Displaying items by tag: Jared Dennis

The true story behind Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will” is compelling—the efforts of actors John Heminges (Jared Dennis) and Henry Condell (Ben Veatch), Shakespeare’s colleagues—to compile and publish a definitive collection of the Bard's works in the years soon after his death in 1616. This they did over the course of four years until it arrived in 1623, and Gunderson uses a comedic form to render the story and characters involved in the effort. 

Comedy keeps the story energized, staving off the dreariness of what might have been a docudrama. And the Promethean Theatre Ensemble cast directed by Beth Wolf delivers top notch performances. Brendan Hutt in the role of Richard Burbage, the actor who originated many of Shakespeare’s most famous roles, gives real Shakespearean heft to his performance. Hutt also plays William Jaggard, a publisher who produces the definitive First Folio (several after producing a less accurate version) with 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, 18 of them published for the first time. These included "The Tempest," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth" and "Julius Caesar," an unimaginable tragedy had these been lost.

Gunderson’s script opens with Heminges and Condell (and the audience) witnessing a performance of “Hamlet” so badly rendered as to lose the playwright’s intent. We see “To Be or Not To Be,” Hamlet’s famous soliloquy  (delivered by Jesús Barajas playing beautifully, stunningly wrong), the delivery even more butchered due to a distorted script, perhaps recorded from another actor’s faltering memory. It’s like watching as someone belts out a song all off key.

Galvanized by this horror, the two determined they would gather up all the most original copies of Shakespeare’s masterpieces and publish them in a book, before they were lost. Some of Shakespeare’s works were published while he was alive, but others were relegated to the haphazard storage of working theaters, marked up scripts found at playhouses even today. 

Jonathan Perkins

All this is factually true, as is so much of the play. That Gunderson often leans toward almost jarring contemporary vernacular and a comedic approach may make us question whether this can all be the real story, but indeed it is, in details large and small. Most of the cast performed multiple roles, for example Jonathan Perkins in the role of a compositor at the printer and three other characters. Perkins was arresting in the quality of his performance.

“Book of Will,” to my mind, is a flawed thing. While Gunderson has the greatest intention in celebrating Shakespeare, there is very little of his work delivered. The play is based on the reasonable presumption that the audience loves Shakespeare—who else would be drawn to the heroic tale of the publication of his works? But it doesn’t present enough of it to remind us why, to stir our emotions for a moment with the real art of the celebrated subject.

Brendan Hutt convincingly offers some solid Shakespearean delivery in the role of Richard Burbage, the actor who originated many of the playwright’s most famous roles, delivers promising and skillful recitations of bits of Shakespeare. But the snippets offered us by Gunderson are too brief, and not gripping. Even worse are a couple scenes where “quotable quotes” from Shakespeare are offered, sometimes in multiple languages to reinforce his universality—but it comes off as an artfully executed but nonetheless bad “tribute” to the playwright. 

One lost opportunity arises after Heminges’ wife Rebecca (Ann Sheridan Smith in an exceptional performance) passes away (I didn’t see that coming) at the beginning of Act II. Rebecca has been his rock during the four year effort to secure rights and overcome financial hurdles to publish the plays. Inconsolable, Heminges seeks solace in the theater, spending sleepless nights there reciting monologs from Shakespeare’s plays, he tells us. Could not the playwright have let Heminges deliver us even one of these, an apt monologue voiced with the passion of his grief?

In short, this is a play about people who love Shakespeare, but he isn’t tapped for what he might bring to the party. I thought James Lewis turned in a remarkable performance as Ben Johnson, Shakespeare’s rival and critic, who wrote a dedicatory poem for the First Folio. Lewis gave me the one moment I felt touched at the level of emotion that Shakespeare evokes in his works. This comes as the begrudging Ben Johnson delivers the opening lines of his dedicatory poem for the First Folio. 

