Interview: Christian Hege in ALEXANDER KLAUS, THE ONE-LEGGED SHOEMAKER MAN at 59E59 Theaters

Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man is now being performed at 59E59 Theaters through December 22nd.  Directed by Jenny Mercein, it is written and performed by Christian Hege.

This one-man play tells the story of a young soldier with the curious name Alexander “Sander” Klaus. He returns home from the Civil War forever changed, with wounds on his heart, mind, and body. In the immigrant melting pot of boisterous, soot-covered, 1800’s New York City he forms relationships and builds a new life. What he can’t explain is why the wartime flashbacks that plague him somehow coincide with the mysterious appearance of children’s toys.  Told in ingenious rhyming verse. this optimistic play delights and surprises at every turn. It is an achingly beautiful fairy tale that raises the possibility of transforming pain into joy. 

When did you first realize you were destined for a career in the arts?
 
Oh gosh, my first response to that question might be, "Hey wait a minute, you've got the wrong guy." I've screwed up this career so many times -- even with opportunities dropping into my path like a 16-ton weight from Monty Python -- that at first glance, "destined" might be followed by "um… oh sorry, apparently not." It's just possible though, that I was destined to be a writer/actor, and not a pianist/musical director, which is what I was when I came to New York in 1981. It just took me a lifetime of getting it wrong, to get here. And I have to add: I am overwhelmed with gratitude, for this particular 16-ton weight, from 59E59.
 
You have such an eclectic performance background. What are some of the challenges of balancing your many career interests?
 
Eclectic! That's very sweet, thank you. And challenges! I have a short John Wilkes Booth piece, that I like to perform for high schoolers. AP US History. We always do a Q&A after, and sometimes the kids ask me "What's the hardest part about writing?" My answer is a flat, "Getting your butt in the chair and keeping it there." It's the single greatest challenge to pretty much everything I've ever done. But when I'm finally in that chair, I can usually find a groove, and nice things happen. (Including all the laundry and the dishes, later! It's amazing!)
 
But another tremendous challenge for me has been healthy relationships. I don't want to get into this much, except to say that I haven't been expert in that area -- I've been divorced twice, and the toll has been very heavy. The second divorce essentially ended my musical output, and I started writing verse partly because it was cheap, and private.
 
And writing verse eventually got me to Alexander Klaus. What overcomes challenges for me is having an idea -- one that I know I'll want to live with, for a very long time.
 
Have you had any particular mentors?
 
Yes, my director Jenny Mercein. This show, and the one before it ("Grýla – Not for Children") are pretty much a reboot of my creative career. And Jenny has all but led me out of the dark, dropped me on stage, and said from the wings, "Yes, you can do this."
 
To have a mentor, you have to be willing to set aside a certain portion of your own ego. That's a little tricky for me, because I handed in my student ID a lifetime ago. But it happens somehow, with Jenny. And for her part, she's able to ignore that I'm old enough to be her father (although, you should have seen the look on her face the other day, when I took a misstep and fell over my stupid chair).
 
For any of my other mentors, I have to reach way into the past. Like so many performers, I had a couple of teachers in high school who opened the door to the entire world for me. One taught theater, and one taught me the piano. Both of them had the magic touch of a mentor, which is to inspire you to actually put in the work and to reach, hard -- for yourself, not for them. My theater teacher is still living, and I drop by to see him every year or two, when I visit family in North Carolina. He's as cranky now as he was fifty years ago, and delightful for it.
 
Can you tell us about one of the most memorable moments in your career?
 
It's funny, none of them are about "personal triumphs." They're about tiny little things that have happened, and have left me breathless. One is a recital many years ago, on a Steinway grand that had just been fully regulated by a senior technician -- from Steinway -- that very afternoon. The piano was an epiphany to play. It made me better than I was. Another was a production of "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" with just a piano/bass/percussion trio, in the pit. The woman playing Eve dropped a beat one night, in one of her songs. And with absolutely no direction from me, the three of us dropped the very next beat, to realign with her. It just happened. And a moment as a writer? One afternoon I was looking for material, and I read the legend of how music came to Scotland -- it's just a tiny little thing, a couple of paragraphs long. I got to the last sentence and I think I went blind for just a second -- the ending hit me so hard that my senses lapsed.
 
Don't get me wrong. I do like applause. And I especially like getting an email that says basically, I got the gig, someone believes in my stuff. It's all memorable, all of it. But the tiny things offer a lens into a very mysterious world. They're unforgettable because they're outside of anything we expect. They're uninvited, and they're so ephemeral.
 
What was the inspiration for Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man?
 
