By Mary Boyle Today is World Theatre Day, so I decided it was a good time to write about my experience with live theatre. I have been a theatre critic since 2014 – nearly a decade ago. One of the first shows I reviewed was Milwaukee’s First Stage Young Company doing a production of Romeo and Juliet. First Stage is one of the country’s leading theatre programs for young performers and families and their Young Company, founded by John Maclay, is really special: a group of high school kids who receive college-level actor training and put on two public performances each year, including at least one by Shakespeare. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was the the Young Company’s first fully produced production. I brought my two children, who were 11 and 8 years old, because I was homeschooling them and it was a perfect educational opportunity. I had no idea that it would end up being a defining moment in our lives. You see, I had always been a fan of Shakespeare, despite the fact that my introduction to it was as horrible as most students in this country (though now I consider myself lucky that I had any introduction at all). My Freshman English teacher made our class take turns reading Romeo and Juliet with no real context given, because I don’t think she had any understanding of it, herself. To say it was brutal is an understatement. Nonetheless, I chose Early English Lit. in my Junior year and my teacher, Mr. Trost, lit a fire in me for Shakespeare that never went out; but, aside from the old movies they showed us in class and an enduring love for the version of Hamlet with Mel Gibson, my relationship with the Bard was a literary one – I had never seen it performed live until Young Company. I shared that passion for literature with my children and my oldest, Molly, also caught the Shakespeare bug. Seeing those high school kids on that stage that day inspired her, to say the least (and, to be fair, they were breathtaking – Mary Elsa Henrichs as Juliet and Joseph Schwalb, who is still the best young performer I’ve ever seen, as Mercutio became YC legends). Molly wanted to be one of those kids on that stage. Remember that Molly was only 11 at the time of the play and you must be in high school to audition for Young Company, so she started with a two-week stint in the First Stage Summer Theater Academy that very summer. She walked in a shy, anxious, and cautious kid and walked out a confident and daring young lady who boldly proclaimed that two weeks was not enough. She did four weeks in the summer of 2015 and another in 2016, along with some additional school year intensives and a production of Twelfth Night with Milwaukee Youth Theatre, which was great fun. In 2017, she was finally old enough to take the YC Summer Academy course where they did a production of The Tempest directed by none other than Matt Daniels, one of Milwaukee's finest actors and directors who went on to become the Director of Young Company after John Maclay. That fall, Molly entered the ranks of the famous Young Company, becoming one of the kids she had idolized and admired for so long. Not only that, she auditioned and earned three parts in their spring production of Henry V. To say we spent a lot of time at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, the home of First Stage, would be an understatement; we joked that my car knew the way there by itself. Molly was only 15, so I drove her to every rehearsal and, since MYAC was about 30-40 minutes from our house, I stayed and worked while she did, getting to know the rest of the cast and some of the other parents. Henry V was unique in that it had a particularly long rehearsal and run time compared to other YC shows, and Matt Daniels does some amazing things to sync up a cast, so these kids had an unusually long time to work on this show together and were bonded in a way I had never seen before. When the show opened, I reviewed it, of course, but I also volunteered as a parent helper, being an usher, collecting tickets, or guarding the stage, so I was also able to stay and watch the show, which I was thrilled to do. I’d had the experience of seeing the opening and closing of a show, but never the progression of one, and I was fascinated. Because I worked from home and homeschooled, I was even able to help with the weekday school performances. In short, I was there for nearly all of it, which I suspect is a bit of an anomaly. As the kids worked their way through the performances, I was right there with them, watching up close and taking it all in. I had seen the show 17 times by the time we reached the final performance. I recall talking with some of the more veteran YC parents shortly before the final show and one of them noting that the last performance was coming up and how it was going to be so hard. I nodded my head in agreement. I had seen the final performances for Molly’s other two shows and they were quite bittersweet. For some of the cast, this would be their last performance with the Young Company because they were Seniors and would be going on to college. Although it was Molly’s first year in Young Company, I had been watching some of these kids perform for years, both