Equivocation, Bill Cain

Last week I was treated to the invited dress rehearsal for Equivocation, now in it's third incarnation with the original cast at Arena Stage. The play took its first breath at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2009, then headed to Seattle Rep in 2010. While it has had a run in New York (with a different cast and director), somehow this cast can't seem to shake this play - and I won't be able to, either.

This play is about the commissioning of a new play. Shagspeare is called before the crippled counselor Robert Cecil to begin work on a plot outlined by King James I: The True History of the Gunpowder Plot. An event which happened only a year or two prior. "I don't write new plays," Shagspeare protests, "I adapt!" The inflammatory piece wreaks havoc on his business partners and fellow artists at the Globe, especially with long-time collaborator Richard Burbage, but also creates a bridge between the playwright and his daughter, Judith - a Wednesday Adams-ish character with a dark sense of humor and a sharp attitude. In trying to write this play in a way that tells the truth without getting anyone killed for treason, Shagspeare interviews the remaining members of the accused plot - a young man named Thomas Winter, and the famous equivocator, Jesuit Father Henry Garnet. Shagspeare is impressed with the man's turn of phrase - of answering without answering - and begs to be taught. "What question are you really answering?" poses Garnet. Amidst betrayal, political danger, entrapment, and artistic ennui, Shagspeare's famous Scottish play begins to take shape.

The whole thing was a tight three hours, with only six actors distributing the roles. Well, Shag and Judith were played by one person, while everyone else had many more parts to play. Each part informed the others, though, and while in some productions a man swapping between playing MacDuff onstage and King James in the audience would be hokey, this was just entrancing. 

I don't want to talk too much about the performances, but the text speaks for itself. Playwright Bill Cain (a Jesuit Father himself) obviously studied Shakespeare's work well. In a time of disappointment that intelligent yet entertaining discussions of Shakespeare's influences, humanity, and work are not available, this play was incredible. My brain buzzed with the possibilities and connections between politics and art - and how they still influence each other today. My heart ached for Shagspeare and Judith, a struggling father-daughter relationship that never got over Hamnet's death. My pulse quickened with the incredibly deft insertions of recognizable text from not only Macbeth, but Richard III, Hamlet, and others.

I loved this play so hard, and I am doing my damnedest to see it again and obtain a copy of the text for myself. I feel at this moment I would clutch it and weep with happiness.

EQUIVOCATION
Trade Copies available at Arena Stage during this run (Nov 18-Jan 1)

Enjoy this youtube clip of Bill Cain and director Bill Rauch discussing the play, and Sub/Text reading materials provided by Arena Stage.