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The Servant of Two Masters A publication of the Shakespeare Theatre Company ASIDES 2011|2012 SEASON • Issue 5 Christopher Bayes directs The Servant of Two Masters Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp on commedia page 3 Constance Congdon talks about adapting the play page 8 Celebrating 25 years of Classical Theatre A publication of the Shakespeare Theatre Company Dear Friend, Agents of Chaos ASIDES I have long loved the unpredictable and improvisatory form of the Director Christopher Bayes and actor Steven Epp have been friends and collaborators 3 Agents of Chaos commedia dell’arte, and it’s since they met more than 20 years ago in the company at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune. by Drew Lichtenberg my pleasure to introduce it In the decades since, they have combined performing and teaching—Chris as the Head of Physical Acting at the Yale School of Drama, where he teaches clown and commedia 6 Commedia dell’arte to STC audiences with the fifth play of our by Laura Henry 25th Anniversary Season, Carlo Goldoni’s dell’arte, and Steve as the co-Artistic Director at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune, winner The Servant of Two Masters. We’ve found an of the 2005 Tony Award for outstanding regional ensemble before it closed its doors 8 Lots of Lazzi in 2008. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Literary Associate Drew Lichtenberg by Constance Congdon ensemble who are flexible enough to make it interviewed the two recently—Chris from his house in Brooklyn, Steve at Berkeley play and resourceful enough to make it funny 9 What Makes Me Laugh? Repertory Theatre, where he had just finished performing in their new adaptation of in Christopher Bayes and his merry caravan of Molière’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself. They discussed their love/hate relationship with Carlo 10 A Gallery of Rogues players. As The New York Times noted of this by Drew Lichtenberg Goldoni, their process of adapting The Servant of Two Masters, and the eternal games of the production, “The laughter would be quite enough commedia dell’arte. 13 The Servant of Two Masters to propel The Servant of Two Masters onto a Cast and Artistic Team theater lover’s must-see list. But then there’s the Drew Lichtenberg: When 14 A Well-Made Comedy magic… Now that’s theater.” did you guys meet? I by Matthew R. Wilson assume you have worked 16 A How-To Guide for Christopher Bayes directed Servant at the Yale together for a long time. Teaching Comedy Repertory Theatre, where he was the Head of by Hannah J. Hessel Physical Acting in 2010. In this issue, you’ll learn Steven Epp: We started together working at Drew’s Desk 18 more about Chris’ background and approach the Theatre de la Jeune by Drew Lichtenberg to the play in our interview with him and his Lune in Minneapolis. 20 Performance Calendar and brilliant Truffaldino, actor Steven Epp. In addition, Creative Conversations playwright and adaptor Constance Congdon Christopher Bayes: takes us behind the scenes with a modern-day Yeah, 1984. commedia troupe, as we see how the laughs (and SE: I eventually became one ) are made. lazzi of the artistic directors… Lansburgh Theatre Chris and I started at the 450 7th Street NW Servant is also a classic play, Goldoni’s hybrid of same time, but he left and I Washington, DC 20004-2207 Molière’s elegant farce structure with the ancient didn’t. He abandoned me. masked stock characters and street-theatre Sidney Harman Hall CB: Yes, I abandoned Photo of Steven Epp and Christopher Bayes by Nicole Geldart. 610 F Street NW techniques of the commedia. The play’s star- Steve…so he could become Washington, DC 20004-2207 crossed lovers, resourceful servants and miserly character. The commedia is bawdy, earthy. an artistic director. (Laughter) fathers will strike you as instantly familiar, but our It comes right out of the gutter. It has its Box Office own kind of poetry, but it’s the poetry of 202.547.1122 ensemble embodies them in endlessly surprising SE: It was like a school. We would study the downtrodden. It’s a political form. ways. Learn more about the eternal archetypes all these root forms of theatre—clown, Administrative Offices commedia, bouffon—but then apply them 516 8th Street SE and storied history of the genre inside. As always, SE: Yeah. It’s a very social form, Washington, DC 20003-2834 additional information, full articles and behind- to make theatre for an audience today. I whereas clown, for example, is more think