The Book of Will

This weekend's theatre adventure was a relatively new work by one of the hottest playwrights currently writing, Lauren Gunderson's "The Book of Will".  It's the story of how the first folio of Shakespeare's works came together shortly after his death.  How a group of his friends, his actors, their wives, and even an enemy or two collaborated in various way and for diverse reasons to assemble the first the foremost collection of the master's plays.  It turns outthat this was no easy task as Shakespeare himselfdid not produce full versions of his plays, by rather relied on "Sides".  Each actor received onlya copy of their lines(!) along with stage cues.  Given the prevalence of fires and one in particular that devastated the Globe and with it many manuscripts, sides and other flammable evidence of Shakespeare's early works, it is a wonder that we have what we do today.

A few of the works did have fairly complete versions available to the intrepid crew of loyalists.  Most were in need of reconstruction.  To accomplish this they searched voraciously for any available Sides, as well as, Quartos (previously printed pirated and plagerized versions of plays in part or whole pieced together from the memories of people who had attended a performance), Prompt Books (descriptions of the details of a production with a plot outline, design cues, and the notes of the playwright, actor and/or technical staff), and ultimately the memories of a couple of actors, one of whom had become Shakespeare's Stage Manager.  So our main heroes are one Henry Condell and one John Heminges.  Along the journey the troupe that begins this undertaken are themselves visited by death; John Heminges wife, for example.  Ergo, whis is billed as a comedy is not with it's very dramatic moments.

To my delight, I had already seem many of the actors in a variety of other productions over the years both at Round House Theatre and various other companies around the region.  And all were just a wonderful as I could have hoped.  Mitchell Hébert who played both the actor Richard Burbage who's sudden death got the whole project rolling and the Elizabethan Poet Laureate (and sometimes rival of Shakespeare) Ben Johnson was nothing short of a tornadic dynamo in both roles.  He refuses to be ignored and you'd have no reason to want to as he embodies each character with charm and pathos.  Both Todd Scofield and Maboud Ebrahimzadeh as the protagonists bring thier best games to bear whenther they are united to the task or bickering over some detail as the practical manager versus the artistic dreamer.  Also of note was the performance of Kimberly Gilbert who was primarily Elzabeth Condell (Henry's wife), but also had a brief scene as Lady Emilia Bassona Lanier whi is wooed into financially underwriting the printing of the folio at a critical juncture in its production.  She was also one of Shakespeare's lovers.  Her portrayal of thsi aristocrat vixen was simple delicious in every way.  Another standout for his comedic timing in the role of the folio's editor and chief, Ralph Crane, is Christopher Michael Richardson.  Nearly every time he was favored with a line, you knew it would end in a laugh.

As you know, I am also a great fan of a good set.  This one is a very good.  In general shape and symmetry, it suggests the famous Globe Theater turned inside out, but also not so much as to inhibit it from becoming the King's Men's local tavern or a 17th century publishing house with all the ease of flipping a switch.  The costumes were beautiful no matter the significance of the role of the character.  The sound design was both enchanting and harmonious.  In short, Round House's "The Book of Will" is the entire package and worth every pound, bit and pence you will pay for admittance.

Unfortunately, Round House had yet to publish performance photos and so all I have are a few images from the first rehearsal  and an after show audience talk back featuring members of the cast and director.  Ironically, there are plenty of images of the Northlight Theatre's concurrent production of the same play in Chicago and it stars one of DC's most prolific local actors, Gregory Linington.  What a small world.

 Images from an after show audience talk back.