BWW Reviews: EQUIVOCATION - Remember, Remember...

King James I of England was Scottish.

The titular character of Shakespeare's Macbeth is also Scottish.

Therefore, Macbeth is about King James.

This fallacy of logic is called an equivocation, although the term can also be used as a justification for lying...or at least stretching the truth to the breaking point. It is this second meaning that gives Bill Cain's latest play its title, although it is the first that gives the play its premise.

The play imagines what might have happened if Shakespeare (here renamed Shagspeare for no obvious reason, other than perhaps an acknowledgement of the mysteries surrounding the writer's identity, or perhaps a joke about his sexual prowess) were asked to write a play about the foiled Gunpowder Plot, which came close to blowing up Parliament in 1605. Shakespeare wrote dramatic histories aplenty, even some about (relatively) recent history. (King Henry VIII was probably performed for the late king's daughter.) But as far as we know, he never wrote about something that had just happened, much less an act that was nearly dividing the country and threatening its very unity. The country needs to remember, remember the fifth of November, but the playwright has the responsibility to determine exactly what it is they will remember. As he struggles to unravel the intrigues of both the Gunpowder Plot and the Court it nearly destroyed, Shag is forced to face his own conscience and demons while simultaneously struggling with the business we call show.

It's heady stuff, and certainly does not make for a light evening of theater. It is also brutally, sometimes painfully timely, and here is where both Cain and director Garry Hynes strike their brightest sparks. Much as Sondheim and Lane's version of The Frogs declared of its setting: "The time is now; the place is Ancient Greece," this play is thoroughly 21st-century Americana. The (mostly American) actors all speak with their own accents (except when they briefly become Scottish), and none of the dialogue would seem out of place on the street outside the theater.

The play is also brilliantly meta, with characters delivering soliloquies about soliloquies and discussing stagecraft while looking out over the audience. While a lesser playwright or director could have made these meta moments into camp, Cain and Hynes turn them into thought-provoking musings on the state of the art and the art of the state, and how politics and entertainment are often inexorably linked.

Which is not to say, of course, that Equivocation is two-and-a-half hours of political ponderings. Shakespeare knew that even the darkest dramas needed some comic relief, and this play has plenty of laughs to help balance the tension. Actors complain about showbiz, friends squabble and enemies snipe, and every ray of light makes the darkness that much scarier. One always feels more  empathy for a character after laughing with them.

Much as in last season's Mary Stuart, classic blends seamlessly with contemporary in both tone and style. Costume designer Francis O'Connor deserves much praise for his creations for both--the actors are clothed in modern suits and jackets that pair with period robes and vests, never letting one era overwhelm the other. The set, meanwhile, looks like an industrial warehouse...or a slaughterhouse, as it were. The wooden planks of the stage are weathered and worn, except for a circle of new, polished oak that somehow (though never directly) evokes The Globe Theatre. David Weiner's lighting design, meanwhile, uses bare lightbulbs to create a shadowy, haunted world-and that's just for the audience.

As for the actual actors in Equivocation (as opposed to the plays within the play), the cast of six takes on numerous roles with deceptive ease, flowing from one part to another-sometimes within the same scene or moment. All the world's a stage, but all these men and women play many more than one role. They are performers, spies, noblemen, commoners, Catholics, Protestants, killers and victims at the same time, or as the need arises. Again, lesser actors could have made the transitions jarring, but David Pittu, David Furr, Michael Countryman and Remy Auberjonois move between their roles effortlessly, making each character unique and distinctive. As Shag, John Pankow is both heartbreakingly intense and wryly funny, nicely capturing the wit and pain of a truly great artist. As his daughter Judith, Charlotte Parry speaks volumes in relatively few words, getting most of the play's soliloquies and delivering them with equal measures of grace, poignancy and intelligence.

Every play is, by its very nature, a period piece. It reflects the values and philosophies of the moment when it was written, either deliberately or subconsciously commenting on the times. While Equivocation may take place in 1606, it is a perfect little parable for the 21^st century and our own brand of politics and entertainment. Sometimes, the two are one and the same.  

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus