is, they're going to be a subject you know you'll hear when you go to see Midsommar in the Park. You'll get 75% of it and 75% of the words are contemporary words, meaning words we use now. They're going to be archaic words, but there aren't as many as you would think.

Speaker 1:

No, it's not the words, it's the poetic nature of the verse. It's the syntax that's complicated for a lot of it. That's why Shakespeare is so difficult, I think, is I know those words. I don't understand what she just said, right, like that's how I think a lot of us experience it. I still experience it that way sometimes and I guess oh, I do too.

Speaker 3:

If I'm seeing a Shakespeare play, I don't know, sure, sometimes I'll understand more than other moments, absolutely, of course.

Speaker 1:

And I guess what I'm so and I guess what I'm so. I always encourage people to read the summary to know the main thing ahead of time, especially with Shakespeare, because the plots aren't that incredibly important. In my view. The important thing is the language, and so the more you don't have to worry about wait. Who is she? What does she mean to him? Again, the more you know that already to me, the better you can experience it. That's my personal view. You're arguing something else.

Speaker 3:

It's not like you want them just to go in naked and just experience yeah, for whatever it is, yeah because you love the experience so much yes, and hope that it'll inspire you to do more yeah, that's I, I guess, but you're talking about marketing, which is inspiring you to go to begin with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, and I think you know there's there's such a swath of educated, smart people who don't go to Shakespeare because they fear it in that way. So anyway, I think that's one way I would think about doing it. I don't know, that's an interesting approach in my view, and I've seen Shakespeare companies do that. Sure, okay, so last thing before we go on, you know. So we talked about regional theater and all that good stuff, but I was interested in your well, first off, your first, your favorite American play, right, who's that? Do you have one?

Speaker 3:

honestly, of all time it honestly, I'm a stoppard fan. Okay, I've done is he? American no, he's british. Okay, of the invention of love and arcadia and, uh, indian ink. So uh, for me, that that's the guy. Now, as an American, I like Edward Albee. Okay, he has a play called the American Dream, which is an absurdist play, but who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And all that and I've done, who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, but for me he can get a little too esoteric or down and dirty to say he's my favorite. But I'm not, you know, I'm not a eugene o'neill fan. Tennessee williams, I can, I can, I can appreciate and I've done streetcar named desire and cat on a hot tin roof and glass menagerie last year. Um, so I can really appreciate um tennessee williams for sure. Sure he is a poet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, I like the Glass Menagerie. I read that one in college as well, streetcar Named Desire, of course. So what is unique about American theater and I don't know how to define that, because so much of the theater that's put on? You were talking about the Ford Foundation or whatever it's for European or English theater, not specifically for American theater.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so how do you— Well, I think it's a mix. I mean, I think they intended it to be a mix. But for me. I think Stephen Sondheim is the guy Meaning. I think American musicalondheim is the guy Meaning. I think American musicals are our contribution to the world.

Speaker 1:

Of theater oh Sondheim.

Speaker 3:

So for me I never was an American musical fan of Oklahoma or South Pacific or any of those. But once I saw a little night music I was like, oh, it's a play.

Speaker 1:

I see.

Speaker 3:

So that to me is the top and the big achievement. Now he is a little cynical, he is a little romantic, but those things do have an American 20th century flavor to them.

Speaker 1:

Got it. Oh, that's really cool. I had no idea.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So that's really one of the fundamental differences, or?

Speaker 3:

We did it. I mean, we created an American musical. There was no American musical.

Speaker 1:

Was there, but there were musicals there were operettas. Oh, because yeah.

Speaker 3:

so there's operettas and it really is that idea of not just a recitative, you know recited thing or not, just we're going to talk and then we're going to sing. These American musicals really were based on comedy the original ones and they came out of, you know, minstrel shows and variety shows and all that. But it is our contribution to the history of theater, is the American musical, for sure. So what are some of his works that we know? So A Little Night Music is the one that's probably best known. Recently, merrily you Roll Along is going to be done in New York in the fall. It's got a small production now in the spring it's happening. There are, you know, company was the one they did recently, which is not ultimately my favorite, but you know, as a young man in his 20s he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story. Okay.

Speaker 3:

So that was a pretty good first crack. Now it's Leonard Bernstein music.

Speaker 1:

Got it Okay. Okay, so that's yeah. I had no, I actually had no idea. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, because I always just think of it as cinema, like it's just nothing, theater, zero yeah. Cinema, everything, and it's just like cinema is our version of theater, it's the businessman's version of it, and we do it better than anybody else because we are better at business than anybody else, so commercial movies that's because I think of the cinema.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I think of french new wave as being huge yeah, in terms of the art form okay, that's a whole nother argument, I guess.

