[audience applauding]
- Many of us in the theater,
tragedy of Macbeth smells of sulfur and brimstone.
Evil and hell itself is almost palpable.
So spooked are we by this play
that many of us in the theater can't even breathe its name,
and refer to it simply as the Scottish play.
A prediction of kingship from three questionable hags
awakens in the warrior Macbeth and his wife ambitions,
long and deeply buried.
Duncan, king of Scotland, is victorious over the foes
that threatened his kingdom and owes his success chiefly
to the bold battlefield prowess of Macbeth,
his most loyal thane.
- To honor him, the king will pay a visit
to his castle and stay the night.
Macbeth and his wife will steal themselves to catch
the nearest way and for the crown to kill the sleeping king.
It is the dead of night.
Duncan, his two sons, and his entourage have all retired.
Lady Macbeth will serve his guards some wine,
drugged of course.
Macbeth waits for it to be done and tells his servant.
- Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell and get thee to bed.
Is this a dagger that I see before me?
Its handle toward my hand?
Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision,
sensible to feeling as to sight
or art thou but a dagger of the mind,
a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet,
in form as palpable as this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going
and such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses,
or else worth all the rest, I see thee still,
and on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
which was not so before.
There's no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
thus to mine eyes.
Now o'er the one halfworld
nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
the curtained sleep, witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings.
[wolf hollowing]
And withered murder,
alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,
whose howl's his watch,
with stealthy pace like Tarquin's ravishing strides,
towards his design moves like a ghost.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
hear not my steps, which way they walk,
lest thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
and take the present horror from the time,
which now suits with it.
Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[bell ringing]
I go, and it is done,
the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
that summons thee to heaven or to hell.
- That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire.
Hark,
peace!
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
that gives the sternest good-night.
He is about it.
The doors are open and the surfeited grooms
do mock their charge with snores.
I have drugged their possets,
that death and nature do contend about them,
whether they live or die.
- Who's there, what, ho!
- Alack, I am afraid they have awakened,
and 'tis not done.
The attempt and not the deed confounds us.
Hark, I laid their daggers ready.
He could not miss 'em.
Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it.
My husband!
- I have done the deed.
Didst thou not hear a noise?
- I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
- When? - Now.
- As I descended? - Ay.
- Hark!
Who lies in the second chamber?
- Donalbain.
- This is a sorry sight.
- A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
- There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried murder.
That they did wake each other.
But they did say their prayers,
and addressed them again to sleep.
- There are two lodged together.
- One cried god bless us and amen the other
as they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Listening their fear, I could not say amen
when they did say God bless us!
- Consider it not so deeply.
- But wherefore could not I pronounce amen?
I had most need of blessing, and amen stuck in my throat.
- These deeds must not be thought
after these ways, so, it will make us mad.
- Methought I heard a voice cry sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,
sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care.
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
chief nourisher in life's feast,--
- What do you mean?
- Still it cried sleep no more to all the house.
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.
- Who was it that thus cried?
Why, worthy thane,
you do unbend your noble strength, to think
so brainsickly of things.
Go get some water,
and wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why have you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there, go carry them
and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.
- I'll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done.
Look on it again I dare not.
- Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers, the sleeping and the dead
are but as pictures 'tis the eye of childhood
that fears a painted devil.
If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
for it must seem their guilt.
[knocking]
- Whence is that knocking?
How is it with me, when every noise appalls me?
What hands are here, ha!
They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
clean from my hand?
No, this my hand will rather
the multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
making the green one red.
- My hands are of your color
but I shame to wear a heart so white.
[knocking]
I hear a knocking at the south entry,
retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then!
Your constancy hath left you unattended.
[knocking]
Hark, more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
and show us to be watchers.
Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts.
- To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
[knocking]
Wake Duncan with thy knocking!
I would thou couldst!
[knocking]
[applauding]
- This celebration that we are having tonight
is part of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.
And the Folger Library in Washington, DC,
has been sending a very special exhibition
across the country.
The library is a treasure house,
famed for its huge collection of memorabilia
and printed material related to Shakespeare's plays,
but especially its large number
of first folios and quartos.
Now, eight of these priceless first folios
have already been traveling each state
that could provide the necessary security
as well as events to mark this very, very special occasion.
- Now, one of those original first folios
will be on display here in Madison
at the Chazen Museum of Art
from November 3rd through December 11th.
But if you'd like to see it sooner,
you'll have to travel up north
to the University of Minnesota in Duluth.
[laughing]
Where it's currently on display until October 26th.
- But tonight, thanks for the UW Madison Arts Institute
and the Wisconsin Union Directorate,
Randy and I have been brought here to join
in this most joyous celebration
of the first folio's visit to Wisconsin.
- Now, you may be sitting there scratching your heads
wondering why Annie and I, two old fogies
chose to start this evening with that scene
from the Scottish play.
[laughing]
Well, there are two reasons.
The first is that the tragedy of Macbeth
is one of 18 plays that we would have never known
if they weren't included in the first folio.
You see, there were no earlier printed editions
of this magnificent play.
The only text we have is to be found only
in the first folio.
Saved from oblivion by two of Shakespeare's fellow actors
and friends John Heminges and Henry Condell.
- And the second reason was that Macbeth, we found out,
was the play that had very, very, very special place
at the very beginning of both
our individual journeys with Shakespeare.
Randy's experience began in the Pacific Ocean.
- In the Pacific Ocean?
- Not in, but close by.
[laughing]
- You know, I've been wondering of late
how it happened that I, an Asian-American born
and raised in Hawaii, became an actor.
[laughing]
A classical actor who had a special thing for Shakespeare.
You know?
That's kind of weird, isn't it?
[laughing]
In fact, it's a puzzlement.
[laughing]
I was 18 years old, and there appeared an audition notice
for an upcoming production of Macbeth
with the Honolulu Community Theater.
Well, my imagination for some time already had already been
set afire by the live theater and a place
where great old plays could be enacted.
But it was all only in my head.
Now, Macbeth on the stage.
Oh, my curiosity couldn't be contained.
It went into overdrive.
I went to the audition despite the fears
and, holy smoke, I was cast as Malcolm.
[laughing]
Well, the night of the first reading
with the entire cast came around.
You see, the community theater did its work
on an old Army base.
The back end of Diamond Head Crater.
And I climbed the few stairs of a dilapidated building
and stepped into a huge room.
And I froze in my tracks.
[laughing]
Curiosity gave way to sheer terror.
