{"id":208,"date":"2009-09-06T16:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-06T19:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.244.61\/~twisithe\/?p=208"},"modified":"2023-08-03T17:09:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T20:09:10","slug":"silliness-and-shakespeare-caffeinated-soliloquies-by-jeremy-webb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twisitheatreblog.com\/?p=208","title":{"rendered":"Silliness and Shakespeare: Caffeinated Soliloquies by Jeremy Webb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_T3kh_qPyRZY\/Sl0rfrOLs9I\/AAAAAAAAADg\/Yy-uCBL-T-A\/s1600-h\/IMG_2583.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 327px; CURSOR: hand\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358486954818909138\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_T3kh_qPyRZY\/Sl0rfrOLs9I\/AAAAAAAAADg\/Yy-uCBL-T-A\/s400\/IMG_2583.JPG\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">In Halifax the name Jeremy Webb is likely to be synonymous with two things: constant hilarity, and the posting of a slew of old photographs of absolutely everyone in the Nova Scotian theatre community on Facebook within the last week and a half. Since arriving in Canada from England in 1998, Webb has become a mainstay of theatre in Nova Scotia, performing, and also directing, often at <a class=\"snap_shots\" href=\"http:\/\/www.neptunetheatre.com\/\">Neptune Theatre<\/a>, <a class=\"snap_shots\" href=\"http:\/\/www.festivalantigonish.com\/\">Festival Antigonish <\/a>and <a class=\"snap_shots\" href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespearebythesea.ca\/\">Shakespeare by the Sea <\/a>(where he won the 2009 Merritt Award for his brilliant portrayal of Iago). His most recent venture takes him on tour to schools around the province with a new show he created and performs with Simon Henderson called <em>Shakespeare On Trail<\/em>. The show previously played for three public performances in June at the BusStop Theatre* and is currently playing as part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atlanticfringe.ca\/\">Atlantic Fringe Festival <\/a>at the Neptune Studio Theatre. Webb and I sat down at Uncommon Grounds Coffee on Argyle Street in Halifax on a perfectly Maritime wet, misty day to chat about this new venture. I drank hot chocolate, while he had tea and banana bread. \u201cTea and cake,\u201d he said, sitting down across from me, \u201cvery British.\u201d <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Amanda Campbell (AC): So, what I want to know is; what was your first experience with Shakespeare? Was it always something that you connected to? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">Jeremy Webb (JW): Oh wow, I guess, like most people it was in High School and studying it in a classroom. But we had this very animated English Lit teacher, Mr. Sutton. John Sutton, I think he\u2019s still alive. And he motivated us in a very wonderful way. And I remember that we all took a school festival to the Stratford Festival (England) and we saw <em>The Merchant of Venice<\/em> and I was fourteen. Of course this was the time when it was more important who you were sitting next to- and whether you were sitting next to a girl- than what play you were seeing. So I remember that girl- isn\u2019t that terrible? It was more important whether you were getting the chance to touch thighs with a girl&#8230; but that long court scene was great *laughs*. So, yeah, my first memory of Shakespeare was of sitting in a darkened theatre with a girl rather than focusing on the Bard\u2019s words. Which is how it should be, I think. *grins* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: *grins* For sure. So, when was it that you started to connect more to the words of Shakespeare and focus less on- <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: The girl I was sitting with? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Yes! <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Uh, I would say years later when I was doing Community Theatre in Cambridge (England) where I grew up, I used to do Shakespeare in the summers with this amateur theatre company called Bawds. B-a-w-d-s. It didn\u2019t even stand for anything. *chuckles* We would do our shows on the Cambridge University grounds, so it was a really beautiful space. And there was this costume designer who was one of my mentors- a set and costume designer- who was really flamboyant. That was my first experience with that type of over-the-topness that we now know and love. And I would direct shows there, and I would be in them, and we would rent costumes from the Stratford Festival. And I remember once I got to try on Anthony Sher\u2019s Richard the Third hump. He had done a really famous portrayal of Richard III back in the eighties. And he wrote this book called <em>Year of the King<\/em> which I had read in the eighties. And then suddenly there I was standing in the costume room wearing his hump. It was really exciting. Really, this company was like Shakespeare by the Sea, only it wasn\u2019t a professional company, and that\u2019s where I fell in love with performing and the language of Shakespeare. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: You\u2019ve had great success with your one-man show <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em> which you created and performed at Neptune Theatre and on tour; was that the first play that you wrote? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: No, actually, bizarrely enough, in this envelope *gestures to opened envelope and pulls out a script*, there is a play that I wrote in 1996 while at Bristol Old Vic that I sent myself as a cheap form of copyright, and it\u2019s called <em>A Dozen Single Eyes<\/em>. It\u2019s about the last British sailor to be killed by firing squad during World War II, and coincidently there is a Canadian character in it, and I wrote the play before I came to this country. So, I recently dug it out to see how my writing had grown and changed, and likely this will seem very naive to read now. It had been performed in Bristol and Cambridge, but I dug it out to see if there maybe was something there. So I wrote things. I also co-wrote a screenplay for HandMade Films about the Court of Charles II and, uh, it was called <em>Ministry of Pleasure<\/em> and, uh, we went for development, and got a pretty nice deal. We were going to make money and do the film, and then that year John Malkovitch announced that he was going to do a film on the same subject, with the same story, starring Johnny Depp. And that killed our film dead. Actually, it was only recently that I watched the DVD of his film (<em>The Libertine<\/em> (2004)) because I couldn\u2019t bring myself to watch it, I was so upset. But <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em> was the first thing that I did here where I had an idea and I ran with it. Originally it was going to be just a semi-staged reading, but it very quickly turned into a fully staged production. I\u2019ve done it three times and it\u2019s going to tour again in (Christmas) 2009.<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: So, how did you decide that you wanted to write <em>Shakespeare On Trial<\/em>? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: It was actually a very easy decision, I was unemployed in April and May and I needed to pay the rent, so I called Theatre Nova Scotia and I asked if I could do a workshop for students at around this time, maybe something to do with Shakespeare in schools. And they said, \u201cSure, sounds great!\u201d And then a half hour later I called Joanne Miller back and said, \u201cI think I have a play.\u201d So I sat down and wrote a three paragraph synopsis of what I wanted the play to be, and it\u2019s still what I use for promotional things now. I wrote that in about a half hour. Three weeks later I was rehearsing a play. So, it was pretty quick. For me when I think that I have a semi decent idea and it feels right, I like to go with it. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: This show is aimed at teenagers, and it is summarized as \u201cexploring the Bard\u2019s relevance and accessibility in classrooms today.\u201d Why do you think it\u2019s important for teenagers to read Shakespeare\u2019s plays in schools? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: To be honest, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s important for teenagers to read Shakespeare. I think that it\u2019s important if they\u2019re going to be forced to read Shakespeare in a stuffy classroom that they understand that they are reading the script of a play that is meant to be performed by actors who know what they\u2019re doing and who have passion and understanding of what they are doing. I think it\u2019s important for teenagers to know that if Shakespeare is performed that way then it can be just as passionate, dynamic, relevant, and sexy as anything else they see at the theatre. But that is a big IF. Being forced to read Shakespeare in a classroom kills it, and it kills the idea of the theatre. And so the idea of this play (<em>Shakespeare on Trial<\/em>) is to destroy that idea of the theatre. Here you get to see a selection of Shakespeare\u2019s plays in the middle of a really zany plot, and maybe they (the audience) will make a decision to check (more Shakespeare plays) out and not be scared of it&#8230; or bored by the prospect of it\u2026 and that goes for all theatre. I mean, here you have a forty year old, slightly overweight man playing Juliet. That alone, I think will turn some heads, and change some people\u2019s opinions of what Shakespeare can be. And Simon Henderson as Ophelia! His Ophelia is great. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: *laughs* Oh, I can\u2019t wait to see this show! <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: *laughs* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: It\u2019s funny because the production that I saw when I was fifteen where suddenly everything clicked, and I went, \u201cOh! This is what Shakespeare is supposed to be!\u201d was <em>Hamlet<\/em> at the Neptune Studio which you assistant directed\u2026. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Oh yeah, Linda Moore\u2019s\u2026 <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Yeah. And I remember even then thinking it was odd that <em>Hamlet<\/em> was being done in the Studio rather than on the Mainstage. And that was the last time that Neptune did a Shakespeare show, I think\u2026 except for the Pre Professional Training Program. So, I was wondering if you thought that the larger, professional theatres in the province should be making it a priority to do more Shakespeare shows. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Well, to be honest, professional theatres in Canada, I would imagine, they have to program shows that meet certain funding requirements, and doing the work of a 400 year old British writer doesn\u2019t meet the requirements of every theatre. And we do have Shakespeare by the Sea who do two Shakespeare shows a year, so if you want to see Shakespeare shows, you do have that option. I\u2019m- I get excited about doing classical shows, whether it\u2019s Shakespeare or a George Bernard Shaw &#8211;although I wasn\u2019t in that one&#8230; Shakespeare by the Sea had a great season last year and was met by a lot of success. (Their production of) <em>Othello <\/em>was nominated for a bunch of Merritt Awards, and I think maybe, that proved that these plays can really still cut it. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: I remember talking to you while you were rehearsing that show and you found it quite&#8211; <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Petrifying! It still was while I was doing it! When you\u2019re playing a role of that size and, I don\u2019t want to say \u201ccomplexity\u201d because I was having too much fun to complain about the role being \u201ccomplex\u201d, but just that size and importance- and being a forty year old man, my memory isn\u2019t the same as it used to be, remembering all those lines alone was pretty petrifying! It was one of, maybe three career highlights for me, because it was just such a joy to do, and I got to pay my rent. The other two would be, of course <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em>, which was also such a joy, and (playing Cogsworth in Neptune\u2019s) <em>Beauty and the Beast<\/em>, just the feeling of that show and the company and the great friendships that were made. Those three things. And to work with Troy (Adams) (in <em>Othello<\/em>) and of course that annoying has-been Raquel Duffy who keeps going back to school to learn more because she\u2019s not very good to begin with. Hopefully she\u2019ll decide to come back here when she\u2019s all finished to do some work. *laughs* Raquel and I have worked together a number of times- actually she was in the very first show I did in this country. It was part of one of the most amazing casts- make sure you get this down. There was Frank MacKay. Niki (Nicola) Lipman. Bill Carr. Raquel Duffy. Martha Irving. Marty Burt. And Charlotte Moore. All in the same Summer Season at Neptune in 1998. All in the same shows. It was (Willy Russell\u2019s) <em>Blood Brothers<\/em> and <em>Rumors<\/em> by Neil Simon. I had just moved here from England and I thought that I\u2019d landed in the Promised Land. But yeah, having her (Raquel) as my wife was seriously wonderful. Although she should stop eating garlic. Unless, maybe she was doing that as a repellent. *laughs* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Probably! I remember seeing <em>Blood Brothers<\/em>, I was thirteen and sat in the back row of the balcony. It was of course my first time seeing you onstage, but it was also my first time seeing Raquel, and I remember being like, \u201cI just\u2026 want to be her friend.\u201d <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Oh me too. When we were in <em>Blood Brothers<\/em> I would stand in the wings&#8211; there was this scene where Raquel was onstage and both the guys were singing this romantic song to her\u2014and I would make sure I was in the wings and would take my clothes off&#8230; yes, I would flash her to try to make her laugh during this romantic song. So, I\u2019ve been naked in the wings at Neptune. Isn\u2019t that the title of a book? Someone\u2019s autobiography? I can\u2019t think of it&#8230; if it\u2019s not, I\u2019m going to take it and use it. It\u2019s also a good title for a play. <em>Naked in the Wings<\/em>. \u2026 I\u2019ll have it written by tomorrow. *grins* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: My readers will hold you to that. You mentioned memorizing lines, and I\u2019ve often wondered, is there a trick to learning Shakespeare? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: No, it\u2019s only repetition. Or, if there is, I don\u2019t know about it! I have now this routine that if I know I have three weeks to learn my lines, I know it will take me three weeks. Which is terrible, twenty years ago it would have only taken me a week. But now, the first week is all about familiarization and having the script in my hands as much as possible. I go to this rocky beach near Purcell\u2019s Cove with a coffee and I run the lines at the ocean. I don\u2019t think this does anything except be a pleasant experience that makes a horrible process a bit better. In <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em> and <em>Shakespeare On Trial<\/em> there are improvised sections, which came about in <em>Christmas Carol<\/em> because I couldn\u2019t learn the lines for the last scene. I found them so difficult. So, I thought, \u201cwait, I\u2019m the producer, and the director, and the writer and the performer, I can improvise this!