Elizabeth Swain

Elizabeth Swain could fall prey to a whimsical journalistic labeling or libeling about how disaffected, displeased and distrustful she currently is, and nothing could be more distanced from the truth. As director of the little-known John Marston’s even less recognized play The Malcontent at the Antaeus Company opening on May 5, she’s wallowing in the delight of a dream dutifully delivered.

Swain became enamored with this play when she saw it in production—not in its original staging; that was over 400 years ago when it was performed by Children of the Chapel, a boy actors troupe, at London’s Blackfriars Theatre in 1603. She came to it much later, recalling “It was one of those titles in grad school I knew about but had not seen. Then in 2002 I saw a beautiful production by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre at Stratford [upon-Avon] with Antony Sher in the lead. It was extraordinary. I put it on my list of shows I knew I had to do someday.”

In the beginning Swain had no desire to do any shows. Born and reared in England, she had no familial connection to the dramatic arts other than as a spectator. She says, “Theatergoing was very much a part of my life in my formative years, movies less so. I lived in Birmingham, about 25 miles from Stratford. I attended plays there regularly. It was always special to me because my mother would allow me to get home from Stratford at 1 am. Locally I could never stay out beyond 10.

Alex Knox, Christopher Guilmet, Adrian LaTourelle, Mark Doerr and JD Cullum

“Later I attended the London School of Economics with other intentions [than theater] in mind. One of my classmates there was Mick Jagger — which ages me of course. We performed a couple of plays but totally as an independent venture apart from any organized curricular activity, although we had the encouragement and advice of such people as Arnold Wesker and Vanessa Redgrave.

“One influential occurrence there came out of Dramasoc, a revue we put on each year lampooning left-wing political viewpoints. It was when That Was the Week That Was first began in Britain before it immigrated to America. We mocked our current politicians but with a lot of self-deprecating humor which enabled them to laugh along with us or ignore us as they wished. It wasn’t like Benny Hill. His was knickers humor. Ours was tied to actual news-making events. It molded me in a certain way that to this day I come out with a zinger on occasion which makes me appear more caustic than I believe I actually am.”

Straight out of college she came to America, where she quickly discovered her skills on a revue stage outweighed her acumen or interest in the commercialism of economics. She parlayed that skill on Broadway where she acted alongside Louis Nye and Maureen O’Sullivan in Charley’s Aunt at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in 1970, Eileen Herlie and George Grizzard in Crown Matrimonial at the Helen Hayes Theatre in 1973 and stepped in as a replacement in the long-running [1974-76] Sherlock Holmes at the Broadhurst Theatre [Robert Stephens had replaced John Wood as Sherlock by the time Swain joined the cast in 1975.]

Joseph Fuhr and JD Cullum Rear Christopher Parsons and Jim Kane

She’s quick to point out, however, her Broadway success did not arrive easily. “Oh, I paid my dues. I spent years in acting classes and waitressing jobs. I did lots of what today is called off-off-Broadway but which didn’t exist when I started. I also did several tours with my young daughter traveling with me in a trunk on the road.”

She recalls with a laugh how she landed her featured role in the NYC Opera’s The Crucible directed by Frank Corsaro. “Oh, it was a total hoot. I played Betty Parris, the daughter who is in a sort of coma and mostly lies in bed a good portion of the first act. Then she had to roll around on the floor screaming. Mr. Corsaro couldn’t get any opera singers who were willing to scream. Finally in frustration he growled, ‘For God’s sake, find me an actress who’s not afraid to scream.’ That’s what my audition consisted of. Mr. Corsaro always called me the screamer after that. I think he probably never knew my name. In the second act four of us girls had to sing in the courtroom testimony scene. The other three girls sang. I was instructed to learn the words but only mouth them. We were a quartet in appearance but a trio in actuality. I was not a member of the [opera singers'] union. Of course I also sing horribly which may have influenced their decision as well. Still I received a positive review in New York Magazine praising my impressive operatic debut.”

Eventually circumstances decreed a different discipline to diversify her dollar-earning capabilities. “I was newly divorced, a single parent, with a daughter who was growing old enough to begin school,” she says, “so I realized I had to put down some roots for her sake. I needed to find out how to function as a single parent and still enjoy life. Fortunately I got a soap opera [five years on The Guiding Light] which paid the bills handsomely. I also enrolled in graduate school.”

