Equivocation: Truth, Near-Truth and Staying Alive in 1605
Marin Theatre Company did a good thing for itself last fall when it booked Equivocation for this season. Bill Cain’s year-old play continues to rack up awards, most recently the 2010 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award with a subsequent $25,000 cash prize. Local buzz about it has created an extraordinary demand for tickets and two extensions of the closing date, now set for May 2.
Equivocation’s central character is William Shakespeare, called Will Shagspeare in the script, but this is not your father’s Shakespeare. This is a businessman trying to maintain his life and his livelihood in tumultuous times. Queen Elizabeth has died, and the nation has a new monarch, James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth is said to have had executed. Since James is the closest thing Elizabeth has to an heir, the Scottish king, born of a Catholic mother, has taken her throne. This change of monarch brings Catholic-Protestant rivalries bubbling to the surface again and destabilizes the established social order.
One sign of the tumult is the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a supposed attempt by Catholic rebels to blow up Parliament along with the king and his family. On behalf of the King, “Shagspeare” is approached by a scheming Robert Cecil to write a play about it, telling him, “Your works last . . . and you do it all with a straight face.”
The playwright’s business partners in the Globe Theatre, the King’s Men theatrical company, resist any works about current events because audiences want their actors to be heroes. Still, the powerful Cecil has ordered it, so a script begins to take shape and to go through preliminary rehearsals, but Shagspeare finds blank spaces in this Gunpowder Plot story. If the tunnel was constructed, how did these gentleman diggers get rid of the dirt? Who brought timbers to shore up the tunnel? Where did the plotters find so much gunpowder? And was Fr. Garnet, a Jesuit priest, one of the masterminds of the plot? (Playwright Cain is himself a Jesuit priest.) Interviews with two of the imprisoned plotters only deepen the mystery. All this happens in the first act.
But the second act of the play vaults ahead with a dizzying succession of plot lines, for Equivocation has three more stories to tell: exploring the difference between truth and “truthiness;” mending Shagspeare’s strained relationship with his daughter, Judith; restoring unity among the quarreling King’s Men, and defending against Cecil’s hunger for power with the new King. The King, it turns out, will be appeased with a new, Scottish play, Macbeth, featuring James’ favorite characters, witches. But the demands of so many stories results in almost three hours of multiple endings and no single big finish. “Confusing” was an overheard comment.
MTC’s Artistic Director, Jasson Minadakis, has directed this fast-paced production with exquisite timing and attention to detail. J.B. Wilson’s skeletal set mimics the contours of The Globe and “the path between the Globe and the Tower” that Bill Cain describes in his program notes. Fumiko Bielefeldt’s costumes span the centuries, as the play’s theme intends. And the actors, all of them Equity members, are superb.
As Shagspeare, Charles Shaw Robinson, is beleaguered, middle-aged, and still grieving for his dead son, Hamnet. His daughter Judith (Anna Bullard) is sturdily loyal, while still accepting her less-favored state. The King’s Men, played by Andrew Hurteau, Craig Marker, Lance Gardner and Andy Murray, provide the play’s movement, athleticism, accents and characters. And let’s also reserve applause for dialect coach Deborah Sussel, who can turn any of them into Scotsmen at the drop of a cue.
Equivocation will play at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley through May 2. Evening performances are at 8:00 Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, Wednesdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 7:00. Matinees are every Sunday at 2:00 and Saturday April 17 and 24 at 2:00 also. For additional information or for reservations, contact the box office, 388-5208, or see www.marintheatre.org.