\u201d Which, of course, drove the stage manager crazy! The scene is scripted now, but I feel like I always have a little freedom to leave the text, especially if something happens with the audience, as long as we\u2019re not disrespectful to the story. Sometimes I get into trouble about improvisation. I\u2019ve had Neptune Stage Managers watching me making sure that I don\u2019t go off onto some tangent. I remember once I stopped the show in <em>One For the Pot<\/em> because Nigel Bennett flubbed a line and I said, \u201cwould you like to try that again? Go on, give it a go!\u201d And this started a little bit between the two of us, which was very naughty. But of course the audience loved it. I would never do that now, but I was a younger man then. And of course, I would never do it with an actor who I didn\u2019t know could handle it. Of course, that was all Nigel\u2019s fault. He\u2019s a very amateur actor. He should go study with Raquel. *grins* I hope no one from Stratford is reading this! I\u2019ll never work again! *laughs* *(Jeremy Webb wishes to make known that he loves working with his pal Nigel Bennett and is the godfather to Bennett&#8217;s daughter.)* You can only do that sort of thing in the plays that warrant it, but of course, the Stage Manager would say that no play warrants improvisation. But I think that a play is about growing with the audience. At first you have this relationship between you, and the play, and the director. But then when you add three hundred or four hundred audience members, things change. And you never know what they will do. You have to have a little freedom there, without ruining the play. Tory (Doctor (Lumiere)) and I (in <em>Beauty and the Beast<\/em>) got into a lot of trouble one night where we actually both got told off by stage management, and rightly so, for a little improvised moment that came out of something so natural and so real, but still, it left Julie Martell (Belle) standing there onstage, looking at the two of us, wondering when we were going to get back to the play. And even then, when we went offstage we were like \u201cwe shouldn\u2019t have done that.\u201d<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: I\u2019ve heard that Nathan Lane does the same thing, so you\u2019re in good company. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Yes. He\u2019s one of my heroes. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Mine too. Next time you\u2019re in Toronto, you should check out a theatre show called <a class=\"snap_shots\" href=\"http:\/\/www.impromptsplendor.com\/\">Impromptu Splendor<\/a>. They do live Improvised plays in the styles of different playwrights. And they have guest improvisers! <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: I haven\u2019t been to Toronto a whole lot; I was there a few months ago, when I saw you that night&#8230; I saw <em>Sharron\u2019s Party<\/em>, which, is, it\u2019s ending? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Yeah, the last one is in June. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Yeah, so I managed to see one. And that was fantastic. And I saw Thom Allison perform which- well, you know, you were there. I saw a lot of people that I had only ever heard the names of. And of course I was there with Raquel Duffy. I wasn\u2019t planning on going with her; she was just a tag along. She said she had a lot of work to do, but decided to come anyway, and I was all like, \u201cwell, if you must- I had planned to meet all sorts of important people there and having Raquel tagging after me was kind of embarrassing.\u201d *laughs* Oh yes, I am ROASTING Raquel Duffy! She\u2019s going to kill me! *laughs* *grins* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: *laughs* So, how did you pick MacBeth, Hamlet, Iago and Juliet to be the characters that confront Bill about his inaccessible language in the play? Of all the characters you could have chosen\u2026 <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Yeah, I know! Okay, So I was writing the play, I was in a bar in Ottawa mapping out what the play was going to be and it was during that one hour lunch that I realized that this play needed two people. Because, originally, the play was going to be a one man show so that I didn\u2019t need to ask someone else to give up their time. But then I realized that I needed two actors. So, I made a list of the plays I knew. And I had directed Romeo and Juliet, and I had directed <em>Hamlet <\/em>and I had played the role when I was twenty-three. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Oh, wow! <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: I know. Where do you go from there? *laughs* I was always saying that after that there was nowhere to go. And <em>MacBeth<\/em>, I had done a couple times, I had played MacDuff a couple times, and I had just done Iago. So I knew that there were good bits in all those plays, and also it was a bit of a time saving effort because I knew the shows really, really well. And <em>MacBeth<\/em>, I think, is basically the perfect play. It is blood-filled and it has sex&#8230; sex, blood and rock n\u2019 roll. And <em>Hamlet<\/em> is the perfect play. It\u2019s my favourite. I\u2019ve worked it out that in total I\u2019ve worked on that play for fourteen months of my life. So, I know it pretty well. When I did it at 23, I finished it, and it was not a long run, and I was like, \u201cWell, that\u2019s it. What am I going to do now?