10 am

First rehearsal today, and signs of the plays topicality everywhere this morning. The Times headline is about Iraqis flocking to the polls to forge a new republic from the remains of a dictatorship. The arts section has a piece on the pentagon hiring a corporate consulting firm which uses lessons drawn from Shakespeare, particularly Julius Caesar, to instruct military personnel. Lt. Gen. William R. Looney III is quoted as saying “Brutus is not an honorable man. He was a traitor, and he murdered someone in cold blood…our ethos is to obey the chain of command.” At one point in the discussions with the military a parallel between the conspirators and the Bush administration was raised. “If the conspirators were in the wrong for taking violent action without hard evidence but only on suspicion of the tyrant that Caesar might become, in effect making a preemptive strike, couldn’t the same arguments be applied to the Bush administration invasion in Iraq and the absence of weapons of mass destruction?” The seminar leader replied, “The president had more evidence than Brutus did.”

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12 noon

Rehearsal hall at the 42nd street studios. I love this rehearsal space. It’s the best in the city, as far as I’m concerned, and is right across the street from The Lion King, so I can pop into my comfy dressing room to jot these notes or rest.

First rehearsals have a first day of school feeling. Since the theatre business is relatively small it almost always involves seeing friends you haven’t heard from in a while. Today I was happy to see Henry Woronicz, a fine classical actor and director who I know from my days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Steve Anderson, with whom I did The Kentucky Cycle on Broadway 12 years ago. Steve and I have a history of cracking each other up on stage, a habit I deplore in others and despise in myself. More of that later.

On a day like today the space vibrates with an energy that is impossible to describe. All the hopes for the production hang in the air. It is all Potential. This could be It—the great American production of Shakespeare we have all been hoping for. The show is already one third sold out, and tickets went on sale two days ago. Whatever else we may have, we have an Event on our hands.

The first hour was given over to Equity business. A union rep comes in and tells you what you need to know to protect yourself from the evil producers—or that’s how it always feels to me. The tone is slightly adversarial, and the details soporific. Eyes glaze over as she drones on about specifically how she measures the rake of the stage and the density of fog and haze used in the show. All the excitement and energy that was present minutes ago has been sucked out of the room, as if into a black hole.

Formal introductions of the producers Carol Shorenstein and Freddy DeMann followed, with heartfelt applause for those intrepid souls who put their money into the business of producing plays.

Dan Sullivan said that, contrary to his usual way of beginning rehearsals, he would “contextualize’ the production for us. The play would be set in the near future, perhaps 30 years hence. After “the oil wars” and during a worldwide depression. The place is Rome—but one that has been destroyed by terrorism, bombing and looting. Think Kabul or Baghdad after the invasion. There are few services and little technology, except for the security systems which are omnipresent. Dan called it “a world that would seem to need a Caesar.” At least, under a strict military rule, people would be able to walk the streets. There is a hunger for strong leadership.  Politics is all. Everyone is looking for a way to survive, which means grabbing power. The production will be strongly psychological, and headlong—he would like to play it without an intermission.

At this point Dan presented a slide show to give us an idea what each scene would look like. For me, this was the most exciting part of the day. Slides were projected on the wall, showing us set renderings of every scene, one by one. As each scene was presented, with a specific context we could recognize from today’s headlines, the buzz in the room grew and grew. William Sadler (who is playing Caesar) was practically coming out of his chair. Each setting was brilliant, but the most exciting at this point is for the funeral orations, which will take place in front of a dilapidated act curtain, as if in a disused theatre. The plebeians will be in the aisles, the balcony and the boxes. The theatre audience will literally be the audience for Brutus and Antony. The Belasco, where we play, is an exceptionally intimate space, with tons of natural character. No matter what else happens, this will be exciting. The audience will be inches away from a major movie star who will be speaking directly to them—posing questions and asking for responses. If it works as I think it will, it will seem you are really there.

Dan then made some very brief and modest comments about regionalisms in speech, and announced that we would be coached by Liz Smith so we all sound like we come from the same world. He would, however, insist on American speech—no phony British-isms for us.

Dan then introduced Dakin Mathews, who will serve as our dramaturge. Dakin is an actor, director and scholar from the West coast, of whom I have been aware for many years, though we had never met. Dakin is something of a legend in California, where his encyclopedic understanding of Shakespeare has been common knowledge for decades. He has only recently emerged on the east coast, most notably as the adaptor and dramaturge of Jack O’Brien’s production of Henry IV parts I and II at Lincoln Center, starring Kevin Kline. Dakin also acted several small roles in that production, and did so with such ease and virtuosity that he occasionally made some of those around him (all great actors) look a little wooden by comparison. Overall, the production was hailed as the finest Shakespeare that had been done in New York for years, and the critics were unanimous in praising the adaptation. Much more about Dakin later.