Nevertheless, “The Book of Will” tells an important story of the epic accomplishment of two devotees of Shakespeare, and one well worth hearing and seeing. Even as the web lulls us into believing that all knowledge and information is permanently and universally accessible, in fact we are seeing in present days the disappearance of content  the “Book of Will” reminds us anew of the evanescence and fragility of the written word, and the commitment required to maintain and preserve it. "The Book of Will" runs through October 25, 2025 at The Den Theatre on Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago. 

In its opening scene, Blue Stockings sets us in a bustling 19th century train station, the crowd swirling quickly by, then shifting to slo-mo – just like a digital film – highlighting characters who soon become principal players in the action.

That cinematic touch seems to be used more frequently on stage, and underscores the growing crossover of film and stage. In fact, Blue Stockings - the true story of the struggle by 19th century British women for access to college degrees - is now being adapted for a television series by Jessica Swale from her 2013 script, which won a Most Promising Playwright award when it debuted at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

So this is a wonderful opportunity to see a significant work by a rising writer (Swale has two other movies in development). It is very well directed and produced by Spenser Davis for Promethean Theatre Ensemble (at the Den Theatre through October 13).

Following that opening scene, we quickly cut (movie style) to a foretaste of a future scene, where guest lecturer Dr. Maudsley (Jared Dennis) is holding forth:
“Except if theywith to sacrifice themselves, the higher education of women may be detrimental to their physiology,” he posits, noting the women who pursue education are of four types: scientists, mathematicians, writers, and “wealthy dilettantes” the latter known at the time as “Blue Stockings.”

When he reappears, Dr. Maudsley will also lecture on hysteria, “rooted in the Greek for ‘uterus’” he reminds the students. As preposterous as such assertions sound today, it was in fact exactly the type of “scientifically grounded” basis on which men objected to equality for women. “These are not opinions,” Dr. Maudsley says, “they are facts of nature proven by science.” And this sets the basis for the tension and drama that follow.

Girton College was founded in 1869 as the first of Cambridge University’s 31 colleges to admit women. By 1896, when Blue Stockings takes place, women also began agitating to vote – then restricted to males, just like the U.S. You may not need to know all the background to appreciate the play, but it helps – since Swale confronts us with the unbelievably bald misogyny of the period. These sentiments still infiltrate current debates, so revisiting them in Blue Stockings is instructive.

Girton’s headmistress, Elizabeth Welsh (Jamie Bragg), has been working steadfastly for decades to raise the stature of women’s education, arguing for the right to award degrees. Blue Stockings follows the action culminating in an 1896 vote by the all-male Oxford University Senate. But the men on campus, students and professors, found the prospect of women earning degrees just like men but threatening and perverse.

Promethean Theatre has developed a wonderful “Appreciation Guide” to provide background for the play. And I must admit, watching it with no with no factual context made me think of it more as a PBS-style costume drama, like Dowton Abbey – interesting, but not gripping. Being reminded that the Cambridge Senate voted down the degrees measure, and women were not awarded Cambridge degrees until 1948 (!) makes it matter much more.

Swale gives us another mark of a good playwright, with a host of distinct and memorable characters, and an entertaining story line, too. Girton lecturer Mr. Banks (Patrick Blashill) is that inspiring and nurturant educator who helps reorder the women students’ thinking. He has them dress in bloomers (those billowy 19th century pants) and teaches them to ride a bicycle, astride no less. (In real life, this happened, and the male students protesting women’s degrees burned in effigy a woman on a bicycle.)

With 19th century co-education comes the first challenges of keeping the young men and women safely separated, and all the efforts college students engineer to circumvent that control. Swale Tess (Heather Kae Smith) plays an everywoman student, a gifted mathematician and astrophysicist. The women student performances overall were far stronger than their male counterparts. For the first time society proffers a choice for her between romantic love and the life of a mind.

Swale shows this up to be a false choice from a male-dominated society. With the right man, she can have both. Among noteworthy performances are Jamie Bragg as schoolmistress Elizabeth Welsh; Cameron Feagin as Miss Blake, a lecturer and active suffragist; Patrick Blashill as Mr. Banks and Jared Dennis as Dr. Maudsley. Blue Stockings runs through October 13 at The Den Theatre in Chicago.