So far Anne-Marie hasn’t met with the class. She’s been learning her lines on her own, or rather refreshing them. Her first session inside Fletcher Correctional will be on Friday, the day Felix announces his casting, but he’s arranged to have lunch with her first. He wants to prepare her, give her some idea of what she’ll be walking into. Who, for instance, will be her Ferdinand? She has a right to know, in advance.
As he eats his solitary morning egg—solitary because Miranda’s off somewhere in her special private space, and like all teenage girls she’s being cagey about where that is—he reviews the choices he has all but made.
He’s given much thought to these choices. There are the stated preferences of the actors themselves, but through long experience Felix has learned to disregard these. What natural Romeo has not longed to play Iago, and vice versa?
Should he cast by type or against type? Uglies in parts that call for beauty, a gorgeous hunk as Caliban? Put them into roles that will force them to explore their hidden depths, or are those depths better left unexplored? Challenge the audience by showing them well-known characters in surprising and possibly disagreeable guises?
During his past life at the Festival he’d been known for in-your-face envelope- pushing. In retrospect, he may on occasion have taken things too far. To be fair, more than on occasion; taking things too far had been his trademark. But this time, better not force it. He’ll give the men parts they have a chance of performing well: he is after all a director, first and foremost. The play’s the thing. His job is to help the actors help him execute it.
He’s made a set of notes, partly for his own use, but also to share with Anne- Marie. These notes must never go any further than the two of them, he will emphasize to her. After his fine speech to the class—“I don’t care what you’ve done” and so forth—it would be disillusioning for his actors to find their
criminal convictions spelled out in so much detail.
He runs down his tentative list:
The Persons of the Play
PROSPERO, THE DEPOSED DUKE OF MILAN: Mr. Duke, Director and Producer.
MIRANDA, HIS DAUGHTER: Anne-Marie Greenland, Actress, Dancer, Choreographer.
ARIEL: 8Handz. Slight build. East Indian family background. About twenty-three.
Very bright. Agile with a keyboard. Highly knowledgeable in tech matters.
Conviction: Hacker, identity theft, impersonation. Forgery. Feels justified in his activities, as he believes he was playing a benevolent Robin Hood versus the evil King John capitalists of this world. Betrayed by an older colleague when he wouldn’t hack refugee charities. Played Rivers in Richard III.
CALIBAN: Leggs. About thirty. Mixed background, Irish and black. Red hair, freckles, heavy build, works out a lot. A vet, was in Afghanistan. Veterans Affairs failed to pay for PTSD treatment. Conviction: Break-and-enter, assault. Drugs- and booze-related. Was in addiction treatment but the program’s been canceled. Played Brutus, Second Witch, Clarence.
Excellent actor but touchy.
FERDINAND, SON TO ALONSO: WonderBoy. Looks twenty-five, probably older.
Scandinavian name. Appealing, clean-cut, handsome, plausible; can seem very sincere. Conviction: Fraud; sold fake life insurance to gullible seniors.
Was especially effective with immigrants. Played Macduff, and Hastings in Richard III.
ALONSO, KING OF NAPLES: Krampus. Maybe forty-five. Mennonite background.
Long horse-face. Member of a Mennonite ring ferrying drugs from Mexico through the US in farm machinery, under a cloak of piety. Depressive.
Played Banquo in Macbeth, Brutus in JC.
SEBASTIAN, BROTHER TO ALONSO: Phil the Pill. Vietnamese refugee background; extended family sacrificed to get him through medical school. About forty.
Feels he was wrongfully charged. Conviction: Manslaughter in connection with the deaths by overdose of three young college students for whom he repeatedly prescribed addictive painkillers. Says they begged him to help
them. Easily manipulated. Played Buckingham in Richard III.
ADRIAN AND FRANCISCO, THE TWO COURTIERS. Note: Many productions cut these parts and assign some of their speeches to Gonzalo or Sebastian. A good plan and I’ve followed it.
GONZALO, ELDERLY COUNCILLOR TO ALONSO: Bent Pencil. Overweight, balding. In his fifties. WASP background. Accountant. Conviction: Embezzlement.
Intelligent, with a philosophical turn. Feels his sentence was undeserved.
Respected by the others, who think he can help them work the system once outside. Played Cassius in Julius Caesar, Duncan in Macbeth.
ANTONIO, USURPING BROTHER TO PROSPERO: SnakeEye. Italian background. Slim, works out. Has a squint. About thirty-five. Law degree, which when traced proved a forgery. Conviction: Real-estate scammer; falsified deeds, then sold properties he didn’t own. Also ran a minor Ponzi scheme. Persuasive, but only for those who want to be persuaded. Sense of entitlement. Thinks others are credulous and therefore deserve to be fleeced; feels he was only caught on a legal technicality. Played Macbeth. Played Richard III. Good villain.
STEPHANO, A DRUNKEN BUTLER: Red Coyote. In his twenties. Native-Canadian background. Conviction: Bootlegging, drug-pushing. Doesn’t think he was doing wrong because the legal system is illegitimate anyway. Played Mark Antony in JC. Played First Witch in Macbeth.
TRINCULO, A JESTER: TimEEz. Chinese family background on one side. Round- faced, pale. Took his stage name from the Timmy’s doughnut chain because he claims to have nothing in the middle of his head. Acts stupider than he is. Advanced pickpocket skills. Conviction: Running a retail shoplifting ring. Claims he was pressured into it. Soothsayer in Julius Caesar, doorkeeper in Macbeth. Natural clown.
ANNOUNCER: We have always used an announcer, who provides capsule versions of each scene so the audience can follow the plot. Considering Shiv the Mex for this part. New Mexican family background. Conviction: Assault.
Was acting as enforcer for a local gang. Outgoing personality, good voice.
Played Lord Grey in Richard III.
BOATSWAIN: PPod. African Canadian. Musical talent, and yes, I know about the clichés. A dancer, not as good as he thinks, but good. Conviction: Drugs, extortion, assault, gang-related. Would have been a fine Caliban but is needed in other capacities.
IRIS, CERES, JUNO: A problem, Felix has written. None of the men will agree to impersonate these goddessess. But Prospero calls them puppets, so why not use puppets? Or dolls, with digital voices. Give them an edge of strangeness. On video it could work.
There are a number of other roles and duties that Felix needs to assign: tech special effects, prompters, understudies. Costumes and props. He’ll need a photographer for the publicity stills; there won’t be any real publicity, of course, but the guys get a kick out of pictures of themselves in costume. The class has already decided they’ll be altering some of the musical numbers and adding others, so singers and dancers will be required. Rap singers, break dancers, is Felix’s guess. Anne-Marie can help them with the choreography.
He’s roughed out the crew, but things can be switched around as he discovers the capacities and limits of each.
Provisional Lineup
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 8Handz, lead tech; WonderBoy, Shiv, PPod, HotWire.
PROPS AND COSTUMES: Assign as project to each principal, with suggestions by their team.
PUBLICITY STILLS: WonderBoy. He has a sense of what looks glamorous.
MUSIC DJS: Leggs, Red Coyote, Paleface Lee, Riceball. 8Handz will do the sound editing.
INSTRUMENTALS: Leggs, Shiv the Mex, PPod, Red Coyote, Col.Deth.
CHORUS AND DANCERS: PPod, Leggs, TimEEz, VaMoose, Riceball, and Members of the Company, as required.
CHOREOGRAPHY: Anne-Marie Greenland, Leggs, PPod.
CHIEF GOBLINS: Riceball, Col.Deth, VaMoose. Convictions: Arson for insurance; armed robbery; drug charges. All first-time actors who can learn much from the others. Two of them have been bouncers.
BACKUP GOBLINS: Members of the Company, as required.
—
The Goblins, thinks Felix. The ultimate weapon. For the kernel of his secret
project, his nugget of revenge, everything hinges on the Goblins. What should they wear? Black ski masks, or is that too close to bank robbers and terrorists? If so, he thinks, all the better: fear can be very motivating. Sea-changing, you might say.
