University Place

Our 40 Year Love Affair with William Shakespeare

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim, Former Artistic Director and Co-founder, American Players Theatre]

Many of us in the theater, tragedy of Macbeth smells of sulfur and brimstone. Evil and hell itself is almost palpable.

So spooked are we by this play that many of us in the theater can’t even breathe its name and refer to it simply as the Scottish play.

A prediction of kingship from three questionable hags awakens in the warrior Macbeth and his wife ambitions, long and deeply buried. Duncan, king of Scotland, is victorious over the foes that threatened his kingdom and owes his success chiefly to the bold battlefield prowess of Macbeth, his most loyal thane.

[Anne Ochiogrosso, Former Director and Co-founder, American Players Theatre]

To honor him, the king will play – pay a visit to his castle and stay the night.

Macbeth and his wife will steal themselves to catch the nearest way and for the crown to kill the sleeping king.

It is the dead of night. Duncan, his two sons, and his entourage have all retired. Lady Macbeth will serve his guards some wine, drugged of course. Macbeth waits for it to be done and tells his servant.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready.
She strike upon the bell and get thee to bed.

Is this a dagger that I see before me, Ha!
Its handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
What?!I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going.
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. No, there’s no such thing.

It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep, witchcraft celebrates.
Pale Hecate’s offerings. [wolf hollowing] and withered murder,
Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, with stealthy pace
Like Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk,
Lest thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives.
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

[bell rings]

I go, and it is done, the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

That which hath made them drunk hath made me
bold.
What hath quenched them hath given me fire. [Owl shreiks] Hark,
peace!
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman
That gives the sternest good-night. He is about it.
The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged
their possets,
That death and nature do contend about them
Whether they live or die.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Who’s there, what, ho!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Alack, I am afraid they have awakened,
And ’tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us. Hark! – I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ’em. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done it.

My husband!

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

When?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Now.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

As I descended?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Ay.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Hark! Who lies in the second chamber?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Donalbain.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

This is a sorry sight.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

There’s one did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried
Murder!
That they did wake each other.
But they did say their prayers and addressed them
Again to sleep.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

There are two lodged together.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

One cried God bless us and Amen the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.
Listning their fear, I could not say Amen
When they did say God bless us.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Consider it not so deeply.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

But wherefore could not I pronounce Amen?
I had most need of blessing, and Amen
Stuck in my throat.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

These deeds must not be thought
After these ways, so, it will make us mad.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Methought I heard a voice cry Sleep no more,
Macbeth does murder sleep – the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast –

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

What do you mean?

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Still it cried Sleep no more to all the house,
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brain-sickly of things. Go get some water
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why have you brought these daggers from the place?
They must lie there. Go carry them and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

I’ll go no more.
I am afraid to think what I have done,
Look on it again I dare not.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers, the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.

[knocking]

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Whence is that knocking? –
How is it with me, that every noise appalls me?
What hands are here! Ha! They pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

My hands are of your color, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.

[knocking]

I hear a knocking
At the south entry, retire we to our chamber.
A little water clears us of this deed.
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended.

[knocking]

Hark, more knocking.
Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.

[knocking]

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou
couldst!

[knocking]

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

This celebration that we are having tonight is part of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. And the Folger Library in Washington, DC, has been sending a very special exhibition across the country.

The library is a – a treasure house, famed for its huge collection of memorabilia and printed material related to Shakespeare’s plays, but especially its large number of first folios and quartos.

Now, eight of these priceless first folios have already been traveling each state that could provide the necessary security as well as events to mark this very, very special occasion.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Now, one of those original first folios will be on display here in Madison at the Chazen Museum of Art from November 3rd through December 11th. But if you’d like to see – see it sooner, you’ll have to travel up north to the University of Minnesota in Duluth.

[laughter]

Where it’s currently on display until October 26th.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

But tonight, thanks for the UW-Madison Arts Institute and the Wisconsin Union Directorate, Randy and I have been brought here to join in this most joyous celebration of the first folio’s visit to Wisconsin.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Now, you may be sitting there scratching your heads wondering why Annie and I, two old fogies chose to start this evening with that scene from the Scottish play.

Well, there are two reasons. The first is that the tragedy of Macbeth is one of 18 plays that we would have never known if they weren’t included in the first folio. You see, there were no earlier printed editions of this magnificent play. The only text we have is to be found only in the first folio. Saved from oblivion by two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors and friends John Heminges and Henry Condell.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And the second reason was that Macbeth, we found out, was the play that had very, very, very special place at the very beginning of both our individual journeys with Shakespeare. Randy’s experience began in the Pacific Ocean.

[Randall Duk Kim]

In the Pacific Ocean?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Not in, but close by.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

You know, I’ve been wondering of late how it happened that I, an Asian-American born and raised in Hawaii, became an actor.

[laughter]

A classical actor who had a special thing for Shakespeare.

You know? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?

[laughter]

In fact, it’s a puzzlement.

[laughter]

I was 18 years old, and there appeared an audition notice for an upcoming production of Macbeth with the Honolulu Community Theater. Well, my imagination for some time already had already been set afire by the live theater and a place where great old plays could be enacted. But it was all only in my head.

Now, Macbeth on the stage. Oh, my curiosity couldn’t – couldnt be contained. It went into overdrive. I went to the audition despite the fears and, holy smoke, I was cast as Malcolm.

[laughter]

Well, the night of the first reading with the entire cast came around. You see, the community theater did its work on an old Army base. The back end of Diamond Head Crater. And I climbed the few stairs of a dilapidated building and stepped into a huge room. And I froze in my tracks.

[laughter]

Curiosity gave way to sheer terror. There I was, face to face with a large group of white people.

[laughter]

[laughs] Older white people.

[laughter]

Oh, my God, I said to myself, Kim, you’ve gotten yourself into it this time. But keep calm, keep calm. Don’t panic. Breathe. It’s too late to hightail it out of there. But if you really want to know how this kind of play is done, you got to screw your courage to the sticking place, find a place to sit down, and get ready to read.

Well, that first rehearsal passed, and I was glad I stayed. During the entire run of that play, I was all eyes and ears.