There I was, face to face with a large group
of white people.
[laughing]
Older white people.
[laughing]
Oh, my god, I said to myself, kid,
you've gotten yourself into it this time.
But keep calm, keep calm.
Don't panic, breathe.
It's too late to hightail it out of there.
But if you really want to know how this kind of play
is done, you got to screw your courage
to the sticking place, find a place to sit down,
and get ready to read.
Well, that first rehearsal passed, and I was glad I stayed.
During the entire run of that play, I was all eyes and ears.
You know, when I wasn't on stage,
I was watching the first murderer paint
a droopy Quasimodo eye on himself.
[laughing]
Or I found myself a place in the wings
because I didn't want to miss a moment
of what was going on on the stage and in the audience.
This was my debut.
I was an actor.
And I was absolutely certain that it was only this kind
of play that would ever give me pleasure.
- Well, my journey began in Queens, New York.
Not quite as exotic as Hawaii.
- Ooh, yes.
- But there you are.
I was in the sixth grade, and a group of actors
toured a production of Macbeth to my school.
And they had used the auditorium aisles
as entrances and exits.
Well, I do not know what possessed me,
but as Donalbain was making his entrance,
I reached out my hand and I touched his cape.
[laughing]
And I thought, oh, my god, he's real.
[laughing]
This isn't a movie.
Well, I knew then, somehow,
that my destiny was marked by that experience.
That somehow I would spend my life doing live theater
and doing Shakespeare.
I had another opportunity when I was in college
to perform Cleopatra in a piece that was composed
of scenes from different plays about that character.
And one of the scenes was the death scene
from Antony and Cleopatra.
Now, to get the picture, my Mark Antony
was about 90 pounds soaking wet.
[laughing]
He looked ridiculous in a Roman tunic.
[laughing]
And he had to kill himself.
So he pulled out his sword, killed himself,
fell to the ground, and the audience erupted in laughter.
He would not put up with that.
So he lifted himself up on one elbow,
looked directly at the audience, and said,
"If you don't stop laughing, I ain't gonna die."
[laughing]
And then I had to kill myself with a rubber snake.
[laughing]
But it wasn't until 1970 that our journeys merged.
Randy and our dear, dear friend Chuck Bright
had moved to New York City.
And we met for the first time in a non-Shakespearean play,
Brendan Behan's The Hostage.
Randy's used to come in early to do his old age makeup
I came in early to do my young age makeup.
And one day he knocked on my dressing room door,
and he said, "I just want you to know
"I think you're a wonderful actress."
Well, needless to say, I was willing to follow him anywhere.
- Well, when I got to New York,
I vowed that I would try and find work every summer
at some Shakespeare festival.
So pictures and resumes were sent out,
rejections were received.
Auditions, more rejections, but, finally,
I was hired by the Champlain Shakespeare Festival
in Burlington, Vermont.
My first summer consisted of doing Cassius
in Julius Caesar and old Gremio in the Taming of the Shrew.
Well, I must have been okay doing it
because they invited me back for a second season
to play Touchstone in As You Like It
and the title role in Titus Andronicus.
Ah-ha.
You know, I had cajoled the artistic director,
Ed Fidner, into doing that play.
I was a young actor and it was a piece
that I was curious about.
How do you do a play like that?
And I was so excited to explore that piece in performance.
You see, Titus Andronicus was my Shakespearean tragedy 101.
- Titus Andronicus is a revenge tragedy written
by a young Shakespeare.
It is stuffed full of horror
and acts of extreme, extraordinary cruelty.
Rape, mutilation, murder, and much worse.
Near the climactic end of the play,
the old Roman general and his daughter
and his kinsmen catch the two boys
who helped to devastate their family.
- Come, come, Lavinia, look, thy foes are bound.
Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me
but let them hear what fearful words I utter.
O villains,
Chiron and Demetrius!
Here stands the spring whom you have stained with mud,
this goodly summer with your winter mixed.
You killed her husband, and for that vile fault
two of her brothers were condemned to death.
My hand cut off and made a merry jest.
Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.
What would you say, if I should let you speak?
Hark, villains,
how I will martyr you.
This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
whilst that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
the basin that receives your guilty blood.
You know your mother means to feast with me,
and calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
Hark, wretches,
I will grind your bones to dust
and with your blood and it I'll make a paste.
And of the paste a coffin will I rear,
and make two pasties of your shameful heads.
And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
like to the earth swallow her increase.
This is the feast that I have bid her to,
and this the banquet she shall surfeit on.
For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
and worse than Progne I will be revenged.
And now prepare your throats.
Lavinia, come,
receive the blood and when that they are dead,
let me go grind their bones to powder small
and with this hateful liquor temper it
and in that paste let their vile heads be baked.
Come, come, be every one officious
to make this banquet, which I wish may prove
more stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.
He cuts their throats.
So, now bring them in,
for I'll play the cook,
and see them ready 'gainst their mother comes.
[applauding]
- And that was the first Shakespeare I saw Randy do.
[laughing]
Then and there I knew I had to do more Shakespeare with him.
So there was a third play in that rep season in Vermont,
and it's a play that has become very, very dear to us
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Judging by your applause that's a fat man on the screen,
you like it too.
Randy has since had the opportunity to play Falstaff,
and I have had the opportunity to play Mistress Quickly.
However, we've never played them together.
So, begging your indulgence, here we go.
[laughing]
[applauding]
- Fat, old Sir John Falstaff
seeks to fill his almost empty purse by making love
to two fairly well-off, married women
Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.
He has sent each of them separate letters requesting
a private meeting so he can personally
express his fond feelings.
Enter Mistress Quickly, a busybody sent
by the wives to give him their answer.
- Give your worship good morrow.
- Good morrow, good wife.
- Not so, and it please your worship.
- Good maid, then.
- I'll be sworn, as my mother was,
the first hour I was born.
- I do believe the swearer.
What with me?
- Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
- 2,000, fair woman and I'll vouchsafe thee the hearing.
- There is one Mistress Ford,
I pray, your worship come a little nearer this ways.
- Well, on Mistress Ford, you say?
- Your worship says very true I pray your worship,
come a little nearer this ways.
- I warrant thee, nobody hears
mine own people, mine own people.
- Are they so?
Well, heaven bless them and make them his servants!
- Well, Mistress Ford, what of her?
- Why, sir, she's a good creature.
Lord Lord, your worship's a wanton!
Well, heaven forgive you and all of us, I pray!
- Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford.