Speaker 1:

So like, yeah, this is a whole nother realm. I, I've seen some of those. I'm not an expert on those. I've. I've watched Truffaut and all that. Yeah, I definitely watched that in college. I had to, and you know the. I mean they were good, they were I. I, you know I tried to.

Speaker 3:

I didn't blow you away.

Speaker 1:

I thought you know 400 blows, 400 blows. Thank you, yeah, and, and there's a few others that I try to remember which ones they were, but and yeah, there was something beautiful about them for sure.

Speaker 3:

They're not like American movies and they're very different than American movies. Very artsy.

Speaker 1:

Well, but what does that mean? That's what I'm saying. It's like.

Speaker 3:

I did not. What I'm saying is like they're not interested in plot, they're interested in the how.

Speaker 1:

So that's to me like anti-art almost it's like the, the super that's what I'm saying is like to me, the, the cinema is. As an art form, in its nature has multiple elements that no other art form has, um, even theater. Theater has some lighting, of course, but no, no, I understand that.

Speaker 3:

I will say, though, as Rand says in movies, what is the art is the narrative line. It's not like if you had all of the aspects. Do you know what I mean? That that would make an art. What makes an art is it's fiction. See what I mean so you think documentary is art.

Speaker 1:

No, oh okay, no, no, I agree with the fiction part, I guess I having I mean, I just have to I'm still grappling with it a little bit because I don't understand how you could not have the totality of the cinematography, the acting as a major, fundamental part of it.

Speaker 3:

So it's true that the integrating what would happen if you had great cinematography, amazing music, fabulous acting and the plot line was horrible?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I think that's most stories. Right, that's most, that's a lot of that's all does that make it a great work of art no, but I didn't say great.

Speaker 1:

most art is not great, um, but it's still art. So, yes, I would say it's art, it's still fiction. The integrating factor is the script, it's sure, that's true and that's you know what. So that's the, the narrative part, and it's the fact that it's fiction, it's made up, it's and you know, it's drafted in such a way to have an arc of different characters and conflicts or you know whatever. Yeah, that's all art.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful and I love that um, but it's subject and style, the the more I study this, the more I just you know, ayn Rand said subject, style, theme, plot are integrated whole. It's an indivisible um whole and the. I think that's more profound. Like you cannot separate style and plot at all, or style and subject or any of those things. So the style of cinema is extravagant and expensive.

Speaker 1:

And look, if you just have an iPhone and I think you can make some very good cinema with just around your house, I've seen teenagers make stuff that makes you cry, that's, it just really gets to you and that's wonderful and those kids are amazing and I'm seeing a lot of that stuff. It's wonderful stuff, but I think it's an expensive art form at its core and to me it's the businessman's art and it really, I mean it really is is so people like these other countries, they, you know, um, they use like government funds and they, they just do some extravagant things off often and they try to say that this is representative of the french ethos or something it's like, but that's not. I don't think that that's the purpose of any kind of art and I guess I don't have a great argument at this time, but that's my that's interesting, that's really interesting.

Speaker 1:

There's something again. It should be because there's every other art, even theater to some degree, although theater has more is a. It's the artist and it's the medium, and then the, the reader or the consumer. And you know, like a painting that I'm looking at now, it's he, just he brushstrokes, he has multiple brushstrokes, but it's just him. With theater, you know, it's I think the word is maybe more easily translatable with movies, the word it's just because of how expensive and difficult it seems to be. There needs to be different roles for accomplishing it, like putting it on the screen, sure, sure.

Speaker 3:

I mean. My problem with American movies as they've progressed is that there are too many fingers in the pie.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Is that you don't have a strong enough director's vision, movie director's vision, and maybe the screenwriter just has diminished in his or her control.

Speaker 1:

Yes, not even the best, but like the movies that really seem to be closest to great art, or just art, like they're really integrated, are where the director and the producer are the same person. Uh-huh, so the person with the creative control also has business control.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah uh, like or or. The producer is a phenomenal producer, like, like. David o'salsnick is my favorite. I see where it's all, even his decisions for hiring directors. He has a vision and he's the unifying like. I think he's the unifying vision behind gone with the wind and even though he had five directors on that, and you know, howard hawks often directed and produced and he had a lot of control and I think those films are some of the best. Um. Same thing with um hitchcock. He often or he worked with producers.

Speaker 1:

He understood uh-huh and they and you know quentin tarantino yes, yeah right, like I, you don't have to like quentin tarantino stuff, but like he's definitely got an integrated hold and and so it's the same thing with you know, everybody just does what he says, or they get the hell off the set and there's like he'll say that and it's true, and I think that's the way it has to be.