You know, when I wasn’t on stage, I was watching the first murderer paint a droopy Quasimodo eye on himself.

[laughter]

Or I found myself a place in the wings because I didn’t want to miss a moment of what was going on on the stage and in the audience.

This was my debut.

I was an actor. And I was absolutely certain that it was only this kind of play that would ever give me pleasure.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, my journey began in Queens, New York. Not quite as exotic as Hawaii.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Oh, yes.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

But there you are. I was in the sixth grade, and a – a group of actors toured a production of Macbeth to my school. And they had used the auditorium aisles as entrances and exits. Well, I do not know what possessed me, but as Donalbain was making his entrance, I reached out my hand and I touched his cape.

[laughter]

And I thought, Oh, my God, he’s real!

[laughter]

This isn’t a movie.

[laughter]

Well, I – I knew then, somehow, that my destiny was marked by that experience. That somehow, I would spend my life doing live theater and doing Shakespeare.

I had another opportunity when I was in college to perform Cleopatra in a piece that was composed of scenes from different plays about that character. And one of the scenes was the death scene from Antony and Cleopatra. Now, to get the picture, my Mark Antony was about 90 pounds soaking wet.

[laughter]

He looked ridiculous in a Roman tunic.

[laughter]

And he had to kill himself. So, he pulled out his sword, killed himself, fell to the ground, and the audience erupted in laughter.

[laughter]

He would not put up with that. So, he lifted himself up on one elbow, looked directly at the audience and said, “If you don’t stop laughing, I ain’t gonna die! ”

[laughter]

And then I had to kill myself with a rubber snake.

[laughter]

But it wasn’t until 1970 that our – our journeys merged. Randy and our dear, dear friend Chuck Bright had moved to New York City. And we met for the first time in a non-Shakespearean play, Brendan Behan’s The Hostage. Randy’s used to come in early to do his old age makeup. I came in early to do my young age makeup.

[laughter]

And one day he knocked on my dressing room door, and he said, “I just want you to know I think you’re a wonderful actress.” Well, needless to say, I was willing to follow him anywhere.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Well, when I got to New York, I vowed that I would try and find work every summer at some Shakespeare festival. So, pictures and resumes were sent out, rejections were received.

[laughter]

Auditions, more rejections, but, finally, I was hired by the Champlain Shakespeare Festival in Burlington, Vermont.

My first summer consisted of doing Cassius in Julius Caesar and old Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew. Well, I must have been okay doing it because they invited me back for a second season to play Touchstone in As You Like It and the title role in Titus Andronicus.

Ah-ha. You know, I had cajoled the artistic director, Ed Fidner, into doing that play. I was a young actor, and it was a piece that I was curious about. How do you do a play like that? And I was so excited to explore that piece in performance.

You see, Titus Andronicus was my Shakespearean tragedy 101.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Titus Andronicus is a revenge tragedy written by a young Shakespeare. It is stuffed full of horror and acts of extreme, extraordinary cruelty. Rape, mutilation, murder, and much worse.

Near the climactic end of the play, the old Roman general and his daughter and his kinsmen catch the two boys who helped to devastate their family.

[Randall Duk Kim as TITUS ANDRONICUS]

Come, come, Lavinia. Look, thy foes are bound.
Sirs, stop their mouths. Let them not speak to me,
But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
Here stands the spring whom you have stained with
mud,
This goodly summer with your winter mixed.

You killed her husband, and for that vile fault
Two of her brothers were condemned to death,
My hand cut off and made a merry jest,
Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
Inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.

What would you say, if I should let you speak?
Hark, villains, how I will martyr you.
This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
Whilst that Lavinia ‘tween her stumps doth hold
The basin that receives your guilty blood.

You know your mother means to feast with me,
And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
Hark, wretches, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,
And of the paste a coffin will I rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads,
And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
Like to the earth swallow her increase.

This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
And worse than Progne I will be revenged.
And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come.
Receive the blood and when that they are dead
Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it,
And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.

Come, come, be everyone officious
To make this banquet, which I wish may prove
More stern and bloody than the Centaurs’ feast.
He cuts their throats.
So, now bring them in, for I’ll play the cook
And see them ready against their mother comes.

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And that was the first Shakespeare I saw Randy do.

[laughter]

Then and there I knew I had to do more Shakespeare with him. So, there was a third play in that rep season in Vermont, and it’s – its a play that has become very, very dear to us, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Judging by your applause that’s a fat man on the screen, you like it too.

Randy has since had the opportunity to play Falstaff, and I have had the opportunity to play Mistress Quickly. However, we’ve never played them together. So, begging your indulgence, here we go.

[laughter]

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Fat, old Sir John Falstaff seeks to fill his almost empty purse by making love to two fairly well-off, married women Mistress Ford and Mistress Page.

He has sent each of them separate letters requesting a private meeting so he can personally express his fond feelings. Enter Mistress Quickly, a busybody sent by the wives to give him their answer.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Give your worship good morrow.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Good morrow, good wife.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Not so, and it please your worship.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Oh, Good maid, then.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

I’ll be sworn, as my mother was, the
first hour I was born.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Ha Ha! I do believe the swearer. What with me?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word
or two?

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

2,000, fair woman and I’ll vouchsafe
thee the hearing.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

There is one Mistress Ford– I
pray, your worship come a little nearer this ways.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Well, on. Mistress Ford, you say?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Your worship says very true. I pray
your worship come a little nearer this ways.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

I warrant thee, nobody hears. Mine own people,
mine own people.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Are they so? Well, heaven bless them and make
them His servants!

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Well, Mistress Ford: what of her?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Why, sir, she’s a good creature. Lord,
Lord, your worship’s a wanton! Well, heaven forgive
you and all of us, I pray!

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Marry, this is the short and the long
of it. You have brought her into such a canaries as
’tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all, when the
court lay at Windsor, could never have brought her into
such a canary. And yet there has been knights, and lords,
and gentlemen, with their coaches; I warrant you,
coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift
smelling so sweetly, all musk; and so rustling.