- Marry, this is the short and the long of it.
You have brought her into such a canaries
as 'tis wonderful.
The best courtier of them all, when the court lay
at Windsor, could never have brought her into such a canary.
And yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen,
with their coaches, I warrant you,
coach after coach, letter after letter,
gift after gift smelling so sweetly,
all musk, and so rushling.
I warrant you, in silk and gold.
- Gold, ah.
- And in such elegant terms and in such wine and sugar
of the best and the fairest,
that would have won any woman's heart
but they could never get an eye-wink of her.
I had myself 20 angels given me this morning
but I defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say
but in the way of honesty and they could never get
her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of
them all and yet there has been earls.
- Earls.
- Nay, which is more, pensioners.
- Pensioners?
- All is one with her.
- But what says she to me, be brief, my good she-Mercury.
- Marry, she hath received your letter,
for the which she thanks you a thousand times
and gives you to notify that her husband
will be absence from his house between 10 and 11.
- 10 and 11?
- Ay, forsooth and then you may come and see the picture,
she says, that you wot of Master Ford,
her husband, will be from home.
Alas, the day the sweet woman leads an ill life with him.
He's a very jealousy man.
She leads a very frampold life with him, dear heart.
- Ah, 10 and 11.
Woman, commend me to her, I will not fail her.
- Why, you say well.
But I have another messenger to your worship too.
Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too
and let me tell you in your ear, she's as fartuous--
- Fartuous.
- A civil modest wife, and one, I tell you,
that will not miss you morning nor evening prayer,
as any is in Windsor, and she bade me tell your worship
that her husband is seldom from home.
- Ah.
- But she hopes there will come a time.
Oh, I never knew a woman so dote upon a man
truly I think you have charms, la, yes, in truth.
- Not I, I assure thee setting the attractions
of my good parts aside I have no other charms.
- Blessing on your heart for it!
- But, I pray thee, tell me this has Ford's wife
and Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?
- Oh, oh, oh,
that were a jest indeed!
- Yeah.
- They have not so little grace, I hope
that were a trick indeed!
But Mistress Page would have you to send her your
little page, of all loves.
Her husband has a marvelous infection to the little page
and truly Master Page is an honest man.
Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does.
Do what she will, say what she will, pay all, take all,
go to bed when she list, rise when she list,
all is as she will, and truly she deserves it.
For if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she is one.
You must send her your page, no remedy.
- Why, I will.
- Oh, well, then do so, then and, look you,
he may come and go between you both,
and in any case have a nay-word,
that you may know one another's mind,
and the boy never need to know any thing.
For 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness.
- No, no, no.
- Old folks, you know, have discretion.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- As they say, and know the world.
- Fare thee well, commend me to them both, there's my purse.
I am yet thy debtor.
Boy, go along with this woman.
This news distracts me!
Sayest thou so, old Jack, go thy ways.
I'll make more of thy old body than I have done.
Will they yet look after me?
Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money,
be now a gainer?
Good body, I thank thee.
[laughing]
Let them say 'tis grossly done,
so it be fairly done, no matter.
[applauding]
- Well, Randy was invited back to the festival
for a third season, and this time I was able
to be part of the company as an actress.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Now, Randy was given the chance to play Richard III,
but I had the greater challenge.
You see, at the tender age of 24,
I was cast as the Duchess of York,
Richard's 80-year-old mother.
Suffice it to say, I was too young for the role, and Randy,
crazed makeup artist as he is, decided to experiment.
And so he devised a makeup consisting
of toilet paper glued to my face.
You may have seen that picture of me where I look like.
- All right, all right, I apologized!
I failed.
- It's too late.
Whenever I spoke my face ripped.
- Well, look on the bright side,
you won't ever have to worry about doing age makeup again.
- Oh!
[laughing]
Well, tonight, you're going to have to do penance
by putting up with my taking on the part
I should have played back then.
- All right, I concede.
Shall I set it up?
- Please do.
- Okay.
The deformed hunchback, Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
has set his sight upon the English crown.
He will use any and all means
to remove all obstacles that stand in his way,
even if they be his own flesh and blood.
His schemes also include marrying a young woman
whose royal husband he recently killed,
and her saintly father-in-law he murdered but yesterday.
Enter the corpse of King Henry VI,
accompanied by guards with halberds,
and Lady Anne, being the only mourner.
- Set down, set down your honorable load,
if honor may be shrouded in a hearse,
whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
the untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
to hear the lamentations of Poor Anne,
wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these holes!
Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
Cursed be the hand that made these holes!
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
that makes us wretched by the death of thee.
Than I can wish to wolves, spiders, toads,
or any creeping venomed thing that lives!
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
whose ugly aspect may fright the hopeful mother at the view,
and that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her he made
more miserable by the death of him
than I am made by my dear lord and thee!
Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
taken from Paul's to be interred there,
and still, as you are weary of this weight,
rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corpse.
- Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.
- What black magician conjures up this fiend,
to stop devoted charitable deeds?
- Villains, set down the corpse or by Saint Paul,
I'll make a corpse of him that disobeys.
Unmannered dog, stand thou, when I command.
Advance thy halbert higher than my breast,
or by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
and spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
- What, do you tremble are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not for you are mortal,
and mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,
His soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.
- Sweet saint, for charity, be not so cursed.
- Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not.
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
Oh, gentlemen, see,
see dead Henry's wounds
open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh!
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity.
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
from cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells.
Thy deeds, inhuman and unnatural,
provokes this deluge most unnatural.
Oh God, which this blood made, revenge his death!
Oh earth, which this blood drinks revenge his death!
Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer dead,
or earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,
as thou dost swallow up this good king's blood
that his hell-governed arm hath butchered!
- Lady, you know no rules of charity,
which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
- Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
- But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
- Oh wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
- More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
of these supposed crimes, to give me leave,
by circumstance, but to acquit myself.
- Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,
of these known evils, but to give me leave,
by circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.
- Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
some patient leisure to excuse myself.
- Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
no excuse current, but to hang thyself.
- By such despair, I should accuse myself.
- And, by despairing, shouldst thou stand excused
for doing worthy vengeance on thyself,
that didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
- Say that I slew them not?
- Then say they are not slain.
But death they are in devilish slave, by thee.
- I did not kill your husband.
- Why, then he is alive.
- Nay, he is dead and slain by Edward's hand.
- In thy foul throat thou liest, Queen Margaret saw
thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood.
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
but that thy brothers beat aside the point.
- I was provoked by her slanderous tongue,
which laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
- Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind.
That never thought of anything but butcheries.
Didst thou not kill this king?
- I grant ye.
- Dost grant me, hedgehog
then, God grant me too
thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
Oh, he was mild, virtuous, gentle!
- The better for the King of heaven, that hath him.
- He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
- Let him thank me, that holp to send him thither.
For he was fitter for that place than earth.
- And thou unfit for any place but hell.
- Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
- Some dungeon.
- Your bed-chamber.
- Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
- So will it, madam till I lie with you.
- I hope so.
- I know so but, gentle Lady Anne,
to leave this keen encounter of our wits,
and fall something into a slower method.
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
as blameful as the executioner?
- Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect.
- Your beauty was the cause of that effect.
Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep
to undertake the death of all the world,
so that I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
- If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide.
These nails would rend that beauty from my cheeks.
- These eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck.
You should not blemish it, if I stood by
as all the world is cheered by the sun,
so I by that; it is my day, my life.
- Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!
- Curse not thyself, fair creature thou art both.
- I would I were, to be revenged on thee.
- It is a quarrel most unnatural,
to be revenged on him that loveth thee.
- It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
to be revenged on him that killed my husband.
- He that bereft thy husband,
did it to help thee to a better husband.
- His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
- He lives that loves thee better than he could.
- Name him.
- Plantagenet.
- Why, that was he.
- The selfsame name, but one of better nature.
- Where is he?
- Here.
- She spits at him.
- Why dost thou spit at me?
- Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
- Never came poison from so sweet a place.
- Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight thou dost infect my eyes.
- Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
- Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!
- I would they were, that I might die at once.
For now they kill me with a living death.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
shamed their aspect with store of childish drops.
These eyes which never shed remorseful tear.
No, when my father York and Edward wept,
to hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
when black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him.
Nor, when thy warlike father, like a child,
told the sad story of my father's death.
And 20 times made pause to weep and sob,
that all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
like trees bedashed with rain: in that sad time.
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear
and what these sorrows could not thence exhale.
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
I never sued to friend nor enemy.
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word.
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,
my proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
I'll teach not thy lips such scorn, for it was made
for kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
which if thou please to hide in this true breast.
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
and humbly beg the death upon my knee.
He lays his breast open.
- She offers at it with his sword.
- Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry,
but 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
Nay, come dispatch,
'twas I that stabbed young Edward,
but 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
- She lets fall the sword
- Take up the sword again,
or take up me.
- Arise, dissembler, though I wish thy death,
I will not be the executioner.
- Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
- I have already.
- That was in thy rage.
Speak it again, and, even with the word.
This hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,
shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love.
To both their deaths shalt thou be accessory.
- I would I knew thy heart.
- 'Tis figured in my tongue.
- I fear me both are false.
- Then never man was true.
- Well, well, put up your sword.
- Say, then, my peace is made.
- That shall thou know hereafter.
- But shall I live in hope?
- All men, I hope, live so.
- Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
See how my ring encompasseth thy finger.
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
And if thy poor devoted servant may
but beg one favor at thy gracious hand,
thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
- What is it?
- That it would please you leave these sad designs
to him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
and repair to Crosby house.
Where, after I have solemnly interred
at Chertsey monastery this noble king,
and wet his grave with my repentant tears,
I will with all expedient duty see you,
for divers unknown reasons.
I beseech you, grant me this boon.
- With all my heart and much it joys me too,
to see you are become so penitent.
Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
- Bid me farewell.
- 'Tis more than you deserve,
but since you teach me how to flatter you,
imagine I have said farewell already.
She exits with Tressel and Berkeley.
- One of the guards asks Richard
Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
And Richard replies,
no, to White-Friars, there attend my coming.
They exit with Henry's corpse.
And Richard is alone on the stage.
Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
[laughing]
Was ever woman in this humor won?
I'll have her but I will not keep her long.
What, I, that killed her husband and his father,
to take her in her heart's extremest hate.
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
the bleeding witness of my hatred by having God,
her conscience, and these bars against me.
And I no friends to back my suit at all,
but the plain devil and dissembling looks,
and yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
stabbed in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
framed in the prodigality of nature,
young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal.
The spacious world cannot again afford
and will she yet abase her eyes on me.
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince,
and made her widow to a woeful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while.
She finds, although I cannot,
myself to be a marvelous proper man.
Well, I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,
and entertain a score or two of tailors,
to study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,
and then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
that I may see my shadow as I pass.
[applauding]
- Well, after Vermont,
we came home to New York, and there was nothing but work,
work, and more work and a dream coming into being.
- 1974 I worked with the New York Shakespeare Festival
doing Trinculo and The Tempest at Lincoln Center,
and shortly after that Pericles, Prince of Tire
at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
- 74 and 75 I was with Randy in San Francisco
when he was at the American Conservatory Theater to do,
once again, the title role of Richard III
and Tranio in the Taming of the Shrew.
- No sooner we got back to New York
than I was off again that summer to do Puck
with the Yale Repertory Theater in Connecticut.
- And, before he knew it, he would spend the winter
of 75 doing Prospero in The Tempest,
with the Indiana Repertory Theater.
Now, back in New York, Chuck and I would spend
our time going to play after play to see
if there were any actors out there with whom we wished
to work because the notion of doing our own thing,
starting out own theater, was really bubbling now.
- When I got home, the three of us decided to produce,
direct, and perform in our very first effort together.
The play would be the most beautiful
of Shakespeare's English histories King Richard II.
And although we produced it in a small off-Broadway house
for a limited run,
we did receive a very kind review from Mel Gussow
of the New York Times.
- Here it is.
In the direct theater production,
Randall Duk Kim's Richard earns our empathy.
He is helpless and he himself,
even more than Bolingbroke, is his enemy.
In Mr. Kim's sensitive, manly portrayal,
Richard rises in our esteem and affection.
We regret that poets cannot be kings
and wonder why they must be displaced by men of action,
such as Bolingbroke.
The direct theater production,
staged by Charles Bright and Anne Occhiogrosso,
is a collision of character and temperament.
It restores the two kings to human dimension
without losing sight of their regalness.
Led by Mr. Kim, this is a rousing production,
reduced in scale but not in impact,
ideally suited to its space.
This is an intimate Shakespeare
in which every word can be heard.
As for the adventurous Mr. Kim,
if there's any limit to his talent as an actor,
it has not yet been demonstrated.
[applauding]
Later, in that year of 1976, we were invited to do
Hamlet at the Honolulu Theater for Youth.
