Hollywood Shakespeare | New York – June 19, 1989
USA
Hollywood Shakespeare
BY DAVJD BLUM
Once, Joe Papp was famous for his Shakespeare under the stars. Now he’s controversial for the way he’s using stars to sell Shakespeare during his six-year marathon of all the bard’s plays. For Twelfth Night, he’s brought in the largest group of Hollywood heavyweights yet-Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Stephen Collins, and Gregory Hines. Critics ask whether Papp’s approach leads to good theater or merely theater events. But the impresario says bringing Shakespeare to the public and the public to the plays is the thing.
HOLLYWOOD SHAKESPEARE
Joe Papp Sprinkles Stardust on ‘Twelfth Night’
FIVE BRIGHT FLUORESCENT BULBS CAST A CRUEL light over the ancient town of Illyria. In the middle of a fourth-floor rehearsal space in a nondescript building on lower Broadway stands the beachfront town of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The rounds of a Chorus Line re-hearsal reverberate through the walls. From upstairs you can hear the steady, gentle thumping of dancers following the steps of a classic Jerome Robbins ballet. Down the hall, someone is pounding a piano that needs tuning.
This cavernous studio is identified only by a scrawled note on the door: ‘TWELFTH NIGHT’: PLEASE ENTER QUIETLY’. Pinned to the bulletin board are an old newspaper clipping about Shakespeare with a joke in it and some local cake-out menus. The only suggestion of the magical resort of Illyria comes from the five or six round wooden tables, a few makeshift benches, and thin, brightly colored strips of masking tape on the hardwood floor that mark the stage. And, of course, the famous actors and actresses who have assembled here one morning in late May to bring this Shakespeare play to life.
Michelle Pfeiffer, in a black button-down shirt, faded blue jeans, and white Reeboks, sits quietly on the floor, legs crossed, occasionally brushing some blondish hair from her face, and listening like an eager student. She is Olivia.
Gregory Hines, in black-and-white-polka-dotted baggy pajama bottoms, a brown muscle T-shirt, and two small silver earrings in his left ear, checks his brown duffel bag for the egg-salad sandwich he brings every morning and, like clockwork, pulls out at precisely 11:30. He is Feste, the clown.
John Amos idly scratches his ample stomach throughthe fabric of a black-and-yellow T-shirt that declares NEW JERSEY-ATTITUDE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD as he scans the Newsday sports pages. He is Sir Toby Belch.
Jeff Goldblum, a week’s growth of beard on his face, paces the side of the room in his own private world-possessed of a character that makes him swing his muscular arms back and forth and up and down, simian-style, with a meaning as yet known only to himself. He is Malvolio.
Fisher Stevens, in a designer T-shirt, baggy pants, and just a single earring in his left earlobe, runs his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit he repeats again and again. He is Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Two weeks from now, these actors will have moved to the Delacorte Theater in the middle of Central Park. This imagined Illyria will have been transformed into an exotic setting against the backdrop of the midtown Manhattan skyline at night. The audience will have grown from a few scattered note-taking assistants to 1,902 people who may have stood in line for hours to get a free glimpse of Shakespeare under the stars. And it is stars that they will get; this New York Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night, part of its Shakespeare Marathon, has assembled more well-known faces than any other New York theatrical production in recent memory.
Twelfth Night will be a magnet for praise from theatergoers who prefer familiar talents on their stage-and for criticism from those who believe the casting of celebrities is merely pandering to the masses. But it will also test the talents of actors with proven abilities in film, and help answer the age-old question: Can just any actor do Shakespeare?
“There will be so many stars on this stage,” predicts Harold Guskin, the director, “that after a while you’ll stop noticing that they’re stars, and enjoy the play.”
ON THE SATURDAY BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY, GUSKIN is standing more or less in the center of Illyria. He is a small, gentle man with a fuzzy beard and a faded pair of gray jeans to which he has been loyal for several days.
Next to him is Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. She has the central role in this great tale too narrowly defined as a comedy-she is Viola, the lovesick girl who must hide her passions beneath the guise of a boy. Mastrantonio has buried her trademark mop of curly auburn hair under a gray wool cap. At this moment, she is struggling with a line on which the story hinges: She must make clear to the audience her love for Duke Orsino, played here by Stephen Collins, without tipping her hand to him directly for fear of giving away her identity.