[laughter]

I warrant you, in silk and gold,

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Gold, ah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

And in such aligant terms and
in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest, that
would have won any woman’s heart but
they could never get an eye-wink of her. I had
myself twenty angels given me this morning – but I
defy all angels, in any such sort,

[laughter]

as they say, but in
the way of honesty. And they could
never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest
of them all and yet there has been earls,

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Earls.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

nay, which is more, pensioners.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Pensioners?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

All is one with her.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

But what says she to me? Be brief, my good
she-Mercury.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Marry, she hath received your letter,
for the which she thanks you a thousand times and
gives you to notify that her husband will be absence
from his house between ten and eleven.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Ten and eleven.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Ay, forsooth and then you may come
and see the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master
Ford,

[laughter]

her husband, will be from home. Alas, the day the sweet
woman leads an ill life with him. He’s a very jealousy
man. She leads a very frampold life with him, dear
heart.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Ah, ten and eleven.

[laughter]

Woman, commend me to her.
I will not fail her.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Why, you say well. But I have another
messenger to your worship too. Mistress Page sends you her
hearty commendations to you too; and let me tell you
in your ear, she’s as fartuous-

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Fartuous?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

– a civil modest wife, and
one, I tell you, that will not miss you morning nor
evening prayer, as any is in Windsor,
and she bade me tell your worship that her
husband is seldom from home –

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Ah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

– but she hopes there will
come a time. Oh, I never knew a woman so dote upon a
man. Truly I think you have charms, la, yes, in truth.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Not I, I assure thee. Setting the attractions of my
good parts aside I have no other charms.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Blessing on your heart for it!

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

But I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford’s wife and
Page’s wife acquainted each other how they love me?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Oh, oh, oh, that were a jest indeed!

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

They have not so little grace, I hope. That were a trick
indeed! But Mistress Page would have you send her
your little page, of all loves. Her husband has a
marvelous infection to the little page; and, truly
Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor
leads a better life than she does. Do what she will; say
what she will; pay all, take all: go to bed when she
list; rise when she list; all is as she will. And truly,
she deserves it. For if there be a kind woman in Windsor,
she is one. You must send her your page, no remedy.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Why, I will.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Oh, well, then do so, then and, look you,
he may come and go between you both. And in any
case have a nay-word, that you may know one
another’s mind, and the boy never need to know
anything – for ’tis not good that children should know
any wickedness.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

No, no, no.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

Old folks, you know, have discretion –

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as MISTRESS QUICKLY]

– as they say, and know the world.

[Randall Duk Kim as SIR JOHN FALSTAFF]

Fare thee well. Commend me to them both.
There’s my purse; I am yet thy debtor. – Boy, go along
with this woman.

This news distracts me!

Sayest thou so, old Jack? Go thy ways! I’ll make
more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet
look after me? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much
money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee.

[laughter]

Let them say ’tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no
matter. [laughs]

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, Randy was invited back to the festival for a third season, and this time I was able to be part of the company as an actress.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Now, Randy was given the chance to play Richard III, but I had the greater challenge. You see, at the tender age of 24, I was cast as the Duchess of York, Richard’s 80-year-old mother.

[laughter]

Suffice it to say, I was too young for the role, and Randy, crazed makeup artist as he is, decided to experiment. And so, he devised a makeup consisting of toilet paper glued to my face. You may have seen that picture of me where I look like some kind of ancient bride.

[Randall Duk Kim]

All right, all right, I apologize!

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, it – it

[Randall Duk Kim]

I failed.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

It’s too late. Whenever I spoke my face ripped.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Well, look on the bright side, you won’t ever have to worry about doing age makeup again.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Oh!

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Boo!

[laughter]

Well, tonight, you’re going to have to do penance by putting up with my taking on the part I should have played back then.

[Randall Duk Kim]

All right, I concede. Shall I set it up?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Please do.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Okay.

The deformed hunchback, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, has set his sight upon the English crown. He will use any and all means to remove all obstacles that stand in his way, even if they be his own flesh and blood.

His schemes also include marrying a young woman whose royal husband he recently killed, and her saintly father-in-law he murdered but yesterday.

[sound of chanting]

Enter the corpse of King Henry VI, accompanied by guards with halberds, and Lady Anne, being the only mourner.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Set down, set down your honorable load,
If honor may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.

Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!

Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these holes!

Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
Cursed be the hand that made these holes!
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!

More direful hap betide that hated wretch
That makes us wretched by the death of thee
Than I can wish to wolves, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venomed thing that lives!

If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view,
And that be heir to his unhappiness.

If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him
Than I am made by my dear lord and thee!

Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul’s to be interred there,
And still, as you are weary of this weight
Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry’s corpse.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Stay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

What black magician conjures up this fiend
To stop devoted charitable deeds?

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Villains, set down the corpse, or by Saint Paul
I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.

Unmannered dog, standst thou, when I command.
Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
Or by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?
Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil. –

Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell.
Thou hadst but power over his mortal body;
His soul thou canst not have; therefore be gone.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Sweet saint, for charity be not so cursed.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, and trouble us not,
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries. –
Oh, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry’s wounds
Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh. –

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells.

Thy deeds, inhuman and unnatural,
Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
Oh God, which this blood made, revenge his death!
Oh earth, which this blood drinks revenge his death!

Either heaven with lightning strike the murderer dead,
Or earth, gape open wide and eat him quick
As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood,
That his hell-governed arm hath butchered!

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Lady, you know no rules of charity,

[laughter]

Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Villain, thou know’st no law of God nor man.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Oh wonderful, when devils tell the truth!

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposed crimes, to give me leave,
by circumstance, but to acquit myself.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Vouchsafe, defused infection of a man,
Of these known evils, but to give me leave
By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
No excuse current, but to hang thyself.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

By such despair, I should accuse myself.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

And, by despairing shouldst thou stand excused,
For doing worthy vengeance upon thyself
That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Say that I slew them not.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Then say they are not slain.
But dead they are – in devilish slave, by thee.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

I did not kill your husband.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Why, then he is alive.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Nay, he is dead and slain by Edward’s hand.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

In thy foul throat thou liest. Queen Margaret saw
Thy murderous falchion smoking in his blood,

The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
But that thy brothers beat aside the point.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

I was provoked by her slandrous tongue,
Which laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,
That never thought of anything but butcheries.

