Interviewed by Steve Rowland

Rick Boynton, creative producer of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Othello at Shakespeare’s Globe. Part of The Globe to Globe International Shakespeare Festival.

Rick Boynton focuses on current and future artistic planning and production, as well as the development of all new plays, musicals and adaptations for CST. Recent projects include: A Q Brothers’ Christmas Carol, Cadre (co-director) (CST, Johannesburg, Grahamstown, Edinburgh), Othello: The Remix (CST, London, Germany, Edinburgh, South Korea), Funk It Up About Nothin’ (CST, Edinburgh, Australian tour, London), A Flea in Her Ear (CST, Williamstown Theatre Festival), The Three Musketeers (CST, Boston, London), The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Murder for Two (CST, New York 2013) and The Feast: an intimate Tempest (in collaboration with Redmoon). Former artistic director of the Marriott Theatre and multiple Jeff Award-winning actor, he has starred in productions nationally, including CST’s production of A Flea in Her Ear as Camille (Jeff Award, After Dark Award). As casting director/associate at Jane Alderman Casting, projects included: the television series Early Edition, Missing Persons, Untouchables and ER; the films While You Were Sleeping and Hoodlum, among others; and numerous national tours. Mr. Boynton has lectured at his alma mater Northwestern University, and is president of the board of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre.

London, May 6, 2012

Rowland:
What do you do exactly?

Boynton:
I oversee the art that goes on to our stage and a big part of my job is to work on new work and so I had the privilege of working with the Q Brothers and several others but specifically with them.

Rowland:
Now when you say new, how much of the stuff that you do at Chicago Shakespeare is Shakespeare and how much of it is not Shakespeare?

Boynton:
Our core mission is Shakespeare. We were founded on producing the lesser known Shakespeare shows and from there, it has grown. So though Shakespeare lies as our core mission, we surround it with other work that we feel helps invigorate and sort of gets to our core. You know, helps enrich our core mission.

Rowland:
I think the core issue here is whether or not it’s okay to mess with Shakespeare.

Boynton:
I think Shakespeare would love it, right? I mean come on. That’s what’s been so exciting about this project is. The first time actually the Qs came in to our office one day and were like we have this – we have this Much Ado that we translated and I was like hip hop and Shakespeare and I get it really. And I sat down and I read it and then I listened to it and I said, you know, I really want to work on this. And we worked on it and it was a great experience and about halfway through that experience I was like, “Oh my God.” I’m like one of the 12-year old kids that comes to see one of our productions of Shakespeare and who – we tell them at the beginning we’re like “No, don’t get stressed out about the language. Just let it wash over you first and feel the, you know, try to understand the essence of what’s going on and pretty soon you wouldn’t even think about the language. You just be in, you know, you’ll be completely in it.”

And I realize that was the same thing for me with hip hop and so it was so powerful for me to have that moment that I could actually, everything that we’ve been telling these – these young people to do, I needed to do with hip hop and it was – it was a really revelatory moment for me and really helpful and I think Shakespeare would be all over it. I think he’d love it.

Rowland:
There really is a connection between telling story through rhyme, don’t you think?

Boynton:
Completely. Completely and hip hop, I mean claiming new words, I mean, other so many parallels. There are so many parallels and the meter, the musicality of it, the drama of it, it’s all there. It’s all there. And I think it’s – it really does lend itself. Shakespeare lends itself to be translated into – into hip hop.

Rowland:
What kind of obstacles is Chicago Shakespeare finding to this attitude of changing thing?

Boynton:
You know, we haven’t. We haven’t. It was – the first one we worked on which was the Much Ado called Funk It Up About Nothin’ was ended up being a big hit and found its audience. I don’t think it was necessarily our core subscriber audience of Shakespeare, you know, what we’ve classically done. But it found its audience and that was exciting for us because it was bringing sort of a new – a new body of people to the theater. It was a point of entry to our institution that we love but it was also opening people up to – to Shakespeare that I don’t know would have been opened up to Shakespeare. That was exciting.
Rowland:

Now, you know, I’ve been here for a couple of weeks and seen all of these different shows from all these different countries and each one is kind of bringing an interpretation so they –and they’re translations and they are the stories but there are also interpretations because there’s a lot of cultural –elements in that. One of the things that’s really amazing is being in the Globe, in the theater itself in the space, the architectural three dimensional space every night and seeing what’s going on in there because of the way that the audience is press right up against the stage and you can see everybody.
Can you talk a little bit about what you witnessed in terms of that yesterday?

Boynton:
I’ll tell you, it was – it was very powerful for me because we had seen the production, the Cymbeline from Sudan and first, you know, when we first arrived and it was incredibly powerful for me. I was very, very moved by it. And I realized at that point, there’s so many contexts working if you will. There’s the context of the Globe and everything that surrounds that but then all of these companies are bringing their environment, their contexts, their, you know, what’s relevant to them in to their space. And then you add Shakespeare to it and the context of Shakespeare and it’s really, really powerful. For us it was, you know, bringing that context that often irreverent context of hip hop into the Globe, I think that tension creates a lot of – creates really dynamic art and – and I love that. I love when there’s – it feels like things have a little bit of conflict going because I think that’s when — when something really cool happens.

