Podcast #176
THERE IS A SHOW COMING CALLED WHAT YOU WILL
Initially to be called BARD FOR LIFE, until performer / playwright decided on the more practical
And it stars a gentleman of distinction. It will be playing July 18th - August 9th, 2008 at A.C.Ts Geary theatre for a limited engagement run.
I dont want to give to much away at the beginning because this is one on the coolest interviews to ever grace Cool As Hell. But I will tell you that this is a one man show that takes a romp thru Shakespearean soliloquies, and does so with humor. It is being performed by a veteran Shakespearean actor who knows how to make compelling characters.
And in this interview, although I knew him to be a compelling actor, I felt the title of his new one man show, WHAT YOU WILL, was rather dull and non-descript. So in those words, dull and non-descript, I ask this veteran stage, tv and film actor to explain his choice for the title of his show.
What he revealed was eye opening to me. I learned something about one of Shakespeare plays that I had never known. WHAT YOU WILL is actually the secondary title to one of shakespeares plays.
But Roger, in this interview, gives us about 3 layers to the reason why he chose the title WHAT YOU WILL. And they make great sense
IF YOU LISTEN TO THIS INTERVIEW, YOULL GAIN VALUABLE INSIGHT INTO CRAFT AND TECHNIQUE OF ACTING WORTH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!
It sounds terrific, but, when and Obie winning, Tony winning actor, who has acted along side some of the BIGGEST NAMES in HOLLYWOOD discusses character, the VALUE of listening to this FREE podcast is ASTRONOMICAL!
How many times in your life have you gotten up close and personal with a true film, TV, and stage legend and gotten to listen to him distill his knowledge down into tasty bite sized morsels that allow you to walk onto the stage and start utilizing them? RIGHT AWAY!
I am going to venture to guess that you dont have that opportunity very often. But that is ok. I am going to venture to say that even I dont get that opportunity very often. So I am sure you can understand the thrill I experienced when I got that opportunity with a man whose name you probably wont recognize, but whose face has been around the entertainment block a few times.
What if I told you the man who was dispensing this knowledge had no pretentious intentions. As a matter of fact, he was as down to earth as you and your next door neighbor. I mean humbleness oozed out of him (until of course, at one point in the interview I asked him to unleash his ego. He did it brilliantly, by the way).
Let me tell it to you like this.
Because this man has been on so much television.
Because this man has been in so many films.
Because this man has set foot on many of the most prestigious stages.
And because this man is now marketing, publicizing and performing his one man show
EVERYBODY wanted to interview him. And when Cool As Hell got the email invite to come in for the interview, well, lets just say cool as hell is as cool as hell does (meaning our jaws hit the ground but we never let them see us sweat!) But you see, this gentleman had A TON of interviews before I got the chance to interview him. I was actually the last on his agenda (not because we werent cool as hell enough, but because my schedule wouldnt allow for me to be there any earlier. And this gentleman, and his PR firm were kind enough to accommodate my schedule (thank you Carla).
So As you can imagine, or at least I was imagining, this fellow had to be SICK of doing interviews. But guess what? He seemed thrilled, energetic, and truly honored to be on the Cool As Hell Theatre Show.
I say this because I was certain that he was going to give me some dull-drum answers and kind of go thru the motions. But, and I say But here, but he didnt. He gave me his undivided attention. He put careful thought into his answers. He was generous with his responses and gracious in his demeanor.
And thats why I believe the San Francisco Bay Areas premier performing arts podcast was able to capture some golden advice from a veteran of the stage, TV and film.
Some of the insights he gave into the craft of acting was something that every actor, director and audience member should listen to intently. He explains the mistakes people tend to make when they tackle Shakespeare. And to be honest with you, having myself been taught by some master Shakespeare teachers, I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Acting tips that you’d have to pay thousands of dollars for to hear from some random acting teacher
How many of you actors, directors or even general audience members who have encountered Shakespeare have heard it treated like it is a religious piece of text? And how do you remember the production? Was it memorable? Was it enjoyable?
I hope you answered these questions with a resounding NO!
It is not a religious text, and this great actor, with EXTENSIVE Shakespearan knowledge believes that to treat it like it is such does not serve the text. It makes it dull, it makes it boring and it makes it unwatchable.
he then goes on to speculate on what Shakespeare may have sounded like. LITERALLY. This guest (and I will let you in on a little secretHe is British) seems to think that Shakespeare sounds best and was meant to be performed as Americans do and as Americans sound.
