The Company Woman

Cindy Boyle

Cindy Boyle is the consummate company player.  Erudite, well-trained, astute and deeply talented, she is in every way a company woman.  Moved by their devotion to the theater in general and to Shakespeare in particular, she and Colette Rice -- along with nine other like-minded artists -- founded the Actors Shakespeare Company in 2000, in Hoboken, NJ.  Twelve years later, despite the never-ending financial woes that come with the territory, Cindy remains the Bard's willing acolyte, committed to the mission she and her founding brothers and sisters created for themselves, determined to see the work nurtured so that the Company may prosper and grow.

Cindy Boyle as Eleanor of Aquitaine

At the start, Cindy was an actor, and her primary focus was her own growth as an actor.  She was very impressed with Producing Artistic Director Colette Rice's fidelity to Patrick Tucker's First Folio approach to the text.  Tucker, who introduced a production of As You Like It at the RSC with the claim that the play was "written and directed by William Shakespeare," developed a method for finding the direction from the playwright in the text itself.  "You might find it in the punctuation," Cindy says smiling with the delight of swishing the words around in her head.  She stands and demonstrates as she goes on,  "Or you might find it in the phrasing or in the juxtaposition of words or even in the spelling or in Shakespeare's choice of words.  For example, if my line has me addressing you as 'thou,' I am directed to move closer, but if I call you 'you,' that's more formal, and I am told to move away. It's a vitally illuminating way to dive into the text!"

Cindy Boyle, as the Duchess of Gloucester,  and
Terrence MacSweeney,
as Edward, in The Lear Project 2011

"The other thing I love most about this company is that we use scrolls.  Scrolls!"  Scrolls, of course, are the scripts of Shakespeare's time, on which actors find only their own "sides," the individual actor's part with no more than a cue from another actor.  At times they even performed from the scrolls without rehearsal, just as they might have in Shakespeare's Rose Theater.  "It's thrilling!"  Boyle enthuses.  "Except for the entrances, exits, dances and fights, nothing is really predetermined.  Anything can happen.  And that can be terrifying . . . but what a rush!"

In the acting resume compiled at the ASC, Cindy has played Twelfth Night's Feste, King John's Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hamlet's Gertrude, Romeo and Juliet's Lady Capulet and others, all roles appropriate, as Boyle points out, to "a woman of a certain age."  But, in the manner of one who is certainly far more youthful than that remark would imply, Boyle has developed a number of other skills and has made herself a vital part of her organization.

In a previous life, Cindy Boyle worked as the Assistant Office Manager and Receptionist at the Rogers and Hammerstein Organization.  "It was a dream job," says Cindy; "Especially for one so deeply steeped in theater." At the Rodgers and Hammerstein office, Boyle was responsible for greeting and situating luminaries from Julie Andrews to John Bon Jovi, for creating and overseeing much of the day-to-day bookkeeping and theatrical contract development, for maintaining the office and for seeing that fire department regulations were met.  "It was great training for working at the ASC.  When they eliminated my position in 2009, I was only too happy to take my skills to the Actors Shakespeare Company."

At ASC, since 2009, Cindy has been the Operations Manager at ASC, responsible to assist Colette Rice in all aspects of running the theater company.  She is also the Secretary of the Board of Directors, and it is her job to schedule meetings, distribute materials, take and distribute minutes from meetings, and do all the event planning.  She is also the Company's Wardrobe Mistress, responsible for the remarkable inventory of costumes the ASC has, thanks to their Costume Designer Eva Lachur Omeljaniuk.  "The woman is incredible," raves Boyle.  "We are so lucky to have her.  And we have the most amazing costume inventory I know of.  Truly a gift!"

In addition, Cindy is the Company Photographer, and her photos are the mainstay of publicity efforts, marketing outreach, etc.

Striking Macbeth
Photo by Cindy Boyle

When the ASC experienced financial difficulties, Cindy took it in her stride and stepped down from her paid position, but she has not flagged in her allegiance to the Work.  "I grew up on a farm in upstate, central New York," says Boyle.  "We raised horses.  I can handle just about anything that comes my way.  I know that there's work to be done, and I'm there to get it done."