Didst thou not kill this king?

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

I grant ye.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then God grant me, too,
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed.
Oh, he was mild, virtuous, gentle.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

The better for the King of Heaven, that hath him.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Let him thank me that holp to send him thither,
For he was fitter for that place than earth.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

And thou unfit for any place but hell.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Some dungeon.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Your bedchamber.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

So will it, madam, till I lie with you.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

I hope so.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

I know so. But gentle Lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our wits
And fall something into a slower method,

Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Thou wast the cause, and most accursed effect.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Your beauty was the cause of that effect –

Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world
So that I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails would rend that beauty from my cheeks.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

These eyes could not endure that beauty’s wreck.
You should not blemish it, if I stood by.
As all the world is cheered by the sun,
So I by that: it is my day, my life.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Oh Curse not thyself, fair creature: thou art both.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

I would I were, to be revenged on thee.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be revenged on him that loveth thee.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
To be revenged on him that killed my husband.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

He that bereft thy husband,
Did it to help thee to a better husband.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

His better doth not breathe upon the earth.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

He lives that loves thee better than he could.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Name him.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Plantagenet.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Why, that was he.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

The selfsame name, but one of better nature.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Where is he?

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Here.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

She spits at him.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Why dost thou spit at me?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Never came poison from so sweet a place.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

I would they were, that I might die at once,
For now they kill me with a living death.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Shamed their aspect with store of childish drops.
These eyes which never shed remorseful tear –
No, when my father York and Edward wept
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;

Nor, when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father’s death
And twenty times made pause to weep and sob,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
Like trees bedashed with rain –

in that sad time,
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with
weeping.

I never sued to friend nor enemy;
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word.
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,
My proud heart sues and prompts my tongue to
speak.

I’ll teach not thy lips such scorn, for it was made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.

[Randall Duk Kim]

He lays his breast open.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

She offers at it with his sword.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry;
But ’twas thy beauty that provoked me.

Nay, come dispatch, ’twas I that stabbed young
Edward;
But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

She lets fall the sword

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Take up the sword again, or take up me.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Arise, dissembler. Though I wish thy death,
I will not be the executioner.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

I have already.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

That was in thy rage.

[laughter]

Speak it again, and, even with the word
This hand – which, for thy love, did kill thy love –
Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love.
To both their deaths shalt thou be accessory.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

I would I knew thy heart.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

‘Tis figured in my tongue.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

I fear me both are false.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Then never man was true.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

Well, well, put up your sword.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Say, then, my peace is made.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

That shall thou know hereafter.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

But shall I live in hope?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

All men, I hope, live so.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
See how my ring encompasseth thy finger;
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

And if thy poor devoted servant may
But beg one favor at thy gracious hand,
thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

What is it?

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

That it may please you leave these sad designs
To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
And repair to Crosby house,
Where – after I have solemnly interred
At Chertsey monastery this noble king,
And wet his grave with my repentant tears –
I will with all expedient duty see you.
For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you
grant me this boon.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

With all my heart – and much it joys me, too,
To see you are become so penitent.

Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Bid me farewell.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY ANNE]

‘Tis more than you deserve.
But since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewell already.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

She exits with Tressel and Berkeley.

[Randall Duk Kim]

One of the guards asks Richard Towards Chertsey, noble lord? And Richard replies, No, to White-Friars, there attend my coming.

They exit with Henry’s corpse. And Richard is alone on the stage.

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Was ever woman in this humor wooed?

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim as RICHARD GLOUCESTER]

Was ever woman in this humor won?
I’ll have her but I will not keep her long.

What, I, that killed her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal
But the plain devil and dissembling looks –
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing? Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward her lord, whom I, some three months since
Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford –
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince.
And made her widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?
On me, that halt and am misshapen thus? [laughs]

My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while.

She finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvelous proper man.

Well, I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass
And entertain a score or two of tailors
To study fashions to adorn my body.
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave,
And then return lamenting to my love.

Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, after Vermont, we came home to New York, and there was nothing but work, work, and more work and a dream coming into being.

[Randall Duk Kim]

1974 I worked with the New York Shakespeare Festival doing Trinculo in The Tempest at Lincoln Center, and shortly after that Pericles, Prince of Tire at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

74 and 75 I was with – with Randy in San Francisco when he was at the American Conservatory Theater to do, once again, the title role of Richard III and Tranio in the Taming of the Shrew.

[Randall Duk Kim]

No sooner we got back to New York than I was off again for the summer – that summer to do Puck in the – with the Yale Repertory Theater in Connecticut.

[Anne Ochiogrooso]

And, before he knew it, he would spend the winter of 75 doing Prospero in The Tempest with the Indiana Repertory Theater.

Now, back in New York, Chuck and I would spend our time going to play after play to see if there were any actors out there with whom we wished to work because the notion of doing our own thing, starting our own theater, was really bubbling now.

[Randall Duk Kim]

When I got home, the three of us decided to produce, direct, and perform in our very first effort together.

The play would be the most beautiful of Shakespeare’s English histories King Richard II. And although we produced it in a small off-Broadway house for a limited run, we did receive a very kind review from Mel Gussow of the New York Times.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Here it is.

In the Direct Theater production, Randall Duk Kim’s Richard earns our empathy. He is helpless and he himself, even more than Bolingbroke, is his enemy. In Mr. Kim’s sensitive, manly portrayal, Richard rises in our esteem and affection. We regret that poets cannot be kings and wonder why they must be displaced by men of action, such as Bolingbroke.

The Direct Theater production, staged by Charles Bright and Anne Ochiogrosso, is a – a collision of character and temperament. It restores the two kings to human dimension without losing sight of their regalness. Led by Mr. Kim, this is a rousing production, reduced in scale but not in impact, ideally suited to its space.

This is an intimate Shakespeare in which every word can be heard. As for the adventurous Mr. Kim, if there’s any limit to his talent as an actor, it has not yet been demonstrated.

