As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a wrack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. "
-The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1
Yes friends, our time in Monmouth has drawn to a close. The last two weeks were jam-packed with performances and extra-curricular events. Thanks to the genius of our production manager Daniel Thompson we all had a lot more downtime this summer. See normally we non-equity performers are responsible for changing over the set between each show. This means at least two hours a day (on top of our two-show per day load) of tech work. Enter Daniel, who cleverly devised a system splitting the entire ensemble into three changeover teams, meaning each company member only had changeover duty twice per week, instead of twice per day. The result: a lot more free time for everyone, and a lot more efficiency and positivity in the changeovers themselves. I think I speak for the company when I send a huge THANK YOU to Daniel. Well done sir, well done.
And we all certainly made the most of it: from time in the hot tub well spent to impromptu croquet parties to mountain-conquering, we left no stone uncovered here in the northern frontier.
The high adventure has also not been limited to the great outdoors however. We've had a couple of surprises on stage as well. The first one was two weeks ago right in the middle of our run of King Lear, when a pair of bats made their way into the theater. They were flying about madly, trying to find the exit; but it seems the force of Shakespeare's poetry resounding off the walls must have been interfering with their sonar, because they were only capable of flying back and forth from the balcony to the proscenium and back again. The audience of course was watching this with interest and trying hard not to laugh. Not exactly the atmosphere you want to set in the western world's greatest tragedy. It was mid-way through the second act when this started happening, and Bill (King Lear) was in the middle of his scene with Edgar and Gloucester where he's spouting nonsense and grappling with his sanity. It just so happened that when the bat made a bee-line for the back wall, flying directly over the top of the trio of actors, causing them all to duck and the audience to gasp, Shakespeare had supplied Bill with the perfect retort. He gestured toward the bat and said his next line:
"Well flown bird of the air!"
. . .which brought the house down. We in the dressing room had no idea why the most thunderous laughter of the season had just rang out in the middle of a tragedy, and only found out later about the perfectly matched up line. In the play Lear is referring to an imaginary arrow in his madness-induced state. But it surely made for a magical moment in the theater.
The next week we had a similarly serendipitous experience during Much Ado. The light board had been malfunctioning all night, which first manifested itself with an unexpected blackout in the middle of Beatrice & Benedick's duet scene after the wedding. The lights came back on after about twenty seconds, but it was still a big glitch. That of course put everyone on edge, and since we were already past intermission there was nothing we could do but hope it would not happen again. We had made it all the way up to the final scene of the play without another incident, and then right as the play was wrapping up, the lights cut out again after Don Pedro reacts in amazement to Hero's reappearance. Sure enough after about three seconds the lights came back on, and I had the next line which miraculously was:
"All this amazement can I qualify . . ."
Which of course drew an enormous laugh from the house, who were delighted to have the mishap recongnized. A few lines later, Jared got yet another one in, when he said:
"Come, I will have thee, but by this light . . . (a nod and a smile to the audience, who roared again) . . . I take thee for pity."
As Bill said in the dressing room that night: Shakespeare's always there for you. It's really amazing when those things line up that way, and its one of the beauties of the live theatrical event. Certainly was a lot of fun playing with these surprises as they came along.
And one by one, the shows drew to a close starting with The Compleat Works of Shakespeare Abridged, which led the charge on Wednesday night. Then Lear on Thursday (to a sold out crowd and standing ovations), James Friday afternoon and Blithe Spirit Friday night. Saturday was a solid last matinee of Room Service and our final performance of Much Ado About Nothing that night.
Thus ends the 42nd season at the Theater at Monmouth, the 14 years of Dave Greenham's direction of the theater, and one of the best summers any of us have ever spent. I feel really blessed to have been able to return to Monmouth again and spend another summer immersed in Shakespeare, surrounded by nature, and of course in the company of such amazing and talented people. I hope you have been able to catch a little piece of the energy, passion, dedication and magic that has been radiating out of Monmouth this summer. I sure did, and will be riding this wave for a while.
Till next time, wishing all of my friends and colleagues a safe, productive and fruitful year. It was an honor and a pleasure, and I look forward to our paths crossing again very soon.
All Good Things,
Brian
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