Hi, everybody! Has it been six months since I last wrote here? I guess it’s true what commentators have been saying lately: the coronavirus has forced many behavior changes throughout societies across the globe, including how we work, shop, and interact with others. Culturally, and economically, we’ve never seen so swift a change in our world. We are all globally on “COVID time.” Which, I suppose, is how six months can go by without an entry and it’ll seem like it wasn’t nearly that long.
When I last wrote here, I began a series where I discussed ideas for the future. I’m a young entrepreneur, I’ve got my own production arm (Hunter Arrogant Entertainment), and I have some ideas for changing the ways we think about and present live theater, even if only on a local scale. They’re all listed in brief on page 3 of my company’s mission statement (hitherto tucked away on my bio page above), but I thought I’d expand on the thoughts behind them, the better to make my intentions clear as H.A. pushes forward into the future. Plus, if my friends who believe in the power of manifestation and post about it incessantly on every social media platform in existence are anything to go by, then “speaking it into being” may help me push it that extra inch farther when the time comes, however far off in the future that may ultimately be.
The second idea I’d like to discuss… well, I’m confident enough about it to have already developed a hashtag. It’s called #TAPROOMmusicals.
I’ve always been the kind of person who looks for ways of doing theater that shake things up. So it shouldn’t be especially surprising that I stumbled across The Back Room Shakespeare Project. Their main page, to which I linked, is — as of this writing — currently (and rightfully) amplifying the Black Lives Matter cause, so I’ll give you the four basic rules of how they prepare and present Shakespeare myself: 1) serious actors, 2) no director, 3) one rehearsal, 4) performed in a bar.
To elaborate on that a bit for those of you who might be alarmed or dismiss that as a shallow approach at best, it might help if I quote from the page explaining their reason for being and how the whole thing works:
Every convention of your average modern theatre serves to cut the audience off from the play. In every way, they tell us to shut down and erase ourselves. The actors are blinded by the stage lights, barely able to see the audience sitting quietly in the darkness, turning their tickets into fifty-dollar naps.
This is madness.
Because in Shakespeare’s theatre, the audience was an unruly bunch of drunks who came for the bear-baiting and stayed to check out the tragedy. They were practically on stage, buying nuts and beer from wandering vendors all the way to the bloody end.
Shakespeare’s actors had no director. They rehearsed only the fights and dances. They got their lines and their cues, they grabbed their balls and tried to tell the truth. When they failed, they probably really bit it.
Hell of a legend, right?
The Back Room Shakespeare Project takes as much of it as seems useful. We read the play once, we memorize our parts, and we rehearse it once. We have no director, and we perform in bars, for free. For you! An unruly bunch of drunks!
We’re not trying to re-create Elizabethan London. We’re trying make a space where Shakespeare’s beautiful, bawdy and bloody plays feel at home. Where actors can be responsible for their own creative work. We’re looking for a party. A riot! A hoot! We try to turn people on, and turn nothing off – not even the cellphone. It’s storytime, not judgement day.
So. Welcome!
The bar’s in the front, the play’s in the back. Visit one and then the other – in the order and with the frequency that you see fit.
No director, one rehearsal, at a bar. We try to be as recklessly playful with it as we are deadly serious.
– “The hell is this all about?” — The Back Room Shakespeare Project
They have very specific values and goals they strive to achieve, and they’ve received a lot of raves for their work. But don’t take my word for it; check them out for yourself.
(In case you’re still a little skeptical, I also highly recommend reading co-founder Samuel McClure Taylor’s books on what he calls “old-school Shakespeare,” which can be purchased at this link. He explains all of it — and lays out how to achieve similar results — far better than I can.)
