Director Rick Mokler has had his eye on bringing “The Beard of Avon” to life on a City College stage since it debuted March 2001.
“It’s a perfect comedic play that will appeal to a wide-ranging audience,” Mokler said. “It’s like ‘Shakespeare in Love’ with broader comedy.” The play, a piece of fiction written by Amy Freed, examines the controversy surrounding whether or not William Shakespeare in fact wrote the 36 plays and 154 sonnets credited to him.
Freed depicts Shakespeare, or Will, as an illiterate and fumbling common-man which starkly contrasts his legacy as a world-renowned playwright.
Irwin Appel, professional actor and UCSB assistant professor of dramatic arts, is slotted to play Edward DeVere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, or Shakespeare’s “beard.” In this case “beard” meaning ghostwriter.
Appel said he loves working at City College and is looking forward to this opportunity. He particularly enjoys the challenges an actor encounters when playing such a diverse character.
“I’m very excited to take on a role of such wit and flamboyance,” said Appel, a graduate of Julliard.
“DeVere is excitable, impulsive, melodramatic and just plain bored with his life. He’s up for an adventure–this is wonderful to act.”
He described the play as a combination of humor and whimsy. The type of piece one could get lost in, and find themselves lifted away for a while. The play uses history as a springboard into the imagination. Freed’s script is laced with Shakespearean prose and deeply buried humor that Mokler describes as a common parable of our current times. It’s a satirical piece of writing that scratches the surface of an age-old argument.
“When you watch it, you ask yourself, what if DeVere really were the writer?” said Mokler. “It’s just a fun way of looking at things.” The characters are a mixture of controlled excess which makes them timeless, appealing and less drab by both Elizabethan and modern standards.
Shakespeare’s character, a relocated farmer, meets DeVere, a playwright with a fantastic repertoire of plays, and they begin collaborating.
Will soon discovers DeVere’s plays lack humanistic qualities. The two of them setout on an iambic-pentameter filled intoxicating journey you have to see to believe.
“In many ways, Shakespeare’s life is a mystery to us,” Appel said. Mokler said that is precisely the play’s main draw.
“The Beard of Avon,” will be performed by The Santa Barbara City College Theatre Group, a combination of professional, armature, and student actors.
The play has already received critical acclaim in both New York and San Francisco, where Mokler first discovered it.
Appel said the plays off-the-wall plot makes it pleasing to watch.
“Amy Freed obviously takes great enjoyment in ‘creating’ the character of William Shakespeare,” he said. “I’m also sure she’d be the first to tell you that it’s pure fiction, and that’s the fun of it.”
Mokler said he decided to put the play on this summer because of its elaborate costumes, many of which are rented from Los Angeles, and also its intricate set. He also said it gives him the opportunity to focus his undivided attention on this spectacle, without having to deal with the semester’s distractions.
He is excited at the prospect of three straight successful theatrical runs. With a large group of loyal subscribers, he believes the play will be nothing short of a hit.
“We have had two huge successes in a row,” he said. “This play basically questions whether or not Shakespeare was literate; let alone whether or not he wrote plays.”
No matter who the actual playwright was somebody used 21,000 words and 200 forms of rhetoric. To find out who it was, catch “The Beard of Avon,” July 15 through July 30 in the Garvin Theatre.