King John
I always look forward to seeing a production by Actors' Shakespeare Project, because they are the best game in town, but I'm especially looking forward to the "political thriller" (as director Benjamin Evett dubs it) "King John," which we'll be seeing Thursday night.
Because I read the play last night, and oh man, are they in for it. A Google search on "King John" and "rarely produced" returns over 10,000 hits, and you can see why. That play is messed up. It's one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, and he wasn't exactly at the top of his form yet. Shakespeare can come up with a lot of ways to say things--you might have noticed--but he hadn't yet disciplined that tendency, and some of the speeches are just the same idea, expressed over and over in different words and metaphors. The plot, a dizzying series of alliances, betrayals, and assassinations accomplished and botched between families, nations, and religious leaders, is well-nigh incomprehensible, unless you were alive in the Middle Ages and watching a lot of CNN at the time. (It doesn't help that everyone is named either Philip or Richard, except for the one guy who is named both Philip AND Richard and is simply referred to as "the Bastard." It's worse than keeping track of all the different Sixes on "Battlestar Galactica.") I had to read Asimov's commentary after every act to understand what had gone on, and I still didn't get most of it. The Bastard has a long speech in Act I that is enraged and funny and brilliant, and apparently motivated by nothing at all. According to Harold Bloom, in the original play that Shakespeare based his version on, there was a scene that explained the Bastard's rage, but Bill kind of .... forgot to put that one in.
Oh, and they're producing the play at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, in a room in which the most striking architectural feature is a painted meditation labyrinth on the floor.
Oh, and they're setting it in modern-day Los Angeles.
They're so doomed. This is going to be awesome. Because I really think they can do it--I've got a near-infinite amount of faith in them--but I cannot for the life of me imagine how.
This is fun. This is theater as the high-wire sport it was meant to be. I can't wait for Thursday night. Tune in Friday to see how it went!
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Who is Miss Conduct?
Robin Abrahams writes the weekly "Miss Conduct" column for The Boston Globe Magazine. Robin, who has a PhD in psychology from Boston University, has worked as a theater publicist, organizational-change communications manager, editor, stand-up comedian, and professor of psychology and English. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are given annually for achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.