Studying in school and out with such masters as Herman Shumlin for directing and Michael Howard and Robert Lewis for acting, Swain began embracing aspects of the theatrical world beyond performing. She became both a director and a teacher, the latter leading her to positions at NYU, Hunter, CCNY, Barnard and Marymount Manhattan College where she is recognized as professor emeritus.

Lynn Milgrim and Marisol Ramirez

“For my master’s thesis I translated and directed Georges Feydeau’s The Ribadier System. I later staged pastiches of scenes and monologues from Shakespeare [with creative titling such as Cupids, Kings and Greasy Knights and Sigh No More, Ladies]. With an academic job they want you to do everything.

“I taught theater history, the evolvement of feminism in theater and all manner of theoretical approaches to our art, but I inclined more toward the practical areas. I had the power to decide what I was going to direct. For one thing I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer easily. For another the department chairman relied on me to help balance the season. He’d say, ‘Pick something the kids need.’ I thought they needed language skills, so I always leaned toward the classics.”

When she taught at Barnard, she directed an all-female Hamlet which she remembers with relish. “Barnard College is the women’s liberal arts school that’s an official college associated with Columbia University. Usually they borrow men from Columbia to fill out the male roles in their productions, but not many men were committed to coming over for those roles. I decided to do it with the girls. As soon as that decision was announced, the fallout began. One guy wandered over to read for the lead and told us rather boldly, ‘I thought I’d show you what you’d be missing without any men in your cast.’ He didn’t get the part.

Ramon DeOcampo

“A few days later the girl playing Laertes came to rehearsal just devastated because she had been in an English class at Columbia where the men in class were saying, ‘How can they possibly do an all-girl Hamlet? What girl has what it takes to play Hamlet? And how the hell will these girls be able to do the sword fights?’ Well, the girl I cast as Hamlet came to audition with every soliloquy memorized. She said, ‘Which one do you want to hear?’ She knew them all.

“My Fortinbras had waist-length hair which we didn’t bother pinning up. She came out in her armor with her hair freely hanging over it. We got good reviews including a positive mention in one of the Shakespeare journals. I did relent to let some men in the cast as the players because I thought it would present a nice contrast of voices from all the other roles. As far as the sword fights, I think those men were astounded when they saw them.

“I recently re-met the girl who played my Hamlet. She’s now a lawyer here in town. Her son attends the same school as my grandson.”

All her classroom and directorial experience on our shores imbued her with an abiding belief in the abilities of the talent in our land. She maintains, “There’s a vigor to American actors. One hurdle they face is they’re told repeatedly they can’t do Shakespeare. That is not true. Once they get past that [mental] hurdle, they find they can do it quite well. But there’s a certain level British actors build up to. For example when an actor in England matures enough to play Lear, he has already played Hamlet, Iago and other iconic roles. He has performed in 40 productions at least of Shakespearean and other classical works.

“Those plays are not as integral to the American actors’ development. I’ve seen plays in London featuring truly marvelous performances. Then when I later saw the touring production in New York, the performances seemed somewhat lacking. I realized I’d seen the first tier cast in London and the third tier replacements for their overseas tour. But I’m a great supporter of American acting. They do some superb work.”

She avers, “I love teaching, but I found myself moving farther and farther from academia into more practical aspects of theatrical production.”

JD Cullum

Which is why, she explains, she doesn’t go out of her way to advertise the fact she earned a PhD from CUNY Graduate Center. “Oh no,” she insists, “the minute I stand up at a first rehearsal and declare, ‘Hello, I’m Dr. Swain. I’ll be directing this production’, is the minute half the cast will rise and leave the room. Why? Professional actors want an experienced hand at the helm, not an academic theorist.”

So how does Swain separate the theoretical from the feasible in her work? “I shy away from plays set in living rooms or kitchens,” she answers. “I might make an exception for Virginia Woolf. Otherwise I’m drawn to plays with large casts and rich language. I worked as a literary manager for a time and read lots of scripts. If it’s a classical piece, I probably know it already or at least know of it. If it’s a new work and I’m sitting there reading it and going ‘Uh huh, uh huh,’ that’s a bad omen. Banal language turns me off. Give me a good, strong story with grand language and you’ve made me happy.”

She began journeying toward her present felicity when she relocated to the West Coast in 2008 to live nearer her daughter and grandson. “My daughter, Kate Anthony,” she relates “is carving out a nice acting career of her own. In fact she and JD Cullum, my lead in The Malcontent, co-starred in the TV movie Mattie’s Waltz. She is currently rethinking her career path, as she is now a single parent too. I guess it runs in our family. My grandson is five. He and I went on a lovely walk this morning with the dog.