that’s reminiscent of our Servant— 202.547.3230 the-scenes commentary on The Servant of Two intimate, almost more private. we’re in masks, but we’re not trying Masters can be found on Asides Online (Asides. to do some museum piece. It’s infused CB: Commedia has its own poetry, but it’s ShakespeareTheatre.org ShakespeareTheatre.org). with a contemporary sensibility. from the earth. Lots of hitting and bad Asides.ShakespeareTheatre.org words. The trick with commedia is that you I hope to see you in the theatre this spring. CB: Yeah, I first became interested in have to give a nod to legacy, but at the using commedia as a teaching technique. same time be completely up to date and Warm regards, Nobody really does the hardcore commedia in the moment. Like, what happened on Connect with Us! stuff in a traditional way anymore, the news last night? What happened to which I think is a shame. If you do it Santorum yesterday? What happened on right, it forces you to be alive in the Wall Street? We source from the present moment. The ability to find the physical day, but it’s part of a legacy that stretches Michael Kahn psychology of the mask, the playfulness back to the 17th century. There’s a lot of Cover: Photo by Scott Suchman. Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company and theatricality of the mask, is really verbal wordplay in Goldoni, but it’s useful for actors in terms of figuring built on a kind of broad physicality that out how to use their bodies to create has always supported the language. The Servant of Two Masters is generously Media Partner: sponsored by STC’s Artistic Leadership Fund 3 The Servant of Two Masters • 2011|2012 SEASON • Issue 5 Celebrating 25 years of Classical Theatre CB: There’s this sense that you could go CB: But I like to see how far it can go, terribly wrong. It’s never a surefire thing. push it to the most unfortunate extreme, You should always feel that it could because there may be a sweet spot down really tank really easily. Without that the road. We will never know if we haven’t danger, it doesn’t have the same spirit. pushed it. So let’s play this game, and If it goes great, then that’s fine. But if it play it violently. Let’s play it sweetly. Let’s doesn’t go great, that’s where the work do this or that and see what it can take. begins. That was horrible! Oh God, I’m Usually we end up cutting it, but there’s never gonna say that again! But what something to be had from the full, most if I try it this way tomorrow? Without ferocious kind of play. It has a residue, the possibility of disaster, you’re never a logic, that stays. If we can keep it fun going to feel like you had a triumph. in the room, and the actors are having a good time, the audience is going to smell DL: I think one of the things that’s so it. If there’s no pleasure of the actor at fascinating about this kind of comedy is play, the audience doesn’t really fully that it’s tapping into something that’s really understand what’s going on. They’re deep and mysterious and almost primeval. watching someone unload a UPS truck. Nobody wants to watch that. If what’s SE: It’s very visceral for all the going on onstage is a chore, it doesn’t Photo of the cast of Yale Repertory Theatre’s 2010 production of The Servant of Two Masters by Richard Termine. characters. Everybody w.ears their make any sense. So I try to encourage as emotions on their sleeves. There’s no SE: Goldoni is challenging, because of of actors. For the bulk of his career he was much as I can a sort of freedom of play. intellectualizing, no psychology. what’s there and what’s not there. Servant really veering in a direction away from the Maybe we go too far and have to come is the best known of his plays, but his commedia to this other form that he was back a bit, but without the possibility CB: And that’s the beautiful thing— later ones are more Chekhovian, almost, slowly finding—so to me there’s a license of that, you’d be watching something in commedia you can swing from one much more naturalistic and polite. At the to be loose with the material, to really that feels like an antique, rather than emotion to the other the way a toddler beginning, he was writing for actors in infuse it with the dynamic of the true something that is informed by the past and does. The characters will burst into Venice who came up in commedia and commedia—the vulgarity, the down-and- is pushing something into the present and tears at the slightest provocation and were trained in physical improvisation.
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