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Later, in that year of 1976, we were invited to do Hamlet at the Honolulu Theater for Youth. Randy played Hamlet for the first time, and I was hired as the literary director. Now, it was during this particular engagement that an encounter took place that would change our relationship with Shakespeare forever.

[Randall Duk Kim]

An actress friend of mine wanted us to take a look at an old book that she thought might be of interest to us as we worked on the play.

It was a copy of the first folio, and when we paged through that volume, we quickly noticed differences from the modern text we were using. Why – Why were some words capitalized in the middle of a sentence?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Why were there question marks were exclamation marks were?

[Randall Duk Kim]

What was that colon doing there?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Why were there so many commas? Why were there so few periods?

[Randall Duk Kim]

Did some of the odd spellings of words mean anything?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Why were some of the entrances changed?

[Randall Duk Kim]

Was the very layout of the text on the page purposeful?

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, this was the beginning of our work with the first folio, and we’ve been exploring it ever since.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

In 1977, we had moved to Washington, D.C., and worked at the Kennedy Center.

It was there that we founded American Players Theater. While we were debating whether Washington would be the appropriate location for a national theater, lo and behold, out of the blue we received a phone call from the Guthrie asking Randy if he’d like to come out and do a season.

I will never forget jumping around that room and dancing with each other when that call came. Another opportunity to do Hamlet and another opportunity to work with the first folio.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, incidentally, when that first folio is here and displayed in Madison, and you all must go see it, I urge you to see it, but every page – the page will be open to one of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquies.

[Randall Duk Kim as HAMLET]

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep –
No more, by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.

To sleep perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the poor man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose born
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, performing –

[applause]

– performing for the Guthrie audiences was a fabulous treat. They were listeners, and we decided right there and then that the Midwest was where we had to be.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah.

[cheers and applause]

Yes.

[cheers and applause]

Yup.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

You know, you may have been reading the interviews that we have been giving, and – and I’ve said this many, many times and I will tell you its the most sincere statement that I could make there has been no one like the Wisconsin audiences.

[Audience member]

Thank you!

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Thank you!

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, Minnesota had its Guthrie Theater and so we set out to try and find a place that might welcome a classical theater. Chuck found us 49 different sites in nearby Wisconsin –

[laughter]

– to look at. And, needless to say, Spring Green caught our attention.

Now, most of you may already know something of A.P.T.’s beginnings in that area, but you may not know that the woman who owned those 75 acres, Helen O’Brien, had always dreamed of seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream on that hill.

She invited us to spend time on the old farm, so we did. Well, the quiet, the beauty, the serenity, we found a place for audiences to come and restore themselves. We found where we would build American Players Theater, a center for research, training, and production of the classics. And to thank Helen, in our very first season we opened with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and partnered in rep with Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yikes, Titus Andronicus! [laughs]

[laughter]

Yup. [laughs]

[laughter]

This was a baby theater. And all of us, and I mean all of us, had much to learn about this playwright. So, we had to try and start at the beginning and not leap into this playwright’s mature work without laying some sort of proper groundwork.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And the rest, as they say, is history.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

So, which we may, by the way, get into during – after the intermission, but, just to wet your appetites’ a little, one of my very favorite memories and very pertinent to this evening’s celebration is one of a little girl who came to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream that season.

We were told by her mother that the following week she went to see The Empire Strikes Back.

[laughter]

And when she got home, her mom said to her, How did you like it? And she said, “It was good, Mom, but it’s not Shakespeare.”

[laughter]

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah. [laughs]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

You know, so many extraordinary people lent their talent, their money, their time, and love in those early years of A.P.T. First and foremost, you who were there at the very beginning, volunteering to help build the stage, making chainmail out of soda can pull tops for King John.

[laughter]

Raising money through bake sales and car washes.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Sewing costumes and making props. Bringing a dish to pass or an item to auction at the October Classic. Leaving crates of vegetables at the theater so that those who needed it wouldn’t go hungry. Even opening your homes to company members needing a place to stay.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And dropping in on rehearsals to see what was going on and faithfully coming to the plays and bringing your kids.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Listen, you endured the mosquitoes.

[laughter]

And the horseflies and the sweat bees, and the wind and the rain.

Oh, and that family of skunk who marched past the first row.

[laughter]

And, of course, those nasty porta-potties.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

You gave us your blessing, and, in spite of impossible odds, you assured us that you wanted us in your backyard and to keep going. Wow, I think they deserve a round of applause.

[Anne Ochiogrosso and Randall Duk Kim applauding]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yes, come on.

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And there are those who are no longer with us and who had a profound effect on the work that we did.

Of course, there was our dear Chuck.

[applause]

And, you know, he really must be credited with getting A.P.T. off the ground in the first place.

He was stubborn, tenacious, kind, and caring. And the best manager and friend we have ever known.

There was John Wyatt, scholar and translator extraordinaire. Bud Hill, creative design genius, and Anoi Kuryiamon III, a member of a very famous Kabuki family. And Paddy Crean, a gentleman of the first order and master instructor of – of stage combat.

And, of course, the incomparable Morris Carnovsky and the insightful Phoebe Brand.

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

You know, in mentioning Morris, I – I – I’m compelled to digress here for a moment back to when I was 18 years old and the summer following my debut in Macbeth. See, as a graduation present, my parents sent me to San Diego to visit an uncle and aunt.

Well, one day while I was walking through Balboa Park, I accidentally stumbled upon what looked like a replica of the Globe Theater.

[laughter]

And it happened to be the home of a San Diego Shakespeare Festival, who, at the time, were doing, in rep, Richard III, Twelfth Night, and The Merchant of Venice.

I was ecstatic.

I immediately hauled out my shekels and bought tickets for all three. I saw all three plays in a week, and then I hauled out a few more shekels to see them again –

[laughter]

– the following week. I had to make sure that I hadn’t gone insane.

[laughter]

The company was dazzling, but there was one actor who had me unconditionally enthralled and that was Morris Carnovsky. Whenever he came on stage I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink.