If nothing else, The Back Room Shakespeare Project takes a hammer to the notion that art is an elitist activity for an elite audience, a myth that I have been trying to dispel almost since I entered the business. This is, at the very least, a gross misconception. Art is not (only) dilettantes racking up student loans on a useless major defiantly showing off their skills in a plea for attention. Art is a medium to convey non-conformist messages, spread social awareness, construct safe spaces for conversation, and challenge hegemony in traditional communities. And yet people often get intimidated even to enter a theater. Breaking down any barrier to enjoying art, by any means, is most welcome indeed. I’ve crossed swords with Grammy-winning songwriter/producer Jim Steinman many times over the years, and for good reason, but you’ve got to give a broken clock credit for being right twice a day, if nothing else, and he couldn’t have put it better when he said, “It’s all art, all theater, all show business, all music. In the end, there shouldn’t be boundaries, fences, labels, or limits. It should be obvious to any enlightened person that it’s valid to place Salome next to West Side Story next to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They all serve the same function, to amplify and clarify existence. They inspire and make the heart beat faster — the soul richer!”
But I don’t do Shakespeare. (Or, at least, not very often.) I primarily do musicals. Almost any musical involves large casts. It’s more like directing an army than the scope of a small situation involving few people, toward which something as adaptable as Shakespeare is certainly more open. So where do I come in?
That, folks, is what #TAPROOMmusicals is all about. It’s a workshop inspired by The Back Room Shakespeare Project, which will test their methodology, objectives, and principles on book musicals, proving — if nothing else — there’s nothing like a good might-crash-and-burn-might-be-amazing experiment.
This is not The Reduced Shakespeare Company or anything like that; it’s not goofy already bar-friendly theater at a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. (Although admittedly it’ll probably start that way, to a certain extent at least; #TAPROOMmusicals is an easy place to stick a backdoor pilot for another notion of mine, Ocean State Rock Opera, devoted to presenting live performances of rock operas — both classics of the genre and original material by local New England based talent — as well as album and artist tributes, primarily as nightclub concert events. Shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, The Who’s TOMMY, and American Idiot are very easy to mount in such a context.) I want to tackle more difficult territory.
Like what, you say? Well, let’s consider… I dunno… Camelot. That show doesn’t scream #TAPROOMmusicals. Elaborate dances, costume parades, a production that cost over a million dollars in 1960. The original overpriced fairy tale of chivalry, right? Well, crack open a copy of the script — it’s not hard to find if you know where to look, and frankly, any version will do — and turn on the news while you’re doing that. Skip the mishegas, and focus on what you see… and how much the news and the script have in common. Sex, violence, betrayal, death, and a scandal-ridden government, are among many extremely heavy issues that are all still relevant, and at its core, just three people. Real people with real feelings, real insecurities, real contradictions. Complicated, flawed, fascinating people, experiencing fiery, tragic, thought-provoking events, in a muscular, aggressive, confrontational world.
Do you think somebody sitting in a bar in 2020 (well, 2022-ish, if we’re being realistic) won’t understand a politician, experienced or otherwise, who continually refuses to face the obvious dangers lurking around every corner? (Shit, looking at the election results, they probably even voted for the dumb bastard, whomever you think that description fits.) There’s no chance someone ordering a round will relate to a woman with the gentlest, most caring husband in the world who leaves him for another man, or even the guy who bones his best friend’s wife? And anyone in a bar who gets maudlin-drunk and waxes passionate could connect to Arthur’s passion for the philosophy of law and for changing the world, Guenevere’s passion for life and romance, Lancelot’s passion for Arthur’s dream and Guenevere’s love.
Whatever else it would be, it’s a safe bet that a #TAPROOMmusicals Camelot would be intimate, close-up, psychological, and personal. Maybe even funny. Sexy. Sad. You trim it, of course; you slice to the bone, center on the most important, provocative moments, and get it down to a good 90 minutes, which is about the most attention span you can expect in a tap room if you’re lucky. (It’s a tall order, but it’s not impossible.) You lose all the unnecessary trappings that have nothing to do with the story; there’s no room for them anyway. Most importantly, you dive into one of the greatest legends of the western world, plunge into the dark world of Arthur, King of the Britons, and his knights of the Round Table, and you give it all the power and depth of understanding that you can.
It might crash and burn. But it might be amazing.
Well, that’s all I have for now. Tune in soon for my next post-pandemic plan!