Shakespeare: Man of His Words

Most students suffer through Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” somewhere around the eighth grade. It is flat. It is dull. It is literature. Ugh! On the printed page it doesn’t breathe. There’s no fire.

Shakespeare Orange County is trying to turn that idea around. Part of the Chapman University-based professional company’s effort is its preseason gala on Saturday titled “Shakespeare and Me.”

The event has several purposes. It’s part of the group’s annual fund-raising drive, along with being a form of donor acknowledgment. It’s also referred to by the group as a gala party to kick off the summer season.

The program is an evening of scenes, monologues, little odds and ends of trivia about Shakespeare and the Elizabethans. It includes quotes both from Shakespeare’s contemporaries and ours about the playwright, about why Shakespeare still attracts audiences and why today’s theatergoers still find such interest in his work. Everything, in fact, that you were afraid to ask in the eighth grade.

The focus in the production is primarily on Shakespeare’s language, which SOC artistic director Tom Bradac admits may be an acquired taste.

“It’s not something that you automatically appreciate,” Bradac said. “My metaphor is like learning how to enjoy wine, when you go from Ripple to a nice Bordeaux.”

“Shakespeare and Me” was devised by SOC co-producer Kamella Tate, who directs the show and also appears in it with seven other actors. A founding member of the company, Tate has followed her acting career all over what she refers to as “the I-5 circuit,” from Ashland’s Oregon Shakespearean Festival to the Denver Center Theatre to South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

“The focus,” Tate said in a recent phone interview, “as in everything we do, is on language and action, and how the language itself describes character, gives you a sense of place, gives you a sense of the action of language itself, and the thoughts in action.”

She is intrigued by Shakespeare’s phenomenal word-coining genius and how it is blended into his characters, plots and the world he came from. Most people are little aware that many of the catch phrases in everyday conversation originated with Shakespeare.

“We’re becoming more and more concerned in our society and our culture with the specificity of the language we use,” Tate said. “Almost every day when I read a newspaper or magazine, there’s somebody questioning the use of certain words. Right now the big thing in Washington is the ‘politics of meaning.’

“What it comes down to is, what words are we going to use to describe what we need to do? When you speak clearly, you think clearly. That leads to a literacy that is both an emotional literacy and an intellectual literacy, which is a precondition of a humanitarian existence.”

Another part of the problem of communication today is the distortion of language for political or other purposes.

“That’s very Orwellian,” Tate said. “We all feel that we understand language. Everybody talks. But there’s a whole resonance to that that we’ve missed for many, many decades. What is this thing, and how can we use it more effectively to enhance our lives?”

How does all this blend with Shakespeare?

Tate says the early sections of “Shakespeare and Me” offer examples of the specificity of his language in terms of vowels and consonants, and how they themselves become action.

Being understood was as important to Shakespeare as it is to us today. The usual stumbling block of Shakespeare’s writing in verse should be no problem for today’s listeners. Tate finds some common ground in the phenomenon of rap music.

“The interesting thing about rap,” she said, “is that it’s really based on sound and rhythm, and in many ways a very witty and surprising turn of phrase, a juxtaposition of words and sounds and point and counterpoint. In terms of that, it has a possibility of being an interesting way of getting kids to be more verbal, and getting them to enjoy language, to realize that language is pleasurable.”

That sounds as though Tate is talking about Shakespeare.

“Language in Shakespeare’s time was action,” she said. “Of course, it still is, but we’re just not as aware of it. We’re so used to a visual representation of language, rather than it just being spoken.”

As for the plays themselves, the gala will serve as a smorgasbord of snippets from them. There are reasons why Tate feels the plays are more accessible than most people think.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of it,” she says. “It’s not highbrow. It’s popular theater. ‘Titus Andronicus’ was the ‘Terminator 2’ of its time.

“This season we’re doing ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ It’s sex and violence, I’m telling you. Bust away those myths and you can understand it. You don’t have to give Julius Caesar a Scotch and soda to make Shakespeare accessible,” she said. “It already is.”

Having spent most of her career as an actress, Tate is now delving into directing and producing--what might be called a triple-threat approach.

“Triple-threat today,” she said, “is somebody who can wear many hats, wear them effectively and get it in under budget, because we’ve got lean and mean times.

“It’s time for all of us to learn how to do many jobs. It’s very visceral. Now, I know the job of acting. And I really enjoy my little forays into directing. It’s a real challenge. It makes a richer experience for everybody.”

Tate said the gala, staged on a partly finished set, will show the audience how a production is put together from scratch. It will also show how words are put together to make drama. And humor. And romance.

Added Bradac: “We want it to really be an aural experience. We want people to hear this, so that they start listening again. That’s really what Shakespeare’s about. It was how he used the language that turns so many people on.”

* Shakespeare Orange County presents “Shakespeare and Me” on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Waltmar Theatre, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. $25, benefits Shakespeare Orange County. (714) 744-7016.