“But I also discovered and joined the Antaeus Company when I moved here, which rekindled my enthusiasm for The Malcontent. For this play you need actors with considerable language skills or it goes down the tubes. I thought to myself, maybe my coming here is serendipitous toward mounting Marston’s play at last.”

JD Cullum

JD Cullum, an actor with Antaeus since 1992, weighs in on how he came to the project. “I met Elizabeth when she saw me do a reading of Richard III and asked me to consider working with her on Richard II. We spent eight weeks together and built a rapport. I came to appreciate her mastery and understanding of text. When she handed me The Malcontent by John Marston, I said, ‘The what by whom?’ I found it very hard to read, even with all my experience working in verse and on Shakespeare. I think Marston wanted to take Shakespeare a step further.

“There was a lot of competition among playwrights in that era. When Marston threw his hat in the ring, he went wild with the pyrotechnics of language. His writing is not lyrical. I liken it to a poetry slam where there’s a certain amount of raw improvisational riffing on a theme. It becomes clear on stage once the interaction of various characters starts developing, but it’s not an easy read.”

He admits too that other Antaeus members found it difficult. “It wasn’t easy getting them to audition for it. But when we read it aloud the first time, I watched everyone start to get it.”

Bo Foxworth

Because members of Antaeus book TV and film roles quite often, the company has a tradition of double casting all its shows to insure a performance is never canceled due to conflicting schedules. Both casts attend all rehearsals ,which Cullum applauds. “In a joint project such as ours, it’s important all [acting] decisions be made in concert with your double, because anything anyone does on stage has a ripple effect on all the other doubles as well. It’s like couples consciousness. I’ll turn to Bo Foxworth, my double, and say, ‘Bo, what do you think about this movement?’ Two heads are better than one.

“We mix and match constantly during rehearsals. We may flip a coin to see who goes on stage when. At a certain point during tech week, we’ll lock in two different casts which we’re calling for this production the cuckolds and the wittols. Once opened, our Thursday and Friday performances will be randomly chosen from both casts. We’ll call that group the beccos. Then Saturdays and Sundays will revert to wittols and cuckolds with the entire schedule determined before previews.

“Now all we have to do is get the word out to the public at large that we’re doing The Malcontent by Marston and not The Misanthrope by Moliere.”

Swain, acknowledging the problems of the piece on the printed page, nevertheless despairs whenever actors attend auditions unversed at all with the material. She laments, “I did the Scottish play a few years ago. Some actors came in prepared, some not. Those who weren’t were moved immediately off the [callback] list. The biggest affront I find is when I perceive the actor hasn’t bothered to read the play. My heart goes [here she utters a sound similar to a whispered shriek].

Mark Doerr and Adrian LaTourelle

“Rehearsals are great for collaboratively and organically figuring out the details of a play you may not have derived from a reading. In fact I’ll use the word ‘play’ in rehearsal as in ‘What should we do here? Let’s play with it and find out.’

“The Malcontent is especially fun to figure out. It’s a very early tragic comedy. You think at first it’s a farce until these dark undertones begin creeping in. Nothing tragic happens but it nearly does. It’s a roller coaster ride, savage and filthy and wonderful with tragedy one minute and comedy the next.

“John Marston’s father was not at all pleased with his choice to become a playwright. Many of his writings were incendiary enough to justify his father’s misgivings. He wrote some erotic, satiric verses that the bishop of London and the archbishop of Canterbury ordered burned. One suspects The Malcontent might have been Marston’s crafty manner for exposing a level of corruption in the court of James I. We don’t know. We do know Marston offended somebody to the extent he spent some time in prison; when he came out, he gave up writing altogether and became a priest.

“I believe all theatrical performances can result in an educational experience but especially the classics from earlier centuries. My profoundest wish would be for high school and college students to enjoy firsthand the language and ideas of the past as they resonate in the present.”

Theoretically and practically, Elizabeth Swain keeps schooling society in the surety of Shakespearean sophistication (along with the Bard’s contemporaries as well). Swain is swell that way.

** All production photography by Geoffrey Wade

The Malcontent, presented by Antaeus Company, opens May 5; plays Thur.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2:30 pm (except May 8 at 5 pm); through June 19. Tickets: $30-$34. Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; 818-506-1983 or www.antaeus.org.