Randy played Hamlet for the first time,
and I was hired as the literary director.
Now, it was during this particular engagement
that an encounter took place that would change
our relationship with Shakespeare forever.
- An actress friend of mine wanted us to take a look
at an old book that she thought might be of interest
to us as we worked on the play.
It was a copy of the first folio,
and when we paged through that volume we quickly noticed
differences from the modern text we were using.
Why were some words capitalized in the middle of a sentence?
- Why were there question marks were exclamation marks were?
- What was that colon doing there?
- Why were there so many commas?
Why were there so few periods?
- Did some of the odd spellings of words mean anything?
- Why were some of the entrances changed?
- Was the very layout of the text on the page purposeful?
- Well, this was the beginning of our work
with the first folio,
and we've been exploring it ever since.
- Yeah.
- In 1977, we had moved to Washington, DC,
and worked at the Kennedy Center.
It was there that we founded American Players Theater.
While we were debating whether Washington
would be the appropriate location for a national theater,
lo and behold, out of the blue we received a phone call
from the Guthrie asking Randy if he'd like
to come out and do a season.
I will never forget jumping around that room
and dancing with each other when that call came.
Another opportunity to do Hamlet
and another opportunity to work with the first folio.
Well, incidentally, when that first folio is here
and displayed in Madison, and you all must go see it,
I urge you to see it, but the page
will be open to one of Hamlet's most famous soliloquies.
- To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
and by opposing end them?
To die, to sleep.
No more, by a sleep
to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to,
'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
To die, to sleep.
To sleep perchance to dream,
ay, there's the rub.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause, there's the respect
that makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?
The oppressor's wrong, the poor man's contumely,
the pangs of despised love, the law's delay.
The insolence of office and the spurns
that patient merit of the unworthy takes,
when he himself might his quietus make
with a bare bodkin.
Who would these fardels bear
to grunt and sweat under a weary life,
but that the dread of something after death.
The undiscovered country from whose born
no traveler returns, puzzles the will
and makes us rather bear those ills we have
than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
and thus the native hue of resolution
is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
and enterprises of great pith and moment
with this regard their currents turn awry
and lose the name of action.
[applauding]
- Performing for the Guthrie audiences was a fabulous treat.
They were listeners, and we decided right there
and then that the Midwest was where we had to be.
- Yeah.
Yes.
- You know, you may have been reading the interviews
that we have been giving, and I've said this many,
many times and I will tell you its the most sincere
statement that I could make
there has been no one like the Wisconsin audiences.
[applauding]
- Thank you.
[applauding]
- Well, Minnesota had it's Guthrie Theater
and so we set out to try and find a place
that might welcome a classical theater.
Chuck found us 49 different sites in nearby Wisconsin
to look at.
And, needless to say, Spring Green caught our attention.
Now, most of you may already know something
of APT's beginnings in that area,
but you may not know that the woman
who owned those 75 acres, Helen O'Brien,
had always dreamed of seeing
A Midsummer Night's Dream on that hill.
She invited us to spend time on the old farm, so we did.
Well, the quiet, the beauty, the serenity,
we found a place for audiences to come
and restore themselves.
We found where we would build American Players Theater,
a center for research, training,
and production of the classics.
And to thank Helen, in our very first season
we opened with A Midsummer Night's Dream
and partnered in rep with Shakespeare's
first tragedy, Titus Andronicus.
- Yikes, Titus Andronicus!
Yep.
[laughing]
This was a baby theater.
And all of us, and I mean all of us,
had much to learn about this playwright.
So we had to try and start at the beginning
and not leap into this playwright's mature work
without laying some sort of proper groundwork.
- And the rest, as they say, is history.
- Yeah.
- So, which we may, by the way, get into
after the intermission, but, just to wet your appetites'
a little, one of my very favorite memories
and very pertinent to this evening's celebration
is one of a little girl who came to see
A Midsummer Night's Dream that season.
We were told by her mother that the following week
she went to see The Empire Strikes Back.
And when she got home, her mom said to her,
how did you like it?
And she said, "It was good, mom, but it's not Shakespeare."
[laughing] [applauding]
- Yeah.
- You know, so many extraordinary people
lent their talent,
their money, their time, and love
in those early years of APT.
First and foremost, you who were there
at the very beginning, volunteering to help build the stage,
making chainmail out of soda can pull tops for King John.
Raising money through bake sales and car washes.
- Sewing costumes and making props.
Bringing a dish to pass or an item
to auction at the October Classic.
Leaving crates of vegetables at the theater
so that those who needed it wouldn't go hungry.
Even opening your homes to company members
needing a place to stay.
- And dropping in on rehearsals to see
what was going on and faithfully coming to the plays
and bringing your kids.
- Listen, you endured the mosquitoes.
[laughing]
And the horseflies and the sweat bees,
and the wind and the rain.
Oh, and that family of skunk who marched
past the first row.
And, of course, those nasty porta-potties.
- You gave us your blessing, and, in spite
of impossible odds, you assured us
that you wanted us in your backyard and to keep going.
Wow, I think they deserve a round of applause.
- Yes, come on.
[applauding]
Yeah.
- And there are those who are no longer with us
and who had a profound effect on the work that we did.
Of course there was our dear Chuck.
[applauding]
And, you know, he really must be credited
with getting APT off the ground in the first place.
He was stubborn, tenacious, kind, and caring.
And the best manager and friend we have ever known.
There was John Wyatt, scholar and translator extraordinaire.
Bud Hill, creative design genius,
and [mumbles] III,
a member of a very famous Kabuki family.
And Paddy Crean, a gentleman of the first order
and master instructor of stage combat.
And, of course, the incomparable Morris Carnovsky
and the insightful Phoebe Brand.
[applauding]
- You know, in mentioning Morris,
I'm compelled to digress here for a moment back
to when I was 18 years old and the summer
following my debut in Macbeth.
See, as a graduation present, my parents sent me
to San Diego to visit an uncle and aunt.
Well, one day while I was walking through Balboa Park,
I accidentally stumbled upon what looked like
a replica of the Globe Theater.
And it happened to be the home
of a San Diego Shakespeare Festival,
who, at the time, were doing, in rep,
Richard III, Twelfth Night, and The Merchant of Venice.
I was ecstatic.
I immediately hauled out my shekels
and bought tickets for all three.
I saw all three plays in a week,
and then I hauled out a few more shekels to see them
again the following week.