Rowland:
How do you see this whole festival in terms of its significance in the world of Shakespeare?

Boynton:
I think it’s huge. I think it’s huge. Shakespeare, I mean, his view on humanity and what he’s talking about in terms of the human condition is universal. It’s universal and it repeats itself and it continues to repeat itself throughout history and now and to see and hear that in different languages and again people bringing their own cultural specifics and their own — their own personal histories to it within their individual contexts to me speaks volumes to the universality of it and the power of what Shakespeare understood in unlocking what we do as humans and how we try to move forward, you know and how we just exist and I just find it incredibly powerful. I think it’s amazing that the Globe has done this. [Laughter] I just do. I love it. I love it. I wish I could be here the whole time, you know, it’s just been great and it’s really been an honor to be a part of it.

Rowland:
Oh, well I’m so excited. I was so excited when I heard that you guys were coming and then with the Q Brothers because I know how brilliant they are.

Boynton:
I love them. I love them. They’re amazing artists. They are amazing actors. They’re great, great writers, great musicians and we have a great collaboration.

Rowland:
Yes. Seems like it from what they were saying.

Boynton:
We do, we have a great collaboration and I know this won’t be the last one.

Rowland:
Can you talk a little bit about what you witnessed in their process and the quality of the thinking that goes in to what you’re doing?

Boynton:
Yeah. It starts out as a truly almost a word for word translation if you will into the vernacular of hip hop where you could literally have Shakespeare’s words here and G and J, G actually does the first translation and here, the true hip hop here and really go by this line, this line, this line and it’s a translation and we start with that and then see how it lives in the vernacular.

Just sort of purely how it lives in the vernacular and then from there, shape it to how it truly needs to be embraced by that particular art form and what are the strengths of hip hop that can make this story sing and make this story powerful and what’s been challenging and wonderful about this piece is — is walking that precipice between comedy and tragedy and how you do that without, you know, shorting either one and I found which is been exciting with this is that the comedy only heightens the tragedy. And the tragedy lightens the comedy and it really is that play between the two of them makes it really exciting. Again it’s that tension. It’s kind of like that tension I was talking about being at the Globe. It’s like the tension between tragedy and comedy creates compelling art.

Rowland:
You know, one of the things that really been interesting to me is that if you think about how people internalize what the Globe is and what it means; that there is this sort reverence at the Globe, right?

Boynton:
They bring their own context to it, right?

Rowland:
Right. But then again like the groups that have come, have individually each been able to, like – we have the Maori Warriors – doing Troilus and Cressida.

Boynton:
I know. How cool is that?

Rowland:
And then like when you guys show up and they’re doing like, you know, the guys dressed in drag with the, which is Shakespeare, right?

Boynton:
That that was a conscious choice. We were like, we have to do it in drag. I mean, it’s like – right? Original practice.

Rowland:
Where do you get the balls to come in here and do that and do what you did?

Boynton:
Do you know what? It started at our theater where – where do you find the balls to sort of say to your Shakespeare audience, “Do you know what? It’s important that we really …” If we’re going to investigate this – this man’s work, we need to really be bold and if you can’t be bold, go home. You know, and it was the same for here, you know, it’s like well we’re not going to not do what we do. It’s we have to do or else we’re not being true to ourselves, right?
And so the charge was to make a hip hop version of Othello and so we just tried to do the best work we can. Again, if there’s tension in the space then that’s supposed to be there because we never thought about that. We thought about what’s the best – what’s the best we can bring to this work and what is this art form, how does it inform and translate into Shakespeare or Shakespeare translate into this art form and then we’re going to the context of the Globe and it’s like “No, that tension is cool. Let’s let’s just ride it and see where it goes”, and I have to tell you it was pretty darn heady yesterday to watch that audience respond.

Rowland:
How did they respond? Describe it.

Boynton:
It was incredible. It was really incredible to watch them get the comedy, to get the music, to be informed, and moved by the music and then to – in the second act, when Desdemona is killed to – you know, you could hear a pin drop, it was – it was really incredible sort of the tension in the room and the collective arrest if you will, of an entire audience and then, you know, we were blessed with the great ovation which is really heartening after – after your work and this was our first preview, so it was – it was really nice to have that kind of, you know, reception.

Rowland:
You know, and I think everybody would agree that it would – it’s a wonderful idea to get young people interested in Shakespeare. How do you see this play into that?

Boynton:
I think it completely does. Because I’ve heard the stories, you know, as I said we – we’ve run hip hop Shakespeare at our theater and parents come up to me all the time and say “Oh my God. My kid just hated Shakespeare and now he came to see this and he thinks that it’s cool all of a sudden and wants to investigate it more.” I think it’s just – it’s finding that language and connecting and, life’s about point of entry, right? And how do you find your point of entry to whatever it is. And then it all of a sudden opens up to you. I think this is just another portal, you know, and hopefully an entertaining one.

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