She reads the line through once. Her reading possesses all the grace and eloquence of Shakespeare, and much of her considerable acting gifts-but it lacks the depth she wants. Most of the cast doesn’t hear her read it. Even Collins seems to have been distracted by his own lines, as actors so often are in rehearsal.
Guskin comes a little closer to Mastrantonio. He is a director prone to blatant emocional reactions, from belly laughs to weeping, as he watches a scene; this time, he has not been moved. Can he turn this scene into the magical moment he wants?
“You have to kick down the gate,” he says softly, “to find out what’s on the other side.”
She smiles. “It’s a great scene . . . it’s a great scene,” she says. He tries to push her with a gentle hand. “There’s real pain here-real pain,” he says.
Mastrantonio looks at her script again, then moves even closer to Guskin. “Till I know what my mind is-it’s really obtuse. That has to be made clear to the audience. They’re going, ‘Why is she wearing men’s clothes?’ ”
Now Stephen Collins is listening. “There’s real tragedy here,” he says. “Yes!” Mastrantonio says. “I was staring at it on the subway coming down here this morning, and looking at it, and sometimes it just pops out at you, and you say, ‘Oh, my God!’ ”
Guskin looks around the room. He has lost the audience of actors and production staff; he wants to win them back. This is not a crowd easily impressed by the presence of a movie star. Mastrantonio must earn their attention.
“Lees do it again,” he says.
In a moment, Mastrantonio starts to read; and by the time she is finished, as though by the same magic that possesses so many characters of Shakespeare, all action in the room has come to a halt, cave hers. Even the constant hum of an ancient air conditioner seems, for a moment, to disappear.
“She pined in thought,” Viola says, describing her own love for Duke Orsino as though it were the emotion of an imagined sister,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
Our shows are more than will: for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
Orsino responds, “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?”
She pauses for a long moment before answering. “I am all the daughters of my father’s house,” she says, “and all the brothers too-and yet I know not.” The actress drops the script to her side to rest for a moment; she looks for a second at Guskin. Hesits motionless, his head resting on the palms of his hands. His pale-blue eyes open wide enough to show that he has begun to cry.
ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO, IN A FULL-PAGE AD IN THE Sunday New York Times, Joseph Papp, the 67- year-old impresario, announced his biggest offer yet. “FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AMERICA, SEE ALL OF SHAKESPEARE! All of William Shakespeare’s 36 plays performed by most of America’s finest actors!” He meant it. Even Timon of Athens.
Accompanying the proclamation was a list of 103 famous actors, from William Hurt to Glenn Close to Sigourney Weaver, all promised as players in this six-year festival. Besides the stars-A collection of names that Papp now concedes was a wish list not checked with many of the actors advertised-the theater also offered charter subscribers the promise of an I’VE SEEN IT ALL! T-shirt to be given out in 1993, and a free glass of champagne with Papp.
Papp has not been alone in placing emphasis on the casting of Hollywood celebrities in leading roles. Broadway has been doing it for years with television and movie stars. And the much praised Lincoln Center Theater last year offered a limited-run production of Waiting for Godot directed by Mike Nichols and starring Robin Williams, Steve Martin, F. Murray Abraham, and Bill Irwin- to which it was extremely hard to get a ticket, even if you were a theater subscriber.
By contrast, the Public Theater has lived up to its narre. Tickets are available to every show at the last minute through its half-price program; its Delacorte productions are made possible by a grant from New York Telephone. And credit is due Papp for his populist approach to this Twelfth Night production, the most celebrity-heavy yet, which will be free to anyone with the patience to stand in line for a couple of hours in Central Park.
Mastrantonio, an Oscar nominee for her performance as Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in The Color of Money, is a co-star of James Cameron’s new film, The Abyss. Jeff (The Fly) Goldblum starred most recently in Earth Girls Are Easy. Michelle Pfeiffer was in three movies last year-Married to the Mob, Tequila Sunrise, and Dangerous Liaisons. Stephen Collins was until recently the owner of Tattinger’s, NBC’s failed restaurant. Fisher Stevens starred in Short Circuit II. Gregory Hines has starred in The Cotton Club and most recently in Tap. And John Amos, the father in Coming to America, is fondly remembered as Gordy the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Guskin has also enlisted the aid of set designer John Lee Beatty and fight director B. H. Barry.
But the Shakespeare Marathon has raised several fundamental questions-ones often repeated in reviews and essays from the critical establishment, long at odds with Papp.