I had to make sure that I hadn't gone insane.
[laughing]
The company was dazzling, but there was one actor
who had me unconditionally enthralled
and that was Morris Carnovsky.
Whenever he came on stage I couldn't move,
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't blink.
I didn't see an actor performing,
I didn't see an actor acting, I saw the character,
alive and breathing.
I saw the character working out his destiny,
moment to moment.
I was awash with the humanity that radiated from that stage.
Morris as Shylock?
Ha!
Reached out into my very heart and grabbed it.
What I experienced became the light unto my feet
on the path that I had chosen.
His was the kind of acting I would struggle
all my life to attain.
- Shylock, a Jewish money-lender,
is in a state of rage and anguish.
His only child has not only eloped with a Christian,
but stolen money and valuables from her father.
In the street he meets two friends of the merchant Antonio,
an old enemy to whom he lent a great deal of money.
That man, it seems, cannot repay his debt
and according to the contract,
must give to Shylock a pound of his flesh.
Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take
his flesh, what's that good for?
- To bait fish withal,
if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge.
He hath disgraced me,
and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation,
thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,
heated mine enemies and what's the reason?
I am a Jew.
Hath not a Jew eyes, hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,
as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that.
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
Revenge.
If a Christian wrong a Jew,
what should his sufferance be by Christian example?
Why, revenge.
The villany you teach me,
I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
[applauding]
- You know, interestingly enough, when we were once
more living in New York,
Phoebe confessed to me that The Merchant of Venice
was not one of her favorite plays.
And I recall, however, towards the end of her life
she was in the hospital and I got a phone call from Phoebe,
and she said, Anna, come quick.
Come to the hospital, I have something to tell you.
Well, I flew down the street.
My feet did not even touch the ground.
I rushed to that hospital, I rushed to her room,
and I get to the door because I was sure
she was about to say goodbye to me,
and as soon as she saw me she said,
oh, Anna, I'm so glad you're here.
The quality of mercy is not strained.
I said, Phoebe, that's what you called me for?
She said, yes, I know how to say that line now.
[laughing]
- It reminds me of Phoebe telling us how Morris
was thinking a lot about certain scenes in Macbeth
during his final days.
You know, on his deathbed, at age 95, Morris,
believing himself to be in rehearsal,
told Phoebe to go out and reassure the director
and his fellow actors that it was only a temporary setback.
Temporarily indisposed and that he would
be with them shortly.
- You know, when I visited Phoebe for the very last time,
she said to me, good enough.
I beat my mother by 10 years.
I beat Morrie by one year,
and I even beat Katharine Hepburn.
And I said to her, but, Phoebe,
you have so much still to offer.
And she said, well, you're right there.
[laughing]
I am remarkable.
You know, we first met Morris and Phoebe in 1986.
Our dear friend and wonderful actor Ted Sweats,
and I know you know who it is, had studied with them
[applauding] before APT.
And he suggested that we should invite them
to direct our production of Anton Chekhov's
first full-length play Ivanov.
- Well, I didn't think we had a chance in hell
they'd be interested.
- Yeah.
But they invited us to dinner at their home in Connecticut
to further discuss the possibility.
- I was standing at the front door, and I was a puddle.
- Well, the door opened, and there was Morris leaning on
his cane, and he invited us in with this magnificent voice.
Phoebe had prepared a wonderful, wonderful dinner,
but it was the purpose of the visit
that contained the real excitement.
And as they both became more and more enthusiastic,
they started to become very, very curious about the casting.
And Randy would, of course, play the soul sick Ivanov,
and Ted would play the warm and wise father of the heroine.
But who would play Anna Petrovna, Ivanov's consumptive
and dying wife?
Now, get the picture.
Just as I'm about to take a bite of this delicious dinner,
I say, I will.
Phoebe stopped in her tracks and looked
at my pleasingly plump body.
And before she could speak, I quickly put my fork down,
and I said, but I'm gonna lose 25 pounds.
[laughing]
Well, she responded with,
well, you're certainly going to have to.
But the payoff is here.
I did lose the weight.
And during the first costume,
the first time she saw me in my costume,
she said to me, well, you are beautiful.
I'd marry you myself.
- Well, just a few years before he passed away,
we again have the great honor of Morris
and Phoebe's presence when they returned
to Spring Green to direct us in a production of King Lear.
Now, some of you may know that in the 1960s Morris
was famous, highly acclaimed for his King Lear.
- And I remember during rehearsal one day,
and I think some of you who were in that class
are in this audience,
and he began to do some of Lear's lines.
He could hardly remember them,
but he had Phoebe there to help him.
And at the end of that precious moment,
the entire class was in tears, including Phoebe.
- I remember one direction he gave me, among many.
He told me think of an old dragon.
Yeah, an old dragon.
Not an elderly CEO.
Or an ex-president.
An old dragon.
See, Morris believed in the imagination,
and he certainly knew how to fuel the imagination.
At least he certainly did mine.
- For the sake of peace and harmony,
old King Lear has thought it wise to divide
his kingdom among his three daughters.
The effect of this decision instantly brings
the opposite result, and all hope of happiness shatters.
After fierce confrontation with his two oldest daughters,
the old king madly rushes out into a terrible storm,
accompanied only by his fool.
[thundering]
- Blow, winds.
And crack your cheeksm
rage,
blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes,
spout till you have drenched our steeples,
drowned the cocks!
Thou sulfurous and thought-executing fires,
vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
singe my white head!
Thou, all-shaking thunder,
strike flat the thick rotundity of the world!
Crack nature's molds, an germens spill at once,
that make ingrateful man!
- O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry
house is better than this rain-water out o' door.
Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing,
here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.
- Rumble thy bellyful!
Spit, fire, spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, fire, thunder are my daughters.
I tax not you, your elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
You owe me no subscription,
then let fall your horrible pleasure.
Here I stand, your slave.
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man,
yet I call you servile ministers.
That will with two pernicious daughters joined
your high engendered battles 'gainst a head
so old and white as this, ooh, 'tis foul!
- For a brief moment the old king
is left alone in the storm.
And he begins his torturous journey
to see that he is not the man he thought he was.
- Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.
How shall your houseless heads, your unfed sides?
Your looped and windowed raggedness,
defend you from seasons such as these?
O, I have ta'en too little care of this!
Take physic, pomp.
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
that thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
and show the heavens more just.
[applauding]
- Old King Lear will endure the storm and madness
and near the end gain some measure of wisdom.