A large part of the work that must be done is fundraising.  "It's the only thing I hate about this theater company -- that we have to constantly beg for money.  We have a topnotch product, and we should be at least securely ensconced at NJCU, but we are not.  Is anyone in today's economy?  Certainly the economy's been unkind to all nonprofits, so we're not unique in that way."

As part of the effort to take the Company's message to the public, the ASC will be returning to various venues in New Jersey to present All the World's a Stage, where actors from the ASC present a potpourri of Shakespearean roles and excerpts for audiences in the Hudson County area.  The next presentation will be at Congregation B'Nai Jacob, 176 West Side Avenue, Jersey City, NJ 07305.

Cindy Boyle will be there, reprising roles she's played before -- Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Adam (As You Like It) and Mistress Ford (Merry Wives of Windsor) -- and hoping that the audience catches the enthusiasm of the Company.

"I love the Company factor of our company,"  Boyle says with a deep sigh.  "Aside from my addict's need to be onstage, I have a deep and abiding need to be part of a real company.  It's where I got my theatrical start with George Morrison at the State University of New York at Purchase.  And the ASC is a truly safe place to be because of the Company itself.  We are free there.  Free to be ourselves, free to make idiots of ourselves if need be in the pursuit of something truly fantastic.  We get to let go of Self and just be entirely in our moment on stage."

Boyle laughs a bit mischievously.  Then she adds, thoughtfully, "Isn't that the key to creative freedom?"

The Music Man

What makes for a thoroughly satisfying theatrical experience?

For the most part, whether you love a production, are lukewarm about it or hate it entirely rests on your own taste.  But the goal of any producer is to get a universal word of mouth that drives traffic to the show and puts "bums on seats" for every performance.  The success of a production, then, must be embraced by at least the majority of its audience members and critics, and there are elements that are critical to achieving that goal.  The next few blogs will take a look at some of the people who help drive the success of any show, and we'll begin with the music direction.

Anthony Bez, Musical Director of ASC

Audience members who truly love a show may not be aware of what is making them enjoy themselves.  Typically, the experience depends on sensory input, and the more effectively the senses are engaged simultaneously, the richer the enjoyment of the play.  The textures of the sound, if blended well into the production, will move the plot along, deepen the emotional resonance of the play and draw the audience in, helping them to react to the stimuli of the visuals onstage.

Sound design is a new discipline in theater.  Up until the late 1960's, a Stage Manager would be expected to find the appropriate sounds to support a production.  The SM would gather sounds for on and offstage, and it was rare that a nonmusical production would have the kind of "background" music that we associate with film.  But in the last 40 years, with the great advances in sound technology and equipment, the Music Director has become an invaluable contributor to the life of a play, creating all whatever layers of music and sound effects are appropriate for the presentation.

A talented music director will produce a flexible, complex, inexpensive integration of sounds that will influence the actors' action and the plays feel.  Collaborating with the director,  the sound will blend with the director's overall vision of the piece and complete it.

Anthony Bez and Colette Rice in Collaboration
Photo by Cindy Boyle, Boyleimage

Anthony Bez, Music Director at ASC, has been collaborating with Colette Rice long enough that he can, in some ways, anticipate her esthetic and present ideas already at early production meetings, which hastens the construction of each production.

Go see Macbeth, and try to notice the various sounds as well as any music that envelopes you as you hear the play.   Notice how the music of the drums, for example, augments the suspense of the thickening plot.  Notice how the witches' evil is captured in what you listen to as much as in what you watch.

Then thank Anthony Bez for enhancing your experience and making it memorable.

NJ Arts Maven LOVES ASC's Macbeth!

REVIEW: “MACBETH” @ ACTORS SHAKESPEARE COMPANY IN JERSEY CITY

by Ruth Ross

Production Photos by Cindy Boyle, Boyle Images

In my 34 years of teaching high school English, I've probably taught Macbeth to close to 3400 students, watched films versions countless times and attended about five live performances, but rarely have I seen as riveting a production as the one onstage at the Actors Shakespeare Company. If you think Shakespeare is boring or for intellectual types, get on over to the Westside Theatre in Jersey City where the joy of seeing the play performed live will make you (teenagers, college