First of all, why do every Shakespeare play? It is widely acknowledged by drama critics, back to the days of George Bernard Shaw, that although Shakespeare wrote a score of major works, he’s also responsible for a few relative clunkers. Critics point out that such plays as Pendes and Cymbeline haven’t been staged very often simply because they shouldn’t be. Is it appropriate for a theater dedicated to Shakespeare’s art, as Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival has been since its inception in 1954, to stage these lesser plays simply as part of a gimmick?
Second, is there a reason-other than ticket sales-to hire Hollywood movie stars to play roles for which they may be ill suited? Should a renowned theater accommodate the whims of movie stars in search of legitimacy?
Third, is Papp’s vision of Shakespeare-which begins with the selection of actors but then allows directors free rein over style and setting-one that leads to good theater or merely theater events?
THAT IS THE ROOT OF THE CONFLICT-A WAR BETWEEN THE forces of art and commerce. On one side is Papp, the master showman, who believes in reaching the widest possible audience. On the other are a number of New York critics who hold him responsible for debasing Shakespeare’s art. In the middle is the audience-torn between a desire to see familiar faces on stage and a passion for great theater.
In an essay on the Marathon last February, Times critic Frank Rich likened Papp’s concept to the Book-of-the-Month Club approach to culture. “There has been no unifying principle, other than the rubric ‘Joseph Papp presents,’ to galvanize the entire enterprise, to make the marathon seem like an exciting journey for audience and company alike rather than merely a stunt-a dash to the 1993 finish line,” Rich wrote.
Nevertheless, Rich has praised several of the Marathon’s productions so far.
As America’s leading producer of Shakespeare, Papp inevitably attracts this sort of controversy. He has helped define American Shakespeare in the postwar era. His productions tend to reduce the emphasis on classical Shakespearean training; actors often speak in contemporary voice, without the classical intonation that audiences associate with British productions. He has let directora set plays in bizarre locations-from the Celtic ruins of JoAnne Akalaitis’s Cymbeline to Latin America, in A. J. Antoon’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Guskin has chosen to set his production of Twelfth Night in 1890s Monaco.
New York’s critic John Simon takes a conservative view of Shakespeare and finds the Papp approach deeply unsatisfying. “There’s no value in doing Shakespeare if it’s done badly,” says Simon, who has disliked nearly all of the Marathon productions. “There are times that nothing is better than something, if that something is no good.” He believes only Shakespearean-trained actors should perform in Shakespeare’s plays and adds, “Papp just doesn’t care if his actors can handle the job or not.”
That argument extends to Papp’s nontraditional casting of minorities in major roles. Simon recently touched off a furor by attacking two actors in Papp’s production of The Winter’s Tale in language some found offensive. In his review of Cymbeline, Frank Rich joined the fight by arguing that the casting of a black actor to portray the son of a white woman was confusing and pointless. Papp believes that such criticisms stem from a narrow view of what is proper-imported from British stagings of Shakespeare (all-white, all-traditional, all-British casts) that he finds stodgy and dull.
Papp has always been his own staunchest defender-although many critics have endorsed his approach, and he has attracted good audiences to the Public. Papp argues that the Marathon is serving the noble purpose of presenting Shakespeare with American actors to an American audience-something rarely done at any level of quality. And as for the use of stars, Papp points out that in recent years, most good stage actors have moved to Hollywood, and he is merely coaxing them back.
“I can’t promise you a hit every time,” Papp concedes. But he adds, “I’ll tell you this. I have a very good batting average. . . . To see a first-class production of Shakespeare in America, or any part of the world, is quite extraordinary.”
So far, there’s been an even split between critical hits and flops. The most widely discussed production to date, Julius Caesar, also had a cast of movie stars: Martin Sheen, Edward Herrmann, and Al Pacino. Papp admits the production was “so-so”; the critics were harsher. But he argues that the mere existence of such productions is enough to justify them-and the demand for tickets means that audiences endorse that view. They want to see stars.
Papp now has commitments that are sure to sell tickets in thefuture-Glenn Close in Antony and Cleopatra, Kevin Kline in Hamlet, Raul Julia in Macbeth, and Christopher Walken in Timon of Athens. Mike Nichols will be directing Othello, possibly with John Malkovich as lago. Papp promises Meryl Streep for “sometime this year” and mentions that he has even explored the possibility of a King Lear starring Marlon Brando as Lear and Jack Nicholson as the Fool. Brando hasn’t done Shakespeare since his Marc Antony in a 1953 movie version of Julius Caesar; Nicholson certainly is not known as a stage actor. “Maybe neither one of them can do Shakespeare,” says Papp, “but is there anyone who’d argue we shouldn’t let them try?” Papp most vehemently rails against the idea that he is doing this Marathon merely for the sake of doing it. But when asked to judge its progress-and how the execution of the Marathon compares with his original vision-he offers this assessment.
