12th night is my favorite Shakespeare play (excluding histories, tragedies and problem plays)–OK, it’s my favorite comedy since high school. I can cry when Helen Hunt as Caesario meets her brother–and I cried all night from laughing so hard.  Lesley and Bob, you are geniuses–and talented geniuses. I had my reservations about a 60-70′s version. I have seen 12th night about 6 times on stage–all traditional, and in some things I’m a purist (not a Malvolio Purist) but I thought your 12th night was the greatest. What else can I say?

It’s hard to sum up all of the great memories I have of MSC. We go back over 10 years now. I have enjoyed working for MSC and just being in the audience. I am really thrilled that my kids have been able to take the Summer camps and have such a great time. (My daughter has been in every summer camp now for 8 years!) I feel blessed to know the Curriers and have them be such a factor in our lives. Every production has been so wonderful. Every one has shown me something new, refreshing and enjoyable about a play I had seen before. I have made precious friends with several company members over the years and I’ve also had the chance to reunite or keep up older friendships with those I knew from the larger Marin theatre community. One of my fondest associations will be the summer that George Maguire joined the company. I read his bio in the program and realized I had known him from many years ago when I was 10 years old and tagging along with my father, who worked with George on a few Broadway productions. George in fact would babysit me from time to time, while we were on the road with a show. Here at MSC, my daughter’s love of theatre and acting was born. She loves every show and will always sit front center, completely mesmerized. She has benefited from having teachers such as Jonathan Gonzalez, Laurie Keith and Bill Elsman. And last, but not least, my son got his first crush a few years ago when Julia Motyka played Juliet. Thank you Curriers for helping Shakespeare and other great works thrive AND for helping to make my family’s lives so full!

THE WHOLE CAST did SUCH A GOOD JOB!  I thought THEY ALL DESERVED MAJOR KUDOS!

We just got home,  11:20 pm, July 3, 2009 from the Shakespeare Under the Stars production of “The Importance of Being Earnest, By Oscar Wilde.  I must say it is the BEST production I have ever seen.  Of course we (there were 8 of us) are somewhat prodigious, with George  Maguire (a dear friend of ours for  over 15 years) as Lady Bracknell.  When I got the announcement and saw George’s picture I said we have to go.  Everyone in the play were outstanding, so much fun, I think they were having as much fun as we were.  It was a cold evening, down to 58 and the actors I am sure were a little cold as we were all bundled up and set for the evening. The stage setting,  the props, and most of all the costumes, along with such a talented cast everyone was just so perfect.

I have not laughed so hard in a long time so I am encouraging you to find the time to see this production, you will be most happy that you did. 

We loved ”Earnest”. It was so refreshing and fun. Wilde really knows how to write a great play and Robert Currier really knows how to direct a great play!

I first met Bob & Lesley in 1995 when I was playing Hamlet at Ukiah Players Theatre, the house that Bob built. They said they had a Shakespeare Festival and would I be interested in auditioning… My first show was Richard III with Jarion Monroe. I played Richmond, who defeats Richard in the end to become Henry VII. We had a great broadsword fight – nothing like a hunk of steel in your hands! Many shows followed and my favs include Feste in Twelfth Night (which I get to do again this summer) and The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged) 1998, 99 & 2000 with the ever delightful Darren Bridgett. Darren and I first met in ’93 when he was in the Marowitz Caesar at CSU Summer Arts, for which I was an AD. He played Cinna the Poet, I role I play this year. By the way, I first worked with Barry Kraft (who plays Caesar this year) in The Tempest at Utah Shakespeare way back in 1989!  I look forward to enjoying Feste again this year as we get to play some rock n’ roll, my other great love. Rock on!

My second Midsummer’s Night Dream rehearsal with the inmates at San Quentin is very different. We are no longer in the small classroom but in an art studio. The walls are filled with portraits of blue-clad prisoners, San Quentin’s wired landscapes, and one female figure. The room is even smaller and every shuffle echoes with ruffles of sound. I find a small fish tank bubbling with water but no fish. Just as I forget were I am, an inmate fetches an officer for me so I can pee. The policeman places the padlock in my hand and walks away. My own rebellious brain starts ticking: What if I leave the staff bathroom open? What are these guys going to do? USE THE TOILET?

