Portland Center Stage

A Ravaged Space

Posted by Chris Coleman | 15 December 2011 | Comments (3)

 

The first stage direction of Shakespeare's Amazing Cymbeline reads:

"A ravaged space:  an abandoned warehouse or an ancient ruin.

Darkness.

A weary, old man wanders in, searching for light.  He is frayed around the edges: still, unimpressed.  He takes the space in and moves easily toward a beat up keyboard, removes a dusty cover; pulls a huge, decrepit manuscript from a briefcase and lays it atop the piano.  He strikes a few chords:  easy, slow, suspended."

Shakespeare's story, one of the last he chose to write, wanders all over the place: from the court of ancient Britain, to the elegant homes of Rome, to the wilds of Wales.  It traffics in banishments, intrigue, battles, seductions, betrayals, and blunt grabs for power.  Telescoping the action to a story that five actors could manage to deliver clearly presented substantial challenges, but also resulted in some of the most unique aspects of the piece.

Diving into the design process was as much about discovering the rules of this adaptation as it was about figuring out what the actual space might look like.  After all, much of the story is told through the voice of this mysterious pianist who seemed (in my imagination) to live somewhere in the mid-twentieth century, while the actual story itself, which comes to life out of his imagination, lives in ancient Britain.  A big puzzle.

 

The audience will be arranged in four banks of seating that are slightly angled toward each other, with a large, diamond-shaped platform in the center of the space.   Entrances happen from the four corners of the room, and right through the audience banks themselves.  

Michael Keck will play the Piano Player.  Michael is both a composer and music director, as well as an actor.  He's worked across the country:  Berkeley Repertory, the Alliance, Prince Music THeater, La Mama, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, as well as many seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Among his other claims to fame:  Michael was the original keyboard player for the funk band Mother's Finest.

Scott Coopwood plays Cymbeline (the King of Britain), Philario (a Roman Nobleman) and a captain in the Roman army.  Scott is now based in the Bay Area but Portland audiences know him well from his performances in Snow Falling on Cedars, Frost/Nixon, Sometimes a Great Notion, King Lear, The Devils, Man and Superman and Hamlet.

Kelly Curran plays Imogen (the heir to the British throne).  She studied at Fordham University and the British American Dramatic Academy at Oxford.  And she's recently been seen in Angels in America (Signature Theater), Henry V (Guthrie), Romeo and Juliet (McCarter Theater in New Jersey), Violent Delights (the Public Theater), and Jane Eyre and The Tempest (The Acting Company).

Ryan McCarthy plays Posthumous (Imogen's banished husband), Cloten (the Queen's power-mad son) and Belarius (the long-ago banished confidante of the King). Ryan studied literature at Harvard and acting at the University of California, San Diego.  In New York he's worked at Manhattan Theater Club, The Public, and HERE Arts; regionally he's worked at La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage Company, Huntington Theater and Theater at Monmouth.

Danny Wolohan plays Pisanio (Imogen's trusted servant), Caius Lucius (the Ambassador to Rome) and Guiderius (the long-lost son of the King).  Danny was last seen here at PCS squalking like a chicken in The Imaginary Invalid, and in the past two seasons of JAW (Middletown, Tales from Red Vienna, The Huntsman).

 

John San Nicholas plays the Queen, Iachimo (the conniving Italian nobleman who tries to seduce Imogen) and Arviragus (the second long-lost son of the King).  John is well-known to Portland audiences from his performances at Imago,  Miracle Theater, Artists Rep (The Ghosts of Celilo), Portland Playhouse and Co-Ho (last season's smash hit Reasons to be Pretty).

We begin rehearsals on January 3, 2012.