in Young Company and in the First Stage main stage shows. My youngest, Eamon, had also started in the Summer Academy by then, and we had been a First Stage family long enough to understand that it would be a difficult chapter to close. I thought I understood what was about to happen; I thought I was prepared. People, I was not prepared. The structure of the play was unusual in that all of the actors warmed up and stayed on the stage the entire time, sitting on benches on the sidelines like athletes when it wasn’t their time to be up (being all in, all the time only added to the closeness of the cast, I'm sure). I was in my usual place, standing guard at the tape boundary at the edge of the stage to keep audience members from walking through it (there was no actual raised stage to define it and we didn’t want people tripping over cords and lights). I was just feet away from the cast, who were standing in a circle doing their usual pre-show warm-ups. I remember Mary Jensik, who normally led the warm ups, saying something like, 'Alright, everyone, it’s our last show – get what you want out of it,' like a coach at a sports game. Then, Elliott Brotherhood, one of the Seniors who played Henry, spoke up. He wanted to thank all of them and tell them what an honor it was to work with them. There was a catch in his voice. In my head I was screaming, “Shut up, Elliott! Don’t do this now!” but it was too late. I was like a deer in the headlights. Suddenly, I understood all too well the emotional trauma we were about to subject ourselves to, but there was no running away. The only way out was through. I took my seat next to my sister and my niece, who were seeing the performance for the first time, and tried to brace myself for what was about to come. Because I had seen nearly every performance, I recognized when they were coming unglued in the more emotional scenes and the little changes they made to their final performance; in fact, I felt that I was one of the only ones who really saw what was happening. My heart began to break when Henry started to come apart a little as he begged Lord Scroop to explain how he could have been among those who had betrayed him: "Why so didst thou?" I knew what it meant when Montjoy gave Henry his "ransom" coin back instead of keeping it; when Henry shook everyone's hands and barely held himself together through his band of brothers speech; when, instead of walking off the stage at their last meeting, Henry gave Montjoy one coin and kept one for himself. But we were in public. There was no time to feel the feels because I had to get back down to guard the stage at the close, to send the cupcakes with them to the after-party, to take my sister and niece out to dinner and try, fruitlessly, to explain to them what they truly just witnessed, but of course they couldn't possibly understand. There was only time for brief hugs and knowing nods because to do anything more would have been enough force to break the composure everyone was struggling valiantly to maintain. I know that because early the next morning, when I finally had time alone to reflect on what happened, I fell apart. In life, and especially as a parent, there are very few times when we are aware when we are facing the last time: the last time we will read the bedtime story we’ve read every night for a thousand nights; the last time we will brush their hair for them; the last time we will get to hold their hand as we cross the street. Were we to know they were the last times in advance, we would have a hard time getting through life because the poignancy, the fleetingness of it all would become too real and too difficult to bear. The final performance of Henry V, for me, was like a sped-up version of parenting in that every action was the last time, but I was well aware of it: the last time Captain Jamy would confound his fellow soldiers, the last time Pistol would eat a leek, the last time Henry would kiss Kate. Milestones that bring them to the next chapter in their lives but, with each step forward, they leave their old selves behind – a death you have no real time to mourn, because the play must go on and reach its end. That, in a nutshell, is parenting. But it was even more than that. I had witnessed magic happen and I knew that I might never see the likes of it again. The thought of it nearly destroyed me. I was shaking by the end of the play, but I had to pull it together and keep on going. By the time I got Molly from the afterparty and got us home to bed, I only was able to sleep for a couple of hours before I had to drop my youngest off at a rehearsal. I pulled into an empty parking lot and, finally, was able to sit and think about what had happened. I put on the song that played at the close of the Henry V – “An Acre of Land” by PJ Harvey – and I just sobbed to the sound of my heart shattering until there was nothing left in me. This, I imagined, is why people become actors. They experience this magic at some point – this “swing” (to quote Girls in the Boat, a YC play Molly was in later) in which the sum of the parts are greater than the whole – and they keep working so that they might experience it again. To think, some of these