shakespeareplayer - Tumblr blog

[shakespeareplayer]

I’m starting a pay-what-you-can Shakespeare class on Zoom. Monday nights, 7 - 10pm PST. All are welcome. Please email Pasternak.Teaching@gmail.com to join the class list. (Joining the list does not commit you to the class, but you’ll get all relevant info.)

[shakespeareplayer]

You are SO GOOD as Leontes!

Thank you!

[shakespeareplayer]

Closing Carol...

…two show day and done. Then a blitz to the airport to make a flight in an hour, to make it to Denver in time for a one hour layover, to get back to LA before Christmas… wish me luck. 

I realize I have spent more than half of 2016 in Indianapolis working at this beautiful theatre. I have a great deal of gratitude… and while closings are always a bit surreal, the end of my long run here makes it a bit more so. I know I’ll be back, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t know when.

It’s a beautiful production of the Carol, with a long tradition, and I’m very proud to have been a part of it.

2016 was a year of change for me. A lot of it. And I gotta’ say, I feel like I’m on the brink of something going into the new year… I don’t quite know what, but I feel as if a lot of the energies and paths of my life are headed toward some sort of culmination; some sort of definition. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Anyway. I haven’t written as much here for a variety of reasons… less Shakespeare means less excitement; I’ve been writing a great deal elsewhere; and partly, I suppose, because I’m not quite sure what the hell this blog is anymore. I started it with certain intentions and they have morphed, and fallen off, etc… I don’t know how much I’m going to continue with this. I don’t mean that negatively: I guess I need to redefine what this is to me. Like so much else.

So much love to all. Happy new year. Merde!

[shakespeareplayer]

Follow the link to see Amanda and I give a short TV interview about IRT’s upcoming Christmas Carol.

[shakespeareplayer]

At LAX...

…and waiting to board. A whirlwind of a week behind me. I did a great deal of writing, and reflecting, and spending time with family. It was my first week in my new home; settling, with all my nothing. Walking windy, rocky paths. I felt a bit lost; I wasn’t always as strong as I wanted to be. But in the end, it was a good week; a healthy week.

The Dodgers lost; a hero fell. But what am I going to say? The Cubs have waited longer than us. They were the better team. I’ll be happy to watch this World Series, cheering for both sides.

So I return to Indy. A newbie to their tried and true Carol. It will be my first. I look forward to it, and to returning to the incredible friends I’ve made in that city. Not to mention that gorgeous theatre.

So farewell, Los Angeles. Once again. My heart is very full. Let’s close with some Tennyson:

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[shakespeareplayer]

An Early Close...

…well, we close Three Musketeers tonight with a double-header. This is a day earlier than expected, but our final matinee tomorrow was canceled a few weeks ago. I realize I’ve written very little this time around. I’ve been working through some stuff and haven’t wanted this to become a forum for venting, which is not its purpose. But I’ve been very productive out here: writing, living healthy, sticking to a schedule… I’m thrilled for my Dodgers, of course. Game 5 against the Nationals was one of the best games I have ever listened to. It was everything that makes baseball - and the National League in particular - incredible. 

It’s been a good run. I think this show is a rousing success in all the ways it can be. It’s pure entertainment, and the audiences have loved it. It’s also a really good ensemble, and I’ve made some great friends along the way. I’ll raise a glass to it tonight, send it on its way, and fly back to LA tomorrow. One week there, and then back again, for my first Christmas Carol.

Love to all. Goodbye and hello again, as always.

[shakespeareplayer]

Regional theatre lost one of its greats today. And this one belonged to Los Angeles.

[shakespeareplayer]

Every culture that has lost myth has lost, by the same token, its natural healthy creativity. Only a horizon ringed about with myths can unify a culture. The forces of imagination and the Apollonian dream are saved only by myth from indiscriminate rambling. The images of myth must be the daemonic guardians, ubiquitous but unnoticed, presiding over the growth of the child's mind and interpreting to the mature man his life and struggles.

Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

[shakespeareplayer]

Opening Night...

…may we play with panache. And daring. And love.

Merde.

[shakespeareplayer]

A little throwback assemblage of my previous Dumas excursions on the eve of my next opening. In both my previous Musketeers, I played the King and John Felton (it was the OSF adaptation). I also played the twins King Louis and Philippe in a world premiere adaptation of Man in the Iron Mask by Scott Wentworth. Tomorrow we open here at IRT, and I’ll hit the boards as Buckingham in Catherine Bush’s adaptation (as seen in the final photo by Zach Rosing)

That’s a lot of Dumas. 

Other photos above by rr jones (SSC) and Jennifer M. Koskinen (Denver)

[shakespeareplayer]

I discovered an old box of programs here at IRT, so of course I went searching… this is from a mid-80s production of Hamlet. Mr. Wentworth, of course, is a dear friend. And I had the joy of working with Mr. Sutorius in a production of Merchant of Venice a few years ago. A small world gets smaller. But man, we don’t miss those 80s headshots. No we don’t. 

[shakespeareplayer]

…Albee and Shaffer this year. What a magnificent playwright he was. Flights of angels...

[shakespeareplayer]

10-of-12s...

…are today and tomorrow. I’ve been remiss in writing of late, for a number of reasons, which… I’m not going to write about now. This one is gonna be a TECH. See you on the other side.

[shakespeareplayer]

Like any resort the town of Biarritz, of which my shiny little house was part, promised many things, most of which were frivolous and quite a few false. But the sea and the mountains, as I returned to them year after year, promised nothing whatsoever. All you could say about them was that they were there, they were beautiful and whatever it was they were waiting for, it had precious little to do with you. To someone working in the theatre, with its short-lived victories and bitter defeats, its busy self-importance, the sight of them each year was a kind of rebuke which, like an eloquent but cautionary sermon, I gradually came to welcome as once again I put the theatre to one side and occupied myself with counting the days of summer.

Michael Blakemore, STAGE BLOOD

[shakespeareplayer]

Perhaps my own laziness and lack of public spirit contributed to this, but I had a clear and very simple view of what I thought theatre was for. It was to bring to the stage productions of such accomplishment and concentrated intent that anyone who saw them would remember them for the rest of their lives. It was their impact rather than the categories to which they happened to belong that mattered. They could be anything - tragedies or comedies, musicals or one-man shows. Not surprisingly such occasions are a rarity. But they do happen and are perhaps the one good reason why people who should know better persist in such a clumsy, compromised and often disappointing medium. It's impossible to legislate for this kind of excellence; all you can do is get the work done as best you can, keep your fingers crossed and trust that once in a while in the life of an institution or an individual, against the odds, it happens. This hardly constitutes a policy and is certainly not a programme, nor is it much use in the daily and arduous demands of running a theatre, but as a thought on hold at the back of one's mind, a sleeping aspiration, it can warn against wrong turnings and highlight misjudgments.

STAGE BLOOD, by Michael Blakemore

I may end up quoting this entire fucking book. It’s incredible. Read it.

[shakespeareplayer]

Very honored to be a part of Liza de Weerd and Brian Weiss’ ‘This Week in Shakespeare’ series.

[shakespeareplayer]

And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by And feed upon the shadow of perfection Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive. I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom: Tarry I here, I but attend on death: But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.

Valentine, Two Gents, 3.1

Two years ago I arrived at IRT for the first time to play Valentine in Two Gents. Speeches like this have always given me trouble… Romeo’s ‘But soft, what light…”, etc. But somehow, with Tim’s guidance, I feel like I really came around to this one. It’s gorgeous. And last night, in a messy arrangement of dreams, I recited it in one. Upon waking, I was surprised to discover I still remember the whole damn thing; a joyful touch to a sad moment.