And to top it off, when you understand that Shakespeare understood the human condition better than anyone else, you come away with a mountain of gold worth of advice from this gentleman.
Take it from me, if you value information, if you value wisdom distilled from experience, if you value principles of performance, you are going to want to listen to this whole interview. It is chalk full of information that will definitely make you a better performer and possible a better human being.
Here is another tip in equation form:
Humanness -poetry +story for story sake "religious experience = HUGE PAYOFF IN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
This may not make absolute sense, but after you listen to the interview, this will come to light.
NAME DROPPING, IN MY OPINION, CAN BE A HUGE TURN OFF, LIKE SOME PION TRYING TO BE SOMETHING HE IS NOT. BUT…
What happens when the name dropping is well qualified? By a well qualified individual? Is it still repulsive?
There is a podcast that I did by a gentleman who claimed he wrote and was responsible for the movie The Wedding Crasher with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. I actually met him quite by accident.
I was at a Family Pickle Circus anniversary event (and if I may name drop here, that is where the great Bill Irwin, whom I have interviewed, did a lot of training). I was there to do coverage of the event. As I was setting up, a gentleman walked over, introduced himself, and begin to pitch away.
My name is Rex Reginald and I want to give you the interview of a lifetime. You probably dont know me by name but you definitely know my work. You know the movie The Wedding Crashers? Well I am THE original wedding crasher. I wrote the book on crashing weddings. As a matter of fact I am currently in a lawsuit right now against the producers of the movie for not acknowledging who I am, the book I wrote and me being an inspiration for that movie. Isnt that ridiculous? They would never have had a movie if it wasnt for my book. I mean the techniques in that movie were soooo similar to what I laid out, I was astonished when I saw the movie. I mean I was flummoxed, or as you African Americans like to say, I was bamboozled. You know what I mean brotha? Well anyway, incase you dont believe me I want to show you some pictures. [podcast #34]
This guys pulls out magazine covers, magazine articles, with him standing next to some big name stars. And he is spewing his fast talk faster than a Ferrari Modena can reach 60 from standstill. And I had to admit, I was intrigued by it all, BUT
at the same time I was leary! And he gave me his card and said that I should give him a call to do an interview.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, pimps, players and hustlers of the theatre world, I did him one better. I said how about right now? I have a few minutes. He agreed and we were off the to races.
After the interview, I was exhausted. Not physically tired, but mentally drained. This guy talked a mile a minute and named dropped with an efficacy that Heidi Fleiss couldnt match if she was reading from her black book.
In the end, I ruled him out as a phony. And so did the listeners who wrote to the Cool as Hell Theatre Podcast. Many of them went out and researched the guy only to come up with NOTHING to substantiate any of his claims.
So why am I telling you all of this? This guy Rex Reginald named dropped because he was A PION TRYING TO BE SOME BIG SHOT HOLLYWOOD PLAYER when in actuality he was obviously the red headed bastard child of a love tryst gone horribly wrong by 2 people who could never make anything of themselves.
That is name dropping gone bad.
The flip side to this story is
The gentleman in this current show IS the EXACT OPPOSITE. When this guy name drops, he does so with credentials to back him up.
When this guy name drops, he does so with stories so believable, you know he is genuine.
When this guy name drops, he does so with some of the biggest legends in television, stage and film, and has personal details about these persons that would be hard to find in public media.
PLEASE TELL ME, WHO IS THIS GUY ALREADY? AND WHAT NAMES, FOR GODS SAKE, DOES HE DROP?
He is none other than Roger Rees.
Now before you go saying WHO???? Who in the hell is Roger Rees???, let me give you his background.
Do you remember the Television Show Cheers. Well he was the character named Robin Colcord, the multimillionaire industrialist who was hot for Rebecca Howe (played by Kirstie Ally). If you ever saw the show, Cheers, you know his character and how brilliantly he played Robin Colcord.
So Roger Rees can talk about Woody Harrelson, Shelley Long, John Ratzenberger, Kelsey Grammer, Kirstie Alley, Ted Danson, George Wendt, Bebe Neuwirth, and Rhea Perlman.