There was a particular story trigger, for one small aspect of Alexander Klaus, in a well-known TV show in the 20th Century, on one of the big three TV networks. That is as specific as I'm going to get. I did try to get the rights, but being a nobody, with no agent, no nothing, I never got a reply to my inquiries -- not even a polite "drop dead." So I wrote a wholly different story. So there.
 
When I started sketching some ideas, I thought at first that Alexander might be an early department-store Santa, with some sort of sad, miraculous back story. I knew that he would be a tragic character. I fiddled with a character biography, working backwards from my own age (I'm 68 now), to find some terrible event that would shape his life. So it became obvious right away, that he was a Civil War veteran. And just googling one day, I found a bit in the New York Times about Napoleon Perkins, of the Fifth Maine Artillery, who lost his leg to a shell under an apple tree, in the spring. It's one of many events in the piece that really happened -- I just put Alexander into the middle of them all.
 
We'd love to know more about the team that is bringing your show to 59E59 Theaters.
 
I've been in a writing group here in New York for nearly eleven years. People come, people go. Most of us aren't full-time writers -- although we do get to celebrate the occasional debut novel, or short film, or even scientific publication. It's an eclectic group. And the entire team for Alexander Klaus has come through them.
 
My costumer is Adam Stocker who, as far as I can tell, has worked on everything in town. I approached Adam about an unusual Santa outfit even before I had finished writing the piece. He's brilliantly gifted, and I was glad to get him to do the costume, just so I could sit down and have coffee with him.
 
Second is Jenny, my director. She was recommended by another member of the group, a playwright who's known her for many years. Jenny is tenured faculty at Tulane University in New Orleans, and she's just had another success as a producer of the documentary "Roleplay," which was featured at DOC NYC a couple of weeks ago. This is my second show with Jenny, and as soon as it closes, I'm going to read her my next one, which will be our third. We're a great fit, and I can't wait to start working on it. (Jenny also introduced me to Kris Danford at Penn State, my dialect coach; and Kyra Miller of the University of Vermont, my movement advisor.)
 
Third is my stage manager Rachel Messbauer. Rachel joined the group in mid-2019, pretty much after getting off the bus from Washington DC. She came here to do theater, and then lockdown happened a few months later. You know that question you asked a little while ago, about "destined for a career in the arts?" That's Rachel. She's brilliant. I would be happy to do tech rehearsals with her for the rest of my life, because I know that they're going to hurt less. And her notes are laser-guided. I am so happy to work day-to-day with her, on this show.
 
What would you like audiences to know about the show?
 
It's small! This is black box, period, the end. And it's such a pleasure to play it in Theater C, at 59E59. You walk into that space and you know it's going to be an intimate event. Like, one guy, telling you a story.
 
It's lit close. No effects. I grew up first as a hopeful concert pianist (that didn't pan out), where it's just the artist at the piano, and the audience in the dark. No mic, no projections, no surprises -- just the way some particular pianist approaches Bach, or Liszt, or Rachmaninoff. And for the audience, a huge part of that is just being human -- and seeing, and celebrating, what a human can do. I really hope to bring the goods, with Alexander Klaus.
 
Can you share with us any of your future plans?
 
I'm working on a Hansel & Gretel right now, the first draft is about two-thirds done. Several winters ago I went to an art history lecture at The Met, featuring the actress Lili Taylor, and she mentioned Hansel & Gretel just in passing. I'm not going to repeat the context, you'll have to go fish. But it was important -- and it hit me like a bolt of lightning, that Hansel & Gretel would be the next thing I wrote. I swear, I can't remember anything else about the lecture, at all.
 
I'm not sure what the final form will be. One friend has suggested puppets -- something like Juan Darién, back in the late 1980s -- and another has suggested an animated film. For now, I'm just concentrating on writing the verse, and I'll take it to Edinburgh Fringe in 2026.
 
And I can't wait to get back to Edinburgh Fringe. What a rich, wonderful experience.
 
Anything else, absolutely anything you want BroadwayWorld readers to know.
 
This is where someone might close with some bit of sweeping, life-affirming advice! But I'll go small, because I know what has worked for me.
 
I'm 68, and I finally have a show. Life is longer than you think. Just be damn sure to eat right, get enough sleep, and get some exercise. Your mind really, really needs you to take care of your body. Get out there.
 
Follow Christian Hege on social media on Instagram @ChristianHegeStoryteller; Facebook - Christian Hege, Stories in Verse and visit his website www.ChristianHege.com. 

59E59 Theaters is located at 59 E. 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues). For tickets to Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man, please visit the theater's website HERE. 

Photo Credit: Adrian Buckmaster