“Well,” he says, “I’m doing number ten.”
MICHELLE PFEIFFER IS WEARING HER SHIRT INSIDE OUT!
Yes, it’s true. The tag with the laundry instructions is actually hanging in full view of everyone. Why does nobody have the nerve to tell her?
Maybe no one notices. It’s a black sleeveless top black on both sides. Also, to be perfectly honest about it, the first thing a person notices about Michelle Pfeiffer is not her shirt collar.
She’s just got back from lunch at America with Jeff Goldblum, Gregory Hines, Stephen Collins, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
Pfeiffer paid for the meal with her American Express card and left early. She is probably the highest-paid actor of the bunch, so it figures she’d pick up the check.
Later, back at the rehearsal space. . . .
“You forgot to sign the slip,” Jeff Goldblum says. “I had to forge your signature. I also had to figure your tip.” Pause. “You gave a very good tip.”
“I’m sure,” Pfeiffer says.
“Look at my forgery!” Goldblum says, shoving the carbon at her. “I do an excellent forgery.”
“You do.” Pfeiffer says without looking. Then she takes a glance. “Actually, you do. Hmmm.”
Even in this enclosed, private space-paparazzi have staked out the main entrance for days-Pfeiffer attracts attention. The young spear-carriers look her way in off moments; her co-stars ask her to lunch, suggest a drink after rehearsal, offer her praise after an especially good line reading. Even away from the glare of publicity-and even though she does nothing to demand such treatment-she is a star, and treated as one. If she wants a match, she’s given a pack. If she needs an umbrella, someone fetches her one.
But she can do Shakespeare; that much is evident even in these early days of rehearsals-despite her own private insecurities. She stands one afternoon between Collins and Mastrantonio, two seasoned stage performers, in a scene where her character has little to do but listen. After the other two have worked out the scene’s minor problems, Pfeiffer looks over at Guskin helplessly.
“I feel like at a certain time I’m just . . . floating,” she says. Guskin puts his hand on her shoulder and says softly, “We’ll take care of that.”
Later, in a spare moment away from rehearsal, sitting in a tiny room with a bench and piano down the hall, she drags on a Marlboro Light.
“I am terrified. Yes, terrified,” she says. “But l’ve wanted to do this. I let everyone know I wanted to do something onstage. I told my agent I wanted to do this. Even though I’ve been offered a lot of money to do other things. A shitload. But this is the way I am. I’m either incredibly rafe or I throw myself in the deep end.”
Her last stage appearance, which also happened to be her first, was eight years ago in a small Los Angeles production of a play called A Playground in Fall. She replaced another actress at the last minute, appeared in only one scene, and got no reviews. “I was told my instincts were good,” she says now.
Since then, Pfeiffer, 31, has done such movies as Grease II, Scarface (with Mastrantonio), and Into the Night (with Goldblum), and gotten rayes for her work in The Witches of Eastwick, Married to the Mob, and Dangerous Liaisons, for which she got an Oscar nomination.
“But this is different,” she says.
“I remember the moment when I was sitting outside the room after reading for Mr. Papp and for Harold. I was sitting on a little table, you know, Indian-style. Smoking a cigarette. Having a cup of coffee. And I suddenly had this feeling that I hadn’t had in eight years, since I auditioned for this TV movie called The Children Nobody Wanted. I remember it because it was the first time I’d ever gone to an audition where the producers didn’t want me to be pretty.” She sighs and pulls on a mane of hair that is held in place by two clips.
“And this role-Olivia-she’s kind of desperate, you know? Desperately in love. I admire her for not going into a marriage with someone she doesn’t love.”
IT IS MEMORIAL DAY. TO HONOR THE OCCASION, HAROLD Guskin has put on a new shirt.
The week before, Guskin alternated between two styles of striped polo shirt. He has not tried to compete with his stylish cast. But as the director, Guskin is the one person all the actors look at. And so naturally they tend to notice his appearance in some detail.
“That’s a new shirt,” Pfeiffer observes.
“Yes,” Goldblum confirms. “It’s got mauve in it.” “That’s not mauve,” Pfeiffer says. “It’s lavender.” “Mauve,” Goldblum repeats.