TV and Film Credits include:
Lord John Marbury (West Wing)
Carlin Marlow (Greys Anatomy)
The Prestige
The Invasion
The Pink Panther
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Frida
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Garfield
But believe me when I say this IS not an exhaustive list. Check out his complete list of works at the internet movie database.
Not only is Roger Rees an accomplished TV and Film actor, he is also an accomplished stage actor. When I say this cat is accomplished, I mean award winning. But let me first say that he spent 22 years in one of the most prestigious Shakespeare companies in the world. I am sure that many of you know what company that is. The Royal Shakespeare Company. It was while he was a company member there that he won an Olivier Award for his role in the RSCs THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.
In case you dont know, the Olivier awards are the British equivalent of our American Tony Awards. Which by the way, I should say, he also won a Tony award for the same role in the LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.
So back to the name dropping issue. He can drop the names of the famous alumni of the Cheers cast, but it goes deeper than that. Although the Cheers cast has some very famous people, and although the Cheers alumni boasts of some very talented individuals, Roger Rees goes on to name drop some even BIGGER names than the Cheers cast.
Listen in to hear about his exploits with Ben Kingsley, as they traveled to Los Angeles during a production. Ben Kingsley is an Oscar winner for his portrayal of Ghandi, in the movie Ghandi. He is a 3 time Oscar nominee for best supporting actor in the movies Bugsy, Sexy beast and House of Sand and Fog.
Ben Kingsley has been in well over 150 television and TV roles. His latest, more popular films include, The Love Guru (2008), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Oliver Twist (2005), Suspect Zero (2004), etc.
How about the name Patrick Stuart, who Roger Rees also counts as a friend. Patrick Stuart is an Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and Tony-nominated English film, television and stage actor.
Patrick Stuart is most well known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Xavier in the X-Men films.
Then there is his good friend Judy Dench.
She has won 9 BAFTAs,
6 Laurence Olivier Awards,
1 Academy Award,
1 Golden Globe,
and 1 Tony.
Dench’s more recent film career has been extremely successful. She successfully garnered six Academy Award nominations in nine years for Mrs Brown in 1997; her Oscar-winning turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in 1998; for Chocolat in 2000; for the lead role of writer Iris Murdoch in Iris in 2001 (with Kate Winslet playing her as a younger woman); for Mrs Henderson Presents (a romanticised history of the Windmill Theatre) in 2005; and for 2006’s Notes on a Scandal, a film for which she received critical acclaim, including Golden Globe, Academy Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Dench]
Ohhh, wait. And lets not forget the godfather of acting (and no I am not talking about Al Pachinos Scarface). I am talking about the real life, contemporary godfather of acting.
HERE IS A HINT: STELLAAAAAAAAAA!
Thats right. Roger Rees has walked along side Laurence Olivier. Roger Rees has been on screen with the big O. And Roger Rees has a story about Mr. Olivier that he reveals on the Cool As Hell Theatre podcast.
So although name dropping can be the mark of a wannabe, of a pion, of a nobody trying to ride on the coattails of those who have worked hard to establish themselves, when Roger Rees does it, it feels absolutely genuine.
A VETERAN BRITISH ACTOR DECLARES AMERICANS AS GOOD OR BETTER AT SHAKESPEARE THAN THE BRITISH.
There has always been a long debate about whether the British where better at acting Shakespeare compared to Americans. The British have always felt that they were superior handlers of the language than the Americans. But Americans have always felt that they embodied the soul of the meaning behind the lines of Shakespeare.
Here we have, recorded and on tape, a 22 year Royal Shakespeare Company alumni saying, This New generation of young American actors do shakespeare better than anyone I have seen and I has worked with all the great actors.
I will take that as a victory for the strength of Shakespearian performances on the American soil.
GO OUT AND SEE ROGER REES PERFORMING WHAT YOU WILL
The British are coming, The British are coming
This is his show that he is bringing to the SF Bay Area. “This is hysterical (and somewhat historical) 90 minute gallop through all things Shakespearean is an irreverent one-man everything there is to be or not to be about William Shakespeare: the greatest soliloquies ever written along with side splitting accounts of the funniest disasters ever perpetrated on the stage.”
SHOW NOTES
American Conservatory Theatre: The Website
Playing July 18"August 9, 2008
Get Tickets: Roger Rees’ WHAT YOU WILL
Listen Now
a.c.t. act american conservatory theatre ben kingsley carla befera judy dench laurence olivier patrick stewart roger rees shakespeare
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