I didn’t see an actor performing; I didn’t see an actor acting; I saw the character – alive and breathing. I saw the character working out his destiny, moment to moment.

I was awash with the humanity that radiated from that stage. Morris as Shylock? Ha! Reached out into my very heart and grabbed it. What I experienced became the light unto my feet on the path that I had chosen. His was the kind of acting I would struggle all my life to attain.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, is in a state of rage and anguish. His only child has not only eloped with a Christian, but stolen money and valuables from her father.

In the street he meets two friends of the merchant Antonio, an old enemy to whom he lent a great deal of money. That man, it seems, cannot repay his debt and according to the contract, must give to Shylock a pound of his flesh.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as SELARIO]

Why, I am sure if he forfeit thou wilt not take
his flesh, what’s that good for?

[Randall Duk Kim as SHYLOCK]

To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies and
what’s the reason? – I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed
by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same
winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us
do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If
you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us
shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a
Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian
example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I
will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the
instruction.

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

You know, interestingly enough, when we were once more living in New York, Phoebe confessed to me that The Merchant of Venice was not one of her favorite plays. And I recall, however, towards the end of her life she was in the hospital and I got a phone call from Phoebe, and she said, Anna, come quick. Come to the hospital, I have something to tell you.

Well, I flew down the street. My feet did not even touch the ground. I rushed to that hospital, I rushed to her room, and I get to the door because I was sure she was about to say goodbye to me, and as soon as she saw me, she said, Oh, Anna, I’m so glad you’re here. The quality of mercy is not strained.

[laughter]

I said, Phoebe, that’s what you called me for? She said, Yes, I know how to say that line now.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

It reminds me of Phoebe telling us how Morris was thinking a lot about certain scenes in Macbeth during his final days. You know, on his deathbed, at age 95, Morris, believing himself to be in rehearsal, told Phoebe to go out and reassure the director and his fellow actors that it was only a temporary setback. Temporarily indisposed and that he would be with them shortly.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

You know, when I visited Phoebe for the very last time, she said to me, Good enough. I beat my mother by 10 years.

[laughter]

I beat Morrie by one year, and I even beat Katharine Hepburn.

[laughter]

And I said to her, But, Phoebe, you have so much still to offer. And she said, Well, you’re right there.

[laughter]

I am remarkable.

You know, we first met Morris and Phoebe in 1986. Our dear friend and wonderful actor Ted Sweats, and I know you know who it is, had studied with them –

[applause]

– before A.P.T. And he suggested that we would – we should invite them to direct our production of Anton Chekhov’s first full-length play Ivanov.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Well, I didn’t think we had a chance in hell they’d be interested.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Yeah. But they invited us to dinner at their home in Connecticut to further discuss the possibility.

[Randall Duk Kim]

I was standing at the front door, and I was a puddle.

[laughter]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Well, the door opened, and there was Morris leaning on his cane, and he invited us in with this magnificent voice. Phoebe had prepared a wonderful, wonderful dinner, but it was the purpose of the visit that contained the real excitement. And as they both became more and more enthusiastic, they started to become very, very curious about the casting. And Randy would, of course, play the soul sick Ivanov, and Ted would play the warm and wise father of the heroine. But who would play Anna Petrovna, Ivanov’s consumptive and dying wife?

Now, get the picture. Just as I’m about to take a bite of this delicious dinner, I say, I will. Phoebe stopped in her tracks and looked at my pleasingly plump body. And before she could speak, I quickly put my fork down, and I said, But I’m gonna lose 25 pounds.

[laughter]

Well, she responded with, Well, you’re certainly going to have to.

[laughter]

But the payoff is here. I did lose the weight. And during the first costume parade, the first time she saw me in my costume, she said to me, Well, you are beautiful. I’d marry you myself.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Well, just a few years before he passed away, we again have the great honor of Morris and Phoebe – Phoebe’s presence when they returned to Spring Green to direct us in a production of King Lear.

Now, some of you may know that in the 1960s Morris was famous, highly acclaimed for his King Lear.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

And I remember during rehearsal one day, and I think some – some of you who were in that class are in this audience, and he began to do some of Lear’s lines. He could – he could hardly remember them, but he had Phoebe there to help him. And at the end of that precious moment, the entire class was in tears, including Phoebe.

[Randall Duk Kim]

I remember one direction he gave me, among many. He told me think of an old dragon. Yeah, an old dragon. Not an elderly C.E.O.

[laughter]

Or an ex-president. An old dragon.

See, Morris believed in the imagination, and he certainly knew how to fuel the imagination. At least he certainly did mine.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

For the sake of peace and harmony, old King Lear has thought it wise to divide his kingdom among his three daughters.

The effect of this decision instantly brings the opposite result, and all hope of happiness shatters. After fierce confrontation with his two oldest daughters, the old king madly rushes out into a terrible storm, accompanied only by his fool.

[thunder]

[Randal Duk Kim as KING LEAR]

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow,
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the
cocks!

Thou sulfurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head; Thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world!
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as FOOL]

O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better
than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in, and ask
thy daughters’ blessing, here’s a night pities neither
wise man nor fools.

[Randal Duk Kim as KING LEAR]

Rumble thy bellyful; spit, fire, spout, rain.
Nor rain, wind, fire, thunder are my daughters.
I tax not you, your elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
You owe me no subscription, then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man,
Yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters joined
Your high engendered battles ‘gainst a head
So old and white as this, O, ho, ’tis foul!

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

For a brief moment the old king is left alone in the storm.

[applause]

And he begins his torturous journey to see that he is not the man he thought he was.

[Randal Duk Kim as KING LEAR]

Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, your unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

[cheers and applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Old King Lear will endure the storm and madness and near the end gain some measure of wisdom. He will reunite with his beloved youngest daughter, Cordelia, but that happiness will be short-lived. He will see her killed and will himself quickly follow her in death.

Now, Randy has died many times on stage.

[laughter]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Mm-hmm.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

As Titus Andronicus, as Cassius and Brutus, as Richard III and Richard II, as Romeo, Hamlet, and old King Lear.