“Lavender.”
“MAUVE!”
“LAVENDER!”
A different director might have tried to settle this debate by interjecting the correct answer. But Guskin does not believe that there is such a thing as a correct answer. He prefers to let the actors be themselves, do what they want, say what they want. And so his rehearsals become free-form and exciting with each day bringing a new meaning to the play the actors have come to perform. At 48, Guskin is well into his second career; for years he performed as a professional trombone player. In the years since, he’s directed and acted in plays-but he’s best known as an acting coach. He’s worked with a long list of celebrity clients, among them Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Michael J. Fox, and Bruce Willis.
For the next few hours, the actors block the play’s final few scenes-when all the pieces of the puzzle come together, the masks come off, and true love wins out. Occasionally, Guskin is forced to offer a sliver of specific direction-though he is loath to explain his meanings. At one point, Guskin believes Olivia and Orsino must stand close together, but Pfeiffer and Collins are standing ten feet apart. He gives them the direction.
They look at the text for it. It isn’t there.
“I’ll explain all this to you later,” Guskin says.
Collins nods with the look of a college student who has just been told the meaning of the universe and wants to believe it makes sense. “No . . . I understand.” He looks at Guskin. “I think.”
Pfeiffer shoots him a smart-alecky look worthy of Eddie Haskell. “Oh, really?” she asks with a smirk. “You understand?”
Collins laughs at bis punctured balloon; Pfeiffer has nailed him and revealed that an actor should not-indeed, cannot understand things at a rehearsal simply by being told.
“It’s the beauty of rehearsal,” Goldblum is saying a few minutes later in the makeshift greenroom. “You try and watch and listen. Nobody tells you anything. You’re just learning, and it all just sort of happens.”
The six-foot-four actor gesticulates wildly as he describes his passion for Malvolio. “It’s a part full of secrets-secret agendas,” he says. “Strategies. Passions.”
As he paces the room, Michelle Pfeiffer enters quietly. She walks to the piano and opens it. After a moment of staring at the keys, she begins to play the opening bars of an Erik Satie piece. It is a soft, subtle performance without a single missed note. But suddenly she stops.
After a moment, Pfeiffer lies down on the bench, looking up at the ceiling, motionless except for the tapping of her fingers against the bench’s surface. In less than a minute, the tapping stops. She is fast asleep.
If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.
The spirit of Twelfth Night, and Shakespeare’s passion for song, has so imbued the cast that late one Friday afternoon, as the weekend approaches, John Amos and Gregory Hines feel positively compelled to sing. Without prompting-and while Guskin is elsewhere putting ensemble members through the motions of a crowd scene-Amos breaks into an impromptu rendition of a song that perfectly captures the spirit of Shakespeare; Hines joins in with the harmony and a gentle soft-shoe. Amos begins:
Shake your thang!
Do what you want to do.
Goldblum, who knows the song by the Isleys (and, more recently, EU) and loves an impromptu moment, races over to join in. He begins to slap his own thighs, and before long a resonant rhythm has taken over the room.
I won’t tell you
Who to sock it to.
Across the room, Stephen Collins begins to tap his feet. He may lack Hines’s grace and Amos’s deep baritone, but he is an actor. He can . . . he will join in.
Shake your thang!
Now the rehearsal has stopped.
Gregory Hines has broken into a full-scale dance and thigh-slapping number. His graceful movements stretch out over a good part of the rehearsal loor, and others make room for him to dance Amos, eyes shut and back hunched, sings louder and louder.
This scene quite succinctly evokes Harold Guskin’s theory of acting. He believes that you must let people be themselves and do whatever they want; then, when the time comes to cake the stage, the character will be a part of the actor. Don’t play the character, Guskin likes to say-let the character play you.
“What we are doing here,” Guskin had explained before rehearsals began, “is trying to get to the core of the play. We are not just trying to get inside the play. We are trying to explode it. We are trying to explode the essence of what it is all about.”
Or, in other words, it’s all right to act silly at a rehearsal Shakespeare would have approved.
Armed with that lofty endorsement, Hines has moved from the side of the room to center stage. Along the sides, the actor: mouth the words or tap their feet as Hines and Amos belt it out:
Shake your thang!
Do what you want to do.
Hines is standing in the center of Illyria now, smiling and dancing. The ancient town of Shakespeare’s imagination come to life.
Related Posts
Tags: Magazines, Twelfth Night
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Spain.
Leave your response!