We all just take for granted that Shakespeare's 30+ plays have always been available - to put on a play, to read in school, to make a parody of. But it turns out that like many playwrights from centuries past, his plays might have been lost to us forever. A theater world without Shakespeare is unimaginable, and we have his good friends and actors in his company to thank for it. And we have this season's most produced playwright Lauren Gunderson to thank for giving us this story, and Theatre Pro Rata for bringing us the regional premiere of
The Book of Will. It's a compelling and dynamic tale about 17th century publishing, as shocking as that may sound, and Pro Rata gives it fine treatment, with a great cast and simple yet effective design.
See it the Crane Theater through October 11, and find out how Shakespeare's First Folio came to be.
Our story begins a few years after Shakespeare's death in 1616, when his friends
Henry Condell,
John Heminges, and
Richard Burbage, members of the King's Men theater troupe for whom Shakespeare wrote his plays, are drinking in a pub and lamenting all of the bastardized versions of their friend's plays floating around. Soon Burbage, who had many of the famous speeches in his head, is also gone, prompting Condell and Heminges to go on a journey to collect and publish as many of Shakespeare's plays as they could find. The problem is that many of the original scripts and actors' sides were destroyed when the Globe Theatre burned down in 1613. Their first hurdle is reconstructing the plays based on bits and pieces that they find in various places, and their second hurdle is finding someone to publish what has now become a folio - a collection of some 36 plays. We know how the story ends - what came to be known as the
First Folio was published in 1623 - but the getting there is fascinating. As always, Lauren Gunderson makes these historical figures come alive, they feel contemporary and very human. In addition to the main publishing story, we get stories of child-parent relationships, friendships, a villainous publisher, and even a cute hint of a romance. Turns out Shakespeare's friends were just like us, living their lives and trying to secure their friend's legacy.
 |
| Shakespeare's friends at the pub (photo by Alex Wohlhueter) |
Theatre Pro Rata's Artistic Director Carin Bratlie Wethern directs the piece and brings out all of the humor and pathos in the script. Sean Dillon is passionate and energetic as the determined Condell, contrasting nicely with Andrew Troth's more reluctant Heminges, with some nice emotional moments. The other eight cast members play multiple characters in this expansive world. Jeremy Motz is the not-long-for-this-world Burbage, with a great monologue that is a compilation of many of Shakespeare's famous lines, and later the blind bastard of a publisher. Kjer Whiting is a hoot as Shakespeare's rival turned supporter
Ben Jonson. Recent U of M/Guthrie BFA grad Carter Graham gives two very different and nuanced performances as the Globe's record-keeper and the sensitive son of the publisher. And because this is Lauren Gunderson, there are some strong female roles, wives and daughters of the male characters, but with agency, played by Nissa Nordland in a spirited performance as Heminges' barkeep daughter (with an adorable subtle crush on the young publisher), and Ankita Ashrit and Christy Johnson as the supportive but strong wives of Condell and Heminges. Rounding out the cast are Alex Hagen and Sandesh Sukram in multiple roles.
 |
| poring over the manuscripts (photo by Alex Wohlhueter) |
Walking into the Crane Theater, you may notice that the rows of cushioned chairs have been moved to both sides of the stage, leaving only the alternate rows with the hard wooden chairs in the traditional audience space. For reasons of comfort, and also for greater intimacy and connection with the story, I recommend sitting in the on-stage seating. It creates a thrust performance space, and the actors play to all sides so nothing is sacrificed. A couple of historic-looking arches hang at the back of the space, which is populated with several heavy wooden tables moved into and out of the space as needed, arranged in a diagonal to allow for good sightlines to all sides. Characters are dressed in classic Elizabethan costumes, tunics and short pants and tights for the men, long skirts and layers for the women (set design by MJ Leffler and costume design by Rubble&Ash).
The day after I saw this play, the recording of Gavin Creel's musical
Walk On Through was released, on the one-year anniversary of his death. I couldn't help but see the similarity in these two projects - a group of friends who determinedly work to make sure that their friend's legacy, his life's work, his talent, his soul, lives on and is known and remembered by future generations. That's the beauty of art, it lives on after the artist is gone. If someone is around to help preserve it, as Shakespeare's friends did, and as Lauren Gunderson has done in telling their story, and as Theatre Pro Rata has done in choosing this play and making it sing,
if only for a brief few weeks.