            Perhaps the change in energy is because Denise, the editor from playshakespeare.org, is visiting. The men have their flirt on. Three or four times guys make sure that Denise is comfortable, has somewhere to sit, “Oh? You want to stand? Well, here’s a chair if you need it…”  Today feels like we are on a playground with a group of rowdy 7^th -grade boys. They are giddy and unstoppable with their constant giggling and chatter. I don’t know how to react. The teacher inside me wants to tell them all to shut up and listen. But Suraya never loses her cool. Unruly behavior falls off  her like water off a duck’s back. I see she’s under a lot of pressure. Today is our second to last rehearsal before the performance and we are still blocking scenes. Inmates still have scripts in their hands! I’d be asking for blood, but Suraya just laughs nervously and reminds the actors that the performance is next week and lines not memorized will be cut.

            This is not a normal rehearsal process. A normal rehearsal process is 5 weeks of rehearsal 6 times a week and a 7-week run of the show. This is many months of rehearsal once a week with one show if we are lucky. The main obstacle is to get everything approved by the prison warden. There is a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork, politics and a strong hesitation to allow the inmates do anything besides be in prison.

Which brings me to my next topic: Sex, Sex, Sex! Love, desire, and sexual attraction weave in and out of the text in A Midsummer Night’s Dream like a brightly colored basket. Thesus’s last line begs us all to go do the ‘wild thing’: “Lovers, to bed; ‘tis almost fairy time. This palpable –gross play hath well beguiled the heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed…”  But in San Quentin, we are not allowed to touch each other in a passionate way for the staging of this play. I don’t think we can even hold hands. The only touching we do is taking each other’s arm as we proceed to the wedding chapel. I witness an interesting moment during rehearsal when the four lovers are watching the play within the play. The inmate playing Demetrius needs to pretend that Helena is in the chair next to him. He holds her hand, strokes her hair, pretends she’s afraid and clinging to him, hides her ‘eyes’ when the lion roars. Lysander and I have so much fun watching him play with his imaginary Helena, that we start playing with her too.

I start to wonder if sexual imaginings are essential to survival at San Quentin. Sometimes, sexual jokes climb in and out of our banter (calmly kept PG-rated for the women present). But at one point, Bottom is on the ground pretending to be dead as we work on blocking Thisbe’s death (played by a male). “Lie on top of him!” suggests one of the inmates, but another jokes that it just wouldn’t be appropriate for a man to lie on top of another man because “he’s not staff.” This jests that the only men-on-men sex taking place in the prison is instigated by those who actually work at the prison. I try not to act stunned.

As we ignore the overtly sexual banter Shakespeare playfully wrote within A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I wonder about the sexual lives of these men. Are they in love? I notice an inmate wearing a wedding ring. How does he work this out within himself? In the play, we all live happily ever after with the partner of our choice. Not our actors; they are sentenced to a life without the joy of safe, intimate physical contact. Tonight, when I feel the warmth of my lover’s body as I scoot under the sheets, I am acutely aware of the eleven men in my life who are deprived of this customary blessing. 

“Keep it as factual as possible.” says Kim Taylor, Marin Shakespeare Company’s PR manager, as I ask for advice on writing about my experience performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream with inmates at San Quentin Prison.  I want to make sure I am as factual as possible, so I look up the word “fact” in Webster’s Dictionary.  The first definition is (I’m not kidding), “fact: a deed; act; now esp. in the sense of a ‘criminal deed’ in the phrases after the fact and before the fact.”  So, keeping this definition in mind, I write about ‘before and after the fact’ of my first rehearsal in San Quentin.

Before the fact: My husband is against the idea. He tells me they will hold be hostage. He knows something will go wrong. I pooh-pooh his comments as the normal nay-saying attitude he can sometime stick to. I state my rational defense: “I’m an artist! I am allowed to be in dangerous places to create art.”

My first rehearsal in prison ends before it begins because I left my wallet with my stage manager the night before and have no identification to get into the prison. (A full background check is done before I am approved for this project months in advance.) The prison is locked down because of in-house riots during our next scheduled rehearsal. My husband doesn’t like the sound of that. Finally, everything comes together and my first rehearsal actually happens. It is raining. I can’t wear my raincoat because it’s blue. (Long-term prison inmates wear blue.) I don’t want to carry my umbrella because it’s green (prison staff wear green),  so I walk unprotected in pelting rain with Suraya Keating, our Director and Drama Therapist; Lesley Currier, actress and managing director of Marin Shakespeare Company; and Suraya’s dad, who is visiting from New York.