So, after leaving A.P.T. and returning to the lunatic world of show business, it was only fitting that fate would hand him more such tasks.

[film clip]

For their crimes, they shall remain here, where they will be transformed into earthworms so their souls may spend the next 5,000 years reincarnating through the cycles of karma.

[Randall Duk Kim in said film]

You can’t do this to me. You travesty of a goddess. You, you, you liberal.

[shocks and screams]

[new film clip]

[speaking Chinese]

[clip from The Matrix Reloaded featuring Randall Duk Kim]

It was meant to be. That door will take you home. You’ll know which door.

[clip from film featuring Randall Duk Kim]

[explosions]

[horse neighing]

[explosions and crashing]

[new film clip featuring Randall Duk Kim]

Be gone from this world. You must find the dragonballs before the eclipse. Seven dragonballs must be found or all men’s fate will be bound.

All right, stop, you have to rest, you have to rest.

Remember, always have these. And who you are.

[Animated film Kung Fu Panda with voice of Randall Duk Kim as Oogway]

You can’t leave me.

You must believe.

Master.

[dramatic music]

[applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

You know, while at A.P.T. Chuck would get calls asking whether I would be available to do this film or be – or that television project. Would I be interested in coming to their theater to do that play? It was all impossible. And I had to tell Chuck, Listen, we’ve got to say no to all such inquiry. You know?

Even when we were not performing there was just so much to do. I mean, I recall spending the winters on a little stool over the – the heat because it was so cold in that barn. Drawing up lists for – schedules for rehearsal and performance, what to bring back from the previous season, what – when to add a new production, casting a company in the plays to be done, identifying who would understudy what, drawing up lists of costumes and properties we would need, identifying the number and kinds of hair pieces to be made, sound effects to be created or music to be composed.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

All right, all right.

[laughter]

We get the picture. What happened next?

[Randall Duk Kim]

Well, after A.P.T., I was really in the hands of the gods, and I began to say yes to everything I had said no to.

[laughter]

But Shakespeare was always nearby. Yes. For both of us.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

I’ll say. When Randy was shooting The Matrix Reloaded, I, off-camera, discussed Hamlet with Keanu Reeves.

[laughter]

Very interesting.

[laughter]

And we discussed Shakespeare in meter with Laurence Fishburne.

[Randall Duk Kim]

When I was doing the Broadway revival of The King and I, well, we conducted Shakespeare classes for the children as well as some of the interested adults in the cast. In fact, we would hold many a Shakespeare or acting class in our apartment living room or rent a studio space to work with actors, singers, or dancers who found us to be helpful.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Randy again had the chance to work at the New York Shakespeare Festival doing Cymbeline in Central Park. My days were spent teaching special Shakespeare classes at N.Y.U., at the Stella Adler Conservatory, the New York Public Theater, and even on one occasion a special workshop up at Yale.

Most recently, while making some cameo appearances on television or giving DreamWorks some recording sessions for Oogway, Randy and I had the good fortune to do three intensive 13-week courses at our local college. We looked at Hamlet over 13 weeks, The Merchant of Venice 13 weeks, and King Lear 13 weeks. And we – we concentrated on the – on the plays from the perspective of performance. We also managed to do a series of public readings, and we titled – entitled them The Great Authors Out Loud.

[Randall Duk Kim]

At the very heart of all our work, in these our latter years, especially when it comes to Shakespeare, the first folio remains a well spring of pure joy. Now, to give you an idea of why the first folio is so invaluable, not only to us but to the whole world, let’s name the titles of the 18 plays we would have lost without it. The first part of King Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, the Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentleman of Verona, The Life and Death of King John.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

As You Like It, The Life and Death of Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure.

[Randall Duk Kim]

The Tragedy of Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, The Tragedy of Coriolanus.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Cymbeline, Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, The Life of Henry VIII.

It’s too sad to think that all these stories might have been doomed to oblivion. It’s too sad to think we might have been denied the pleasure of such characters as Kate and Petruchio.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Launce and Crab.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Rosalind and Orlando.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Jaques and Touchstone.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Viola, Olivia, and Orsino.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Malvolio.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Brutus, Cassius, and Julius Caesar.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Antony and Cleopatra.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Caliban, Ariel, and Prospero.

And it is beyond sadness to think we might not have heard some of the greatest writing ever composed for actors. For example,

[Randall Duk Kim as JAQUES]

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They had their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as ROSALIND]

Love is merely a madness, and I tell you,
deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen
do; and the reason they’re not so punished and
cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers
are in love to.

[Randall Duk Kim as CASSIUS]

Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as SOOTHSAYER]

Beware the Ides of March.

[Randall Duk Kim as ANTONY]

Friends, Romans, and countrymen lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So, let it be with Caesar.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as ORSINO]

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

[Randall Duk Kim as MALVOLIO]

Be not afraid of great –
ness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon them.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as THREE WITCHES]

Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

If it were done, when tis done, for twere well
It were done, quickly.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as LADY MACBETH]

Out, damned spot, I say.
What, will these hands ne’er be clean?
Here’s the smell of blood still. All the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

[Randall Duk Kim as MACBETH]

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
signifying nothing.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

The debt of gratitude we owe to these two actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell –

[Randall Duk Kim]

Amen.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

– friends of Shakespeare – cannot be tallied. Their massive and painstaking labor has given the world a boundless, invaluable treasure.

[Randall Duk Kim]

We just mentioned that the Taming of the Shrew would have been lost. And America would never have seen the legendary couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne do the play in 1935.

You see, a play can only live when actors permit it to live in themselves, and those two actors did just that. Bedazzling not only the Broadway audiences, but here on the Union Stage. In fact, they opened this theater in 1939 with the Taming of the Shrew.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Permit us now to honor their memory with our humble rendition of that moment in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew when Katherine meets Petruchio.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing.
They call me Katharine that do talk of me.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

You lie, in faith; for you are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst,
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate –
For dainties are all cates, and therefore Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation:

[laughter]

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded –
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs –
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Moved? In good time. Let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first
You were a movable.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Why, what’s a movable?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

A joint-stool.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

No, women are made to bear, and so are you.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

No such jade as you, if me you mean.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee,
For, knowing thee to be but young and light.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Too light for such a swain as you to catch,
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Should be? – should – buzz.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Oh slow-winged turtle shall a buzzard take thee?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Come, come, you wasp, in faith, you are too angry.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

My remedy is then to pluck it out.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

In his tongue.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Whose tongue?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Yours, if you talk of tails and so farewell.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

What, with my tongue in your tail?