\u201d It wasn\u2019t even that I was very good in it. I really wasn\u2019t very good at all! But I had peaked at 23. So I feel like I had my peak then, and then I got another peak with Iago, because the parts are similar size, they\u2019re both huge, scary roles that are insurmountable. &#8230; It\u2019s weird to be sitting here talking about myself&#8230; believe it or not. *grins* <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: *laughs* So, then how did you decide that Simon Henderson was going to be in the show with you? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Very easily, actually. I thought of him right away. I needed someone to play the Shakespeare role. I had decided that I would play the multiple character changes, because I tend to do that a lot. It did it in <em>Stones in My Pockets<\/em> at Festival Antigonish, I played multiple characters, and of course in <em>A Christmas Carol<\/em>. So I needed a good, solid, strong actor, and someone that I liked socially. Since we were going to be touring the show, and getting up at 7am and driving to\u2014New Glasgow together, I needed someone that I got along with. And Simon and I had worked together before. We\u2019re also similar looking. And there\u2019s this idea that because I look a bit like Simon and he\u2019s playing Shakespeare, then in a way all the characters look a little bit like Shakespeare. My brother, actually, was the one who mentioned that we looked alike, from looking at a picture on Facebook. He called Simon \u201cMiniMe\u201d, and it is right then, that the characters should be a larger than life version of Shakespeare since I am a larger than life version of the guy playing Shakespeare. That\u2019s all far deeper than the play is. *laughs* Believe me. And I realized with two of us I couldn\u2019t get away with not having a director and I immediately thought of Martha. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Of course you did. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: As so many people do. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">AC: Yes. Absolutely. Okay, one last question. Can you tell us about this new website that you have going on? <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">JW: Oh yeah! I guess you really do have the exclusive on this. Well, because I have three shows at the moment that I have created or co-created, and I don\u2019t have a theatre company, and I don\u2019t want a theatre company, I\u2019ve got this website that is going to go live in a week\u2019s time <a class=\"snap_shots\" href=\"http:\/\/www.offtheleash.ca\/\">http:\/\/www.offtheleash.ca\/<\/a>. It\u2019s basically going to be like my brand. It will include all the plays that I\u2019ve written, and a play that I\u2019m working on with Sarah English, that she created and asked me if I would direct called <em>Swelle<\/em>. And also, I\u2019m working on a short film called <em>Wake<\/em> which is going to go into production this fall. We have some tentative shoot dates and I\u2019m very excited. So, this will be the brand for everything that I have created and anything that I create in the future. So, there will be a page for each show on the website and you\u2019ll be able to get more information, and then be able to book the show. It\u2019s a way to gather everything together and to put all my ducks in a row. And <em>Swelle<\/em> is going to be in the Festival Antigonish Second Stage Series this summer, and there has been some interest in bringing <em>Shakespeare on Trial<\/em> to Cape Breton, and Newfoundland and Utah, in the States. I know\u2014random! But hey, I don\u2019t have any problem driving down to Utah! The show was originally written to be toured and to be seen by students but we wanted to have a few public shows for the public so that our friends and families could come, and so that the theatre geeks could come and laugh at me in a dress. Again. <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">*previously posted May 30st, 2009.*<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">Atlantic Fringe Festival Schedule:<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>Venue: Neptune&#8217;s Studio Theatre<\/strong><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong>Times: Sun Sept 6 at 4pm, Mon Sept 7 at 9:40pm, Sat Sept 12 at 1pm, Sun Sept 13 at 4:40pm, Sun Sept 13 at 7:50pm<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Halifax the name Jeremy Webb is likely to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4672],"tags":[3212,3340,3447,5261,3369,3310],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","tag-halifax-fringe","tag-jeremy-webb","tag-neptune-theatre-scotiabank-studio","tag-off-the-leash","tag-simon-henderson","tag-william-shakespeare"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Silliness and Shakespeare: Caffeinated Soliloquies by Jeremy Webb - The Way I See It Theatre &amp; 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