He will reunite with his beloved youngest daughter,
Cordelia, but that happiness will be short-lived.
He will see her killed and will himself quickly
follow her in death.
Now, Randy has died many times on stage.
- Mm-hmm.
- As Titus Andronicus, as Cassius and Brutus,
as Richard III and Richard II, as Romeo, Hamlet,
and old King Lear.
So, after leaving APT and returning to the lunatic world
of show business, it was only fitting
that fate would hand him more such tasks.
- For their crimes, they shall remain here,
where they will be transformed into earthworms
so their souls may spend the next 5,000 years
reincarnating through the cycles of karma.
- You can't do this to me.
You travesty of a goddess.
You, you, you liberal.
[screaming]
[speaking foreign language]
- It was meant to be.
That door will take you home.
You'll know which door.
[thundering]
[horse neighing]
[crashing]
- Be gone from this world.
You must find the dragonballs before the eclipse.
Seven dragonballs must be found
or all men's fate will be bound.
- All right, stop, you have to rest, you have to rest.
- Remember, always have these.
And, who you are.
- You can't leave me.
- You must believe.
- Master.
[dramatic music]
- You know, while at APT Chuck would get calls
asking whether I would be available to do this film
or that television project.
Would I be interested in coming to their theater
to do that play?
It was all impossible.
And I had to tell Chuck, listen,
we've got to say no to all such inquiry.
You know?
Even when we were not performing
there was just so much to do.
I mean, I recall spending the winters on a little stool
over the heat because it was so cold in that barn.
Drawing up lists, schedules for rehearsal and performance,
what to bring back from the previous season,
when to add a new production,
casting a company in the plays to be done,
identifying who would understudy what,
drawing up lists of costumes and properties we would need,
identifying the number and kinds of hair pieces
to be made, sound effects to be created
or music to be composed.
- All right, all right.
[laughing]
We get the picture.
What happened next?
- Well, after APT, I was really in the hands of the gods,
and I began to say yes to everything I had said no to.
But Shakespeare was always nearby.
For both of us.
- I'll say.
When Randy was shooting The Matrix Reloaded,
I, off-camera, discussed Hamlet with Keanu Reeves.
Very interesting.
[laughing]
And we discussed Shakespeare meter with Laurence Fishburne.
- When I was doing the Broadway revival of The King and I,
we conducted Shakespeare classes for the children
as well as some of the interested adults in the cast.
In fact, we would hold many a Shakespeare
or acting class in our apartment living room
or rent a studio space to work with actors,
singers, or dancers who found us to be helpful.
- Randy again had the chance to work
at the New York Shakespeare Festival doing
symboling in Central Park.
My days were spent teaching special Shakespeare classes
at NYU, at the Stella Adler Conservatory,
the New York Public Theater, and even on one occasion
a special workshop up at Yale.
Most recently, while making some cameo appearances
on television or giving DreamWorks
some recording sessions for Oogway,
Randy and I had the good fortune to do three intensive
13-week courses at our local college.
We looked at Hamlet over 13 weeks,
The Merchant of Venice 13 weeks, and King Lear 13 weeks.
And we concentrated on the plays
from the perspective of performance.
We also managed to do a series of public readings,
and we entitled them The Great Authors Out Loud.
- At the very heart of all our work,
in these our latter years,
especially when it comes to Shakespeare,
the first folio remains a well spring of pure joy.
Now, to give you an idea of why the first folio
is so invaluable, not only to us but to the whole world,
let's name the titles of the 18 plays
we would have lost without it.
The first part of King Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors,
the Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentleman of Verona,
the life and death of King John.
- As You Like It, the life and death of Julius Caesar,
Twelfth Night, All's Well That Ends Well,
Measure for Measure.
- The tragedy of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra,
Timon of Athens, the tragedy of Coriolanus.
- Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, The Tempest,
the life of Henry VIII.
It's too sad to think that all these stories
might have been doomed to oblivion.
It's too sad to think we might have been denied
the pleasure of such characters as Kate and Petruchio.
- Launce and Crab.
- Rosalind and Orlando.
- Jaques and Touchstone.
- Viola, Olivia, and Orsino.
- Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Malvolio.
- Brutus, Cassius, and Julius Caesar.
- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
- Antony and Cleopatra.
- Caliban, Ariel, and Prospero.
And it is beyond sadness to think we might not have heard
some of the greatest writing ever composed for actors.
For example, all the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players.
They had their exits and their entrances,
and one man in his time plays many parts.
- Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you,
deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do,
and the reason they're not so punished and cured
is that the lunacy is so ordinary
that the whippers are in love to.
- Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
like a colossus and we petty men walk
under his huge legs and peep about to find
ourselves dishonorable graves.
- Beware the Ides of March.
- Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them.
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So, let it be with Caesar.
- If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
the appetite may sicken, and so die.
- Be not afraid of greatness.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon them.
- Double, double toil and trouble.
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
- If it were done, when is done, for where it done, quickly.
- Out, damned spot, I say.
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Here's the smell of blood still.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
this little hand.
- Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps
in this petty pace from day to day,
to the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts
and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound
and fury signifying nothing.
- The debt of gratitude we owe to these two actors,
John Heminges and Henry Condell.
Friends of Shakespeare, cannot be tallied.
Their massive and painstaking labor has given
the world a boundless, invaluable treasure.
- We just mentioned that the Taming of the Shrew
would have been lost.
And America would never have seen the legendary couple
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne do the play in 1935.
You see, a play can only live when actors permit it
to live in themselves, and those two actors did just that.
Bedazzling not only the Broadway audiences,
but here on the Union Stage.
In fact, they opened this theater in 1939
with the Taming of the Shrew.
- Permit us now to honor their memory
with our humble rendition of that moment
in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew
when Katherine meets Petruchio.
- Good morrow, Kate, for that's your name, I hear.
- Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing.
They call me Katharine that do talk of me.
- You lie, in faith; for you are called plain Kate,
and bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the cursed.
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate.
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
take this of me, Kate of my consolation.
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town.
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded.
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.
- Moved in good time.
Let him that moved you hither
remove you hence I knew you at the first.
You were a movable.
- Why, what's a movable?
- A joined-stool.
- Thou hast hit it, come, sit on me.
- Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
- No, women are made to bear, and so are you.
- No such jade as you, if me you mean.
- Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee.
For, knowing thee to be but young and light.
- Too light for such a swain as you to catch
and yet as heavy as my weight should be.
- Should be, should--buzz!
- Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.
- Oh slow-winged turtle shall a buzzard take thee?
- Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.
- Come, come, you wasp, in faith, you are too angry.
- If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
- My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
- Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
- Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
- In his tongue. - Whose tongue?
- Yours, if you talk of tails and so farewell.
- What, with my tongue in your tail?
[laughing]
Nay, come again.
Good Kate, I am a gentleman.
- That I'll try.
She strikes him.
- I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.
- So may you lose your arms.
If you strike me, you are no gentleman
and if no gentleman, why then no arms.
- A herald, Kate, put me in thy books!
- What is your crest, a coxcomb?
- A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
- No cock of mine, you crow too like a craven.
- Nay, come, Kate, come, you must not look so sour.
- It is my fashion, when I see a crab.
- Why, here's no crab and therefore look not sour.
- There is, there is.
- Then show it me.
- Had I a glass, I would.
- What, you mean my face?
- Well aimed of such a young one.
- Well, by Saint George, I am too young for you.
- Yet you are withered.
- 'Tis with cares.
- I care not.
- Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth you scape not so.
- I chafe you, if I tarry, let me go.
- No, not a whit, I find you passing gentle.
'Twas told me you were rough and coy and sullen,
but now I find report a very liar,
for thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
but slow in speech.
Yet sweet as spring-time flowers.
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,
but thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,
with gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
Oh slanderous world, Kate like the hazel-twig
is straight and slender and as brown in hue
as hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.
Come, let me see thee walk, thou dost not halt.
- Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.
- Did ever Dian so become a grove?
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
Oh, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate
and then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful!
- Where did you study all this goodly speech?
- It is extempore, from my mother-wit.
- A witty mother witless else her son.
- Am I not wise?
- Yes, keep you warm.
- Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharine, in thy bed.
For setting all this chat aside,
thus in plain terms, your father hath consented
that you shall be my wife.
- What?
- Your dowry 'greed on
and will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn.
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well,
thou must be married to no man but me.
- Enter Kate's father and others.
- For I am he am born to tame you Kate,
and bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
conformable as other household Kates.
Here comes your father, never make denial,
I must and will have Katharine to my wife.
- Uh! - Ha!
[applauding]
- Now, I feel like we should apologize to Lunt and Fontanne.
- Yeah, really.
- For us, over the years, the first folio has been much,
much more than a precious artifact to be viewed
and ogled at in a museum case.
For us, it's proven itself to be a living,
working document, and perhaps the closest thing
to a score that a theater practitioner can have.
It has been an endless source of inquiry and reflection
and life-giving challenge to go deeper, to see more clearly,
and to truly understand what it is to be a human being.
- In all the hurly-burly of the last quarter century
of our working life, Shakespeare has remained
our inspiration, our teacher,
our constant companion, our love affair continues,
and the pleasure of his company only deepens.
- Before we break for intermission, Randy
and I wish to share with you a scene
we have continued to work on for some time now.
- About five years after the Lunts did Taming of the Shrew
on this stage, the great Paul Robeson, actor, singer,
and social activist, along with Uta Hagen and Jose Ferrer,
did Othello, the moor of Venice.
Now, Othello may be called Shakespeare's domestic tragedy.
Othello, commander of the Venetian military,
is an older man and a moor.
A black man in a white world who has eloped
with the beautiful, young daughter
of a prominent Venetian senator.
- Iago, a truly monstrous villain, has successfully,
with innuendo, manipulation, and bold-faced deceit,
poisoned the noble moor against his innocent, young wife.
Jealousy shatters Othello from within,
and his anguish knows no bounds.
It is late at night, and Othello enters
the room where Desdemona lies asleep.
- It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
It is the cause.
Yet I'll not shed her blood.
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
and smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore should I repent me,
but once put out thy light.
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature.
I know not where is that Promethean heat
that can thy light restore should I repent me.
When I have plucked the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It needs must wither.
I'll smell it on the tree.
Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
justice to break her sword!
One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
and love thee after,
one more, and that's the last.
[weeping] So sweet was ne'er so fatal.
I must weep, but they are cruel tears.
This sorrow's heavenly.
It strikes where it doth love.
She wakes.
- Who's there, Othello?
- Ay, Desdemona.
- Will you come to bed, my lord?
- Have you prayed tonight, Desdemona?
- Ay, my lord.
- If you bethink yourself of any crime
unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
solicit for it straight.
- Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?
- Well, do it, and be brief, I will walk by.
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit
no, heaven forfend!
I would not kill thy soul.
- Talk you of killing?
- Ay, I do.
- Then heaven have mercy on me!
- Amen, with all my heart!
- If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
- Hum!
- And yet I fear you, for you are fatal
when your eyes roll so why I should fear I know not,
since guiltiness I know not but yet I feel I fear.
- Think on thy sins.
- They are loves I bear to you.
- Ay, and for that thou diest.
- That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.
These are portents but yet I hope, I hope,
they do not point on me.
- Peace, and be still!
- I will so.
What's the matter?
- That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee
thou gavest to Cassio.
- No, by my life and soul!
Send for the man, and ask him.
- Sweet soul, take heed,
take heed of perjury, thou art on thy deathbed.
- Ay, but not yet to die.
- Presently, therefore confess thee freely of thy sin
for to deny each article with oath
cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
that I do groan withal.
Thou art to die.
- Oh heaven, have mercy on me!
- I say, amen.
- And have you mercy too!
I never did offend you in my life
never loved Cassio but with such warranty of heaven
as I might love, I never gave him token.
- By heaven.
O perjured woman, thou dost stone my heart,
and makes me call what I intend to do
a murder, which I thought a sacrifice.
I saw the handkerchief.
- He found it then.
I never gave it him, send for him hither.
Let him confess a truth.
- He hath confessed.
- What, my lord?
- That he hath used thee.
- How
unlawfully?
- Ay.
- He will not say so.
- No, his mouth is stopped.
Honest Iago hath ta'en order for it.
- Oh, my fear interprets what, is he dead?
- Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
had stomach for them all.
- Alas, he is betrayed and I undone.
- Out, strumpet, weep'st thou for him to my face?
- Oh, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!
- Down, strumpet!
- Kill me tomorrow, let me live tonight!
- Nay, if you strive. - But half an hour!
- Being done, there is no pause.
- But while I say one prayer! - It is too late!
[applauding]
- Thank you, my dear.
[applauding]
- Thank you.
[cheering]
- Thank you.
- Thank you, thank you.