Dan then directed us to begin reading the play, and, sitting around the table, we began.

First readings are torturous. Should you act, or not? Everyone says that no judgments are made at the first reading, but of course, this is a lie. Everyone is listening carefully, and, no matter how hard they may try not to, making judgments about each actor’s suitability to their role. Everyone deals with the pressure of the situation differently. Both Colm Feore as Cassius and Denzel Washington as Brutus began with glasses pushed down on the ends of their noses, giving them a professorial air. Colm seemed to deal with first reading nerves by going very quickly, demonstrating his lightning facility with the text. Denzel dealt with his nerves by occasional humorous comments, and by flashing his mesmerizing smile. He kept it very light, avoiding any early commitment to the life and death stakes that the play will ultimately require. What was immediately apparent was that he had “chops”. He is a true actor, who can handle classical text and project authority. There are many examples of producers who have cast movie stars because of box office appeal, regardless of whether or not they are right or ready for the role. Denzel is both right and ready, and would be cast as Brutus whether or not he had become a star. In fact, one is tempted to say that if he wasn’t a star this would make him one. Anyway, the point is moot, because he IS a star, which is apparent from the moment he enters a room. Was all this clear in the first few minutes of the reading? Yes.

Bill Sadler’s Caesar is, at least for today, candid and conversational. His vocal and physical resemblance to Donald Rumsfeld is spooky. Does anyone else notice it? Was Dan aware of it when he cast him? Am I reading too much into the modern parallels?

My own role (as Decius Brutus in the first half of the play and Mesalla in the second) is a challenge. In The Lion King, I play one of the leads, but here I am definitely on the supporting team. The first sign of my status occurs when I see the call sheet and my name is misspelled—Patrick Paige. This misspelling recurs everywhere—on scripts, costume tags, security badges. I feel silly bringing it up to management, but I want it fixed.

My lines are few and far between, so at the ten minute break when Dan Sullivan stops me to say “It sounds wonderful, Patrick” I nearly collapse with gratitude. In so many ways, playing small roles is harder: if Macbeth screws up “If it were done…” he’s still got the dagger speech, the banquet, and “Tomorrow and tomorrow…”. If Seyton blows “The queen, my lord, is dead” he might as well blow his own brains out.

After the initial reading Dan turned to Dakin, asked us to begin reading again from the beginning of the play. I think I was not the only one who was a little bit surprised. In most instances the dramaturge speaks when spoken to by the director. Questions might be posed to him/her when historical issues are addressed, or when textual variations occur. The dramaturge, for example, would be the expert on discrepancies between folio and quarto versions of a text (is it “too, too sullied” or “too, too solid”?), as well as on the manners and mores of the period. But, in this case it was clear that Dan had handed the reigns of the rehearsal to Dakin, and we would be methodically breaking each speech and scene down with his guidance.

Dakin began by saying that a great deal of his job would entail exploring “why do they say it exactly this way?” My heart beat a little faster. This is what I came for. This is the work that so often gets skipped over, but which is, in fact, the lifeblood of any worthwhile Shakespearean performance. He went on: “Shakespeare studied the Romans from the time he was seven years old. He knew them intimately, and he is working very closely from his source material, which is Plutarch. This is one of the times we know exactly which book Shakespeare had open on his desk while he was writing the play. He saw these people as rhetorical beings, so as far as he’s concerned, he’s writing naturalism.”

As the reading progressed, he used an image in one of Cassius’ early speeches to demonstrate the layered rhetoric and buried imagery in the play. Cassius, in deriding Caesar says:

“His coward lips did from their color fly…”

Which seems straightforward enough. He was frightened, and therefore his lips lost their color. But Dakin pointed out that the color didn’t fly from the lips, the lips flew from the color. “Color” is a synonym for flag (as in the modern “color guard”). The military image, then, (from the soldier Cassius about his superior officer Caesar) is of a frightened combatant deserting his standard in mid-battle. Dakin called this “the quick cut”. He noted the contemptuous alliteration (coward/color) and the density of insult packed into a single line of blank verse. I’ve lived with this play for over 25 years and played both Antony and Brutus in past productions. I had never noticed that image.

Colm Feore asks: “How do we make the audience get all that?”

I love Dakin’s answer: “You don’t.” This is what Peter Brook calls “the living process behind the work”. We see the bird in the sky, but not the air currents on which it glides. So little of what animates us in life is visible. Dakin posits that the audience only gets a small percentage of what we do. If we do 70% they might get 49% If we do 110% they will get 80.