I’m ending up the summer of theater frenzy (even though it’s technically not summer any more) with a 4-day series of performances by monologist Mike Daisey at CalShakes, covering four different Shakespeare tragedies. I previously saw him perform The Agony the and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at Woolly Mammoth in DC a few years ago.
Luckily, the weather is unusually warm for this time of year, so the evening performances are very pleasant. The staging is very basic, the stage being empty except for a single wooden desk with a microphone on it from which Mike Daisey delivers his performance. It was quite beautiful before the play with the nearly bare stage, and the trees behind the stage illuminated, and the hills lit by the last rays of the setting sun. The theater itself had been decorated a bit, with some of the upper seats removed and decorations placed there. Our usual section and seating area had pieces of some armor in it and a skull. It provided an interesting ambiance for the theater.
Romeo and Juliet
Spring and Fire. The first night’s performance was built around The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The monologue started with some general humorous comments about folks coming to the theater, and northern California/Bay Area, to some general observations about theater and tragedy. Much like the previous performance, it started out generally humorous, then began to weave poignant personal details into the story. He used Romeo and Juliet as a springboard into talking about love, and crazy young love in particular, which led him into discussions of his early young love life and his life a a student in the theater and writing poetry. He talked about how he performed in a production of R&J, interleaved with his discussion of his first serious love, which ended up emotionally covering having an unexpected child. The poignancy is blunted somewhat for me due to the controversy following his “Jobs” performance where it later came out that some of the emotional elements never actually happened to him. Nonetheless, it was a very engaging performance; very interesting, and making me glad I came and looking forward to the next three nights.
Hamlet
Summer and Air. The second night’s performance was built around Hamlet. Without much preamble, he jumped right into discussing the play, and Shakespeare, and The Theater, and acting. His point was that Hamlet was basically a revenge tragedy, but what makes it unique is that all characters deviate from what they should do in a straight forward revenge story. So much of the play is dominated by the person of Hamlet himself, and Daisey made the point that the character is basically a suicidal personality throughout the play who at times acts like a crazy person. Then as he talked about himself, and acting and training in Hamlet, he brought up his own struggles with depression and some suicide attempts. An unusual punctuation to the evening, during a poignant moment while he was talking in the dark (largely about himself), a couple of people got up and left yelling at him. Apparently they felt he was diminishing Hamlet, which they thought was important. Pretty unusual. Another interesting, if not mind-blowing, evening at the theater.
Macbeth
Autumn and Water. The third night’s performance was built around The Scottish Play. He jumped right into it again, and talked a lot about how this play is perceived of as cursed, and how it is the shortest of all the plays, very linear, based on a play book, which may be missing some of the longer character developments. He said the play was about evil. He led around to going to Tajikistan and developing some story telling with locals about what went on during the violence after the Soviet collapse. He talked about his early life with his wife, and how they both left traditional jobs, she being very supportive, and then he contrasted that with Lady Macbeth. Finally he discussed what led him to do what he did in the controversial The Agony the and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (without ever mentioning it by name), and how he consciously did something he knew was wrong as he was trying to do something that effected things beyond the theater. He knew it was wrong, and hid it from his director/wife. While Macbeth would never change, he said he hoped he move past that destiny. As Macbeth isn’t my favorite play, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this evening with great expectations, but it turned out to be the best of the three so far, from my perspective.
King Lear
Winter and Earth. The final night in this quartet of monologues was built around King Lear. Some additional drama surrounded the evening as the power was out in the theater, and they ended up going forward with no amplification, and a single battery powered light on his desk to illuminate his face. Luckily the moon was nearly full, so as it rose it gave some light to the theater. The discussion focused a lot around the tragedy of end-of-life, and what sometimes accompanies it, the loss of one’s mental faculties. He also tied this into discussions of the existential health of The Theater, and how in many ways it seems to be dying. After 3+ performances where he seemed to be fairly critical of aspects of Shakespeare and The Theater, he ended with how much he really loves Shakespeare, and why it and The Theater matter.
It was an interesting four days, no one of which moved me quite like the first piece I saw him do, but nonetheless I’m glad I saw it all. It was a good way to end this summer of theater.