San Quentin is beautiful. It is pulsing with famous folklore. The prison is on a hot piece of real estate: estimated land value of $600 million, directly on the water, overlooking the San Francisco city skyline. I wonder if the inmates have a view from their cells. We walk from the parking security gate to the initial prison security gate. Five inmates in yellow rain-jumpers are outside watching us. They are huge, dark and mean looking, exactly how I imagined they would be. One yells something my way when I pass. I keep my gaze straight ahead. We enter the initial security gate. Bars and metal and cages! It is totally cool! I feel like I am a kid seeing the inside a secret military cave. I am excited. I try to calm down because hey, it’s a prison, not an amusement park. But I can’t help thinking Hollywood movies with heroes and bad guys and a brewing gun scene. We finish the first identity check, are then ushered into the next area which is totally a huge cage, then into the next area which is also decorated in a ‘prison cell’ theme. Once we exit the three exciting and very jail-looking caged rooms, we are in.

We walk through an open garden space toward an education building where rehearsals are held.  No one is outside because of the rain except for a couple of blue-clad inmates who follow us into the building. Our rehearsal space reminds me of a classroom in my elementary school. The inmates clear the long tables and tiny chairs to make space for us. They greet Suraya enthusiastically and are excited to meet her father. “Someone’s going to be on her best behavior today…” they tease. I am in a daze. I worry about what they will think of me. Will they like me? Or will they dismiss me as a blond-haired, blue-eyed, yuppie-know-it-all-white-pansy?

After the Fact: We leave the education building with the prisoners. Leaving them behind feels like abandoning a starving puppy to die. I want to give them my phone number and address and meet them after work for a game of Scrabble and a glass of wine. After the fact, I feel sad and my heart is drunk. It’s a weird mixture of feelings.  I have eleven new friends today. They show me their fears, their voices, their performances, their hearts. I take a journey with them to their imaginations. We play the energy-ball game. I look them square in the eyeballs and tell them I love them. I listen to their huge growling lion voice, their high-pitched fairy voice and their rolling R’s. I laugh with them and joke with them and overhear the encouragement they give each other like precious jewels. We’re friends!

Rehearsal started in a circle with Suraya asking the men if they could relate to what their characters are struggling with. Michael* could relate to Bottom’s identity crisis. He is also trying to figure out who he is:  after fifteen years of prison, is he an inmate or a human being? Nathaniel related with Thesus’ struggle over when to use his power and when to use his sensitivity. Carlos identified with Oberon being misunderstood by others. “How do you want people to see you?” asks Suraya. “I’m actually a nice, easygoing person,” he replied. James confessed that he, like his character, wants to find true love.

During the rehearsal I, like Hermia, struggled with trying to figure these men out. I couldn’t do it. Who were they? Were they actors? Were they criminals? What were they thinking? Like Hermia and her struggle to understand Lysander, I could not read their minds. I could only read the smile on their faces and trust that the words coming out of their mouths were true.

*Inmate’s names have been changed to protect their identities.

This may seem like a strange memory, but it is truly a testamanet to the appeal Shakespeare has to children. 2 years ago we brought our 11 year old grandson to see MSC’s production of Much Ado About Nothing . During the first part of the play I looked at him and didn’t get sense he was following the dialogue. When I asked him, He said “yep, grandpa I got it.” What followed left little doubt. At intermission, he asked if he could go up to the restroom. On his way back to his seat he was running and jumping on the hay bales (as boys will do), which turned out to be quite slippery. He slipped and fell, taking a header into some pretty rough gravel. He immediately made his way back to us, holding back tears and revealing a very bloodied up face, with numerous cuts, bloody mouth and a quickly swelling lower lip. We iced his cuts, stopped the bleeding and st arted to pack up to head home, thinking he would be in no mood to sit throught the rest of the play. Nope, he threw an absolute fit at that idea. He was not going to miss the rest of the play. We stayed and I watched him wince through every laugh, and despite his obvious pain, he immersed himself completely in the joy that Shakespeare delivers to all of us.