Speaker 3:

But that's not the way it usually is.

Speaker 1:

And that's not the way it usually is. It's usually a hodgepodge of stuff.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I mean, I guess I still have some things to work out, but it's the reason I've been playing some video games that, to me, are approaching that level of art.

Speaker 3:

That's what I hear.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so that's why I'm like we have to come up with new definitions or understanding of these kinds of art, because they are so all expansive, so that that I mean that's just my two cents on cinema.

Speaker 3:

No, thank you.

Speaker 1:

But okay, so any. So that's American cinema. Any last thoughts from you on awesome. We've talked about awesome, shakespeare. Um, was there anything you didn't get to say or talk about?

Speaker 3:

I just have a curveball that I don't know what to do with it, but I'll just say it. Okay. During covid, we did 37 online shows wow.

Speaker 3:

And they were good and they were fun and people really responded to them. Some of them were very complex, you know. Yes, they were on Zoom, but they had costumes and sets and all that stuff. So we don't have the money to do both now, you know, to both do a show on stage and to videotape it and so on at the level that you really want to do it. But you know, national Theater of Great Britain. There's lots of good stuff online that are unique because they are stage plays that were filmed and I just thought that was an interesting way to combine. They really are stage plays that were filmed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's an interesting view. I've seen what do they do at movie theaters.

Speaker 3:

Like an opera thing, yeah, where they show opera, uh-huh. So it's a live opera performance that they videotaped.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but there's a term, there's like a I don't remember what it's called. Anyway. So like if you go to movie theaters you'll see an advertisement at all movie theaters now for like this kind of simulcast yeah, I don't remember, and I thought I was just. I don't know if it's even just a simulcast, but it just. Maybe it is, but it's well usually it's one right.

Speaker 3:

Yes, the simulcast will be the first one, and then they may show it two or three times.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think those are really interesting and I think if the camera operators know what they're doing and they can, yeah, I think they can really capture it, because you're still editing it like on the fly, right, you're cutting between cameras and so in that sense, you're kind of focusing the attention of the audience versus how you experience it with a play, like you said, where you're the one who's doing the attention. So, like a Shakespeare play, you'll often have someone hiding, eavesdropping on someone else, and so who do you focus on more? The person eavesdropping and what they're doing, or on the person who's being eavesdropped on? And a camera might make a decision for you, right, or it might show them, but it will focus on the main person being eavesdropped or the eavesdropper or something right.

Speaker 1:

Because, oh, they're actors doing something cool. But I think that doesn't mean it's not good. I think it's a unique new form, yeah, so what does that have to do with the covid?

Speaker 3:

I just said, we because of covid, so many theaters were forced okay to do video of their theater performances. Yeah, that there's an art form in there that's kind of hybrid.

Speaker 1:

That is interesting yeah, I mean, I guess the question is finances, like you said, you know, is it worth? Is it enough to make it worthwhile Cause for me? I want the experience. Like I want, I want even more of the experience than I've seen. I don't even know how to get it but, like you know, I want to. You know I want to. You know, talk to the people. That's why I bring groups. I I try really hard to talk to them about stuff, um, and I have, I struggle, like to get people to open up or talk about it, and this is why I'm so passionate about getting people to really experience it.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you for all your support. Yeah, I'm trying, I'm doing my best, um, and it's a challenge and everybody out there, go and support your local professional theater not small and turn it into a major. Well, and we were really lucky to have the Ironman Institute, have us have Mark Pellegrino, and we've done Mona Vana and we've done scenes from the.

Speaker 1:

Fountainhead yeah at the big Objectives.

Speaker 3:

Conference.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and I think oh, so you do workshops, I actually. So you do workshops for adults. Is that still true?

Speaker 3:

Because I saw it on your website. We right now we're just doing artists' way. I have taught playwriting classes, so you're not doing that and acting classes, but not at the moment.

Speaker 1:

I was going to put you on the spot because I was like I want to?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you do want to.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, because I wrote plays and I wrote mostly short stories.

Speaker 3:

Well, they've been fun and we've done them on.

Speaker 1:

Zoom meaning had the classes on Zoom.

Speaker 3:

That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

Do you know if you're ever going to do that again? I don't know. Did you make any money with it?

Speaker 3:

Not a lot of the problem. It's part of keeping active. You don't want to go out of business.

Speaker 1:

So that's not as prevalent Sure. Yeah, because if you had one I would do one.

Speaker 3:

Oh, thank you, I remember that.

Speaker 1:

I wrote a short story recently. I was like man, I want to turn it into a oh good, so if I can help you get that going, there you go. You let me know, we'll get some more people, okay.