[laughter]

Nay, come again,
Good Kate, I am a gentleman.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

That I’ll try.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

She strikes him.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

So may you lose your arms.
If you strike me you are no gentleman,
And if no gentleman, why then, no arms.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

A herald, Kate? Put me in thy books.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

What is your crest – a coxcomb?

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

No cock of mine. You crow too like a craven.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Nay, come, Kate, come. You must not look so sour.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

It is my fashion, when I see a crab.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Why, here’s no crab and therefore look not sour.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

There is, there is.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Then show it me.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Had I a glass, I would.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

What, you mean my face?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Well aimed, of such a young one.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Well, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Yet you are withered.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

‘Tis with cares.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

I care not.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Nay, hear you, Kate. In sooth you scape not so.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

I chafe you, if I tarry. Let me go.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

No, not a whit. I find you passing gentle.
Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
But now I find report a very liar,
For thou are pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers.

[laughter]

Thou canst not frown.? Thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk,
But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers,
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?

[laughter]

O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel twig
is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As hazel nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
Come, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate,
And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Where did you study all this goodly speech?

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

A witty mother, witless else her son.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Am I not wise?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Yes, keep you warm.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Marry, so I mean, sweet Katharine, in thy bed.
For setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife,

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

What?

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Your dowry ‘greed on
And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn.
For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty –
Thy beauty, that doth make me like thee well –
Thou must be married to no man but me.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Enter Kate’s father and others.

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Here comes your father. Never make denial.
I must and will have Katharine to my wife.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as KATHERINE]

Uh!

[Randall Duk Kim as PETRUCHIO]

Ha!

[applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Now, I feel like we should apologize to Lunt and Fontanne.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Yeah, really.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

For us, over the years, the first folio has been much, much more than a precious artifact to be viewed and ogled at in a museum case.

For us, it’s proven itself to be a living, working document, and perhaps the closest thing to a score that a theater practitioner can have. It has been an endless source of inquiry and reflection and life-giving challenge to go deeper, to see more clearly, and to truly understand what it is to be a human being.

[Randall Duk Kim]

In all the hurly-burly of the last quarter century of our working life, Shakespeare has remained our inspiration, our teacher, our constant companion, our love affair continues, and the pleasure of his company only deepens.

[Anne Ochigrosso]

Before we break for intermission, Randy and I wish to share with you a scene we have continued to work on for some time now.

[Randall Duk Kim]

Now, about five years after the Lunts did Taming of the Shrew on this stage, the great Paul Robeson, actor, singer, and social activist, along with Uta Hagen and Jose Ferrer, did Othello, The Moor of Venice. Now, Othello may be called Shakespeare’s domestic tragedy.

Othello, commander of the Venetian military, is an older man and a Moor. A black man in a white world who has eloped with the beautiful, young daughter of a prominent Venetian senator.

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Iago, a truly monstrous villain, has successfully, with innuendo, manipulation, and bold-faced deceit, poisoned the noble Moor against his innocent, young wife. Jealousy shatters Othello from within, and his anguish knows no bounds. It is late at night, and Othello enters the room where Desdemona lies asleep.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars.
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

Put out the light, and then put out the light.
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me, but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light restore should I repent me. When I have plucked thy
rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It needs must wither. I’ll smell thee on the tree.

Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee
And love thee after, one more, and that’s the last.

[he weeps]

So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears. This sorrow’s heavenly,
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Who’s there? Othello?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Ay, Desdemona.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Will you come to bed, my lord?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Have you prayed tonight, Desdemona?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Ay, my lord.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

If you bethink yourself of any crime
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Alack, my lord, what do you mean by that?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Well, do it, and be brief. I will walk by.
I would not kill thy unprepared spirit.
No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Talk you of killing?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Ay, I do.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Then heaven
Have mercy on me!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Amen, with all my heart!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

If you say, I hope you will not kill me.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Hum!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

And yet I fear you, for you are fatal
When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,
Since guiltiness I know not but yet I feel I fear.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Think on thy sins.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

They are loves I bear to you.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Ay, and for that thou diest.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.
These are portents but yet I hope, I hope
They do not point on me.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Peace, and be still!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

I will so. What’s the matter?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

That handkerchief
Which I so loved and gave thee thou gavst to Cassio!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

No, by my life and soul! Send for the man
And ask him.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Sweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury.
Thou art on thy deathbed.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Ay, but not yet to die.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Presently.
Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,
For to deny each article with oath
Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Oh heaven, have mercy on me!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

I say amen!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

And have you mercy, too! I never did
Offend you in my life, never loved Cassio
But with such warranty of heaven
As I might love. I never gave him token.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

By heaven.
O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
And makes me call what I intend to do
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.
I saw the handkerchief!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

He found it then!
I never gave it him, send for him hither.
Let him confess a truth.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

He hath confessed!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

What, my lord?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

That he hath used thee!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

How, unlawfully?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Ay!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

He will not say so.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

No, his mouth is stopped.
Honest Iago hath ta’en order for it.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Oh, my fear interprets. What, is he dead?

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Alas, he is betrayed, and I undone.

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Out, strumpet! Weep’st thou for him to my face?

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Oh, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Down, strumpet!

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Nay, if you strive –

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

But half an hour!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

Being done, there is no pause.

[Anne Ochiogrosso as DESDEMONA]

But while I say one prayer!

[Randall Duk Kim as OTHELLO]

It is too late!

[cheers and applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Thank you, my dears.

[cheers and applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Thank you.

[cheers and applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Thank you.

[cheers and applause]

[Randall Duk Kim]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[cheers and applause]

[Anne Ochiogrosso]

Thank you, thank you.