kids were able to reach this level at such a young age…how would they go on? I could hardly bear it. The day was March 24, 2018 when theatre broke my heart. For weeks and months, afterwards, I could feel every crack of my brokenness. I couldn’t talk about Henry V or listen to any of the music from it without crying. Five years have passed and I still can’t listen to “An Acre of Land” without falling apart – I know, because I keep on trying around March 24th each year. Molly had basically the same experience, and I suspect several of the other cast members did, as well, though we never really spoke about it. We share a common PTSD that very few people would understand, though if you’ve seen the film of Hamilton and wondered why Lin Manuel Miranda can barely keep himself together throughout the show, it’s because they filmed his final performances; his last times. Watching actors lose it at their final performances triggers my PTSD, but I also want to see it because I recognize it and identify with it, though I have never stepped foot on the stage. In his song, “Anthem,” Leonard Cohen sings, “There is a crack, a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in,” and I believe in those words like I believe in the power of live theatre and its ability to transform people because, gradually, the cracks made by Henry V filled with light. When I imagine my heart, I think it must be like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, in which broken pottery is put back together with gold, making the piece even more beautiful and unique than when it was whole. After nearly a decade of watching live theatre, I recognize those actors who are full of cracks; who understand that art is made to break us apart and bring us back together, better than we were before. First Stage teaches "life skills through stage skills." Most of the kids, including mine, don't go on to become actors, but they walk away more grounded in themselves, more confident in their abilities, and more accepting of others, which are excellent life skills. Molly and I are still Shakespeare fans, but these days we will always choose to see it being performed before reading it; in fact, we recently saw Born With Teeth at the Guthrie, near where she goes to school in the Twin Cities, which is an imagined relationship between Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare that was absolutely brilliant – go see it if you're able to. Though it was therapeutic to write about this experience, I don’t think I will ever really heal from it, but I’m okay with that; in fact, I dare say I cherish those scars, as well as all the others that live theatre has given me since. I had intended to release this on the 5th anniversary, but what better day to publish it than on World Theatre Day? You may think my experience with this production is overly, pardon the pun, dramatic, but if there is one thing you take away from it, let it be that theatre is important. The First Stage motto is “transforming lives through theatre” and I can assure you that theatre can change your life for the better if you let it, so please don’t read Shakespeare, see it performed. See any play, then see another and watch how you grow as a person because of it, even if you didn’t like the play. Support your local theatre companies – they are the lifeblood of our culture – and make sure to support theatre programs in schools. Allow theatre to change your heart and we will change the world into a better and more empathetic place. I’m not being dramatic; it’s simply the truth.
3 Comments
Howard Hinterthuer
3/29/2023 06:20:53 am
Theater binds us together. We get inside another's skin in different times and other places, speaking their lines, sharing their thoughts, feeling what they feel, inhabiting the arc of history as if there with people who travel with us. We learn to see with our minds, to make sense of our past and design our future. We do the math, tell the stories, write them down, see beyond our eyes, imagine the possible, visit the past, learn from our mistakes, recognize our follies and not feel alone. We are one. Theater teaches the lesson of "oneness" exquisitely! It is multi-dimensional and transcends time itself.
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Mary Boyle
3/31/2023 10:29:42 am
I couldn't agree more, Howard!
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Glen Davis
9/3/2024 02:28:07 pm
Howard, this is Glen Davis, from the Army's 91C training at Madigan Gen. Hosp. I have recently been trying to re-connect with old friends and came across this website when googling your name. I notice that this comment is from March, 2023, so I sincerely hope this finds you well and healthy. I also found your TEDx talk online and while my wife (#2, also named Nancy) was watching it, I dug out your picture from when you stopped by to visit in DiAn. She was pretty amazed. Please call (903-815-2180...text first) or email me: [email protected].
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Mary BoyleReviewing live theatre in Wisconsin since 2014. Proud member of the American Theatre Critics Association. #OzTheatre
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