Spotlight on an STCer - Akiva Fox
Name: Akiva FoxCollege/ Education: I graduated with a degree in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, where I also (surprise, surprise) founded a Shakespeare company. After a year interning at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, I got an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy at the American Repertory Theatre Institute in Boston. Completing that program also meant spending three months in Russia, which was insane.
Position: Literary Associate.
So what do you do? : That’s what my family keeps asking. I write and edit most of the publications that the theatre puts out (Asides, the program, etc.). I research the historical and literary background of the plays, and make sure that the directors, actors, and designers have all the information they need. I read as many classic plays as I can get my hands on, and recommend the good ones to Michael Kahn for future seasons. And I coordinate and lead our audience discussions about the plays. Anything that seems literary is my territory, and that can change from day to day.
Favorite STC Production: The Persians. Lots of red sand, lots of great actors, and lots of research for me to do.
Favorite Shakespearean Play: Richard II. It’s Shakespeare at the height of his powers as a poet, but he never lets the beautiful words get in the way of writing believable humans. He’s incredibly clear-headed about how hard it is to separate personality and politics. And audiences are always surprised that they’ve never heard of this great play.
Favorite Shakespearean Villain: Angelo, in Measure for Measure. When he goes bad, he goes really bad.
posted by Shakespeare Theatre Company at 11:49 AM
1 Comments:
I recently saw King Lear at the STC and was actually appalled by the production. (I feel sorry for anyone who was not shaken by this production. Orgies of death and violence have that affect of normal people.) I have been attending the plays at the STC for many year and I look forward to Mr. Fox’s program notes as they often give some enlivening remarks on the play. At the end of the KL program notes he makes the statement that the play rejects the possibility of justice. He goes further to say that later plays by Shakespear, notably The Tempest, contain justice as a fiction.
This statement would imply that Mr. Fox is channeling William Shakespear if it were not for the fact that his initial premise is completely wrong. Now the STC production of KL seems to have edited out the justice in the play and added additional violence to the point that the production became gratuitous. Every death in the play was brought on stage and thrown in the audience’s lap. Minute long strangulation scenes added for your viewing pleasure.
However, this play is a Shakespearean tragedy and follows a formula. The tragic hero has a flaw, and that flaw brings on the disaster that follows. Lear has several flaw, certainly one of misplaces trust, belief in flattery, failure to see the truth or listen to reason. But the prime flaw from the period of history when the play was written was the king abdicating his power. Lear is king and he can not give it away. What this flaw gets is by definition justice. It is the natural progression of events.
Now the STC changed many parts of the play. Shakespear’s KL has a loyal and brave servant defend Gloucester and mortally wound Cornwall. Not at the STC. They have Edmund somehow come on stage, he was sent to Goneril before Gloucester’s arrest, and strangle Cornwall. Once Edmund has dispatched Cornwall he copulates with Regan on stage. No subtlety needed in this production.
Then there is the dual between Edgar and Edmund (5.3.116) with its formal charges and protocols. The sequence of the lines was altered at the STC to shorten the scene but also to remove the reconciliation of Edgar and Edmund. Consider the lines (5.3.168-172):
EDGAR ...
The gods are just and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us:
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.
EDMUND Thou’st spoken right, ‘tis true;
The wheel is come full circle, I am here.
These lines, removed from the STC production along with much else, show the true KL. In the end it is Akiva Fox who shares Lear’s tragic flaw of being unable to distinguish truth. Perhaps Mr. Fox has been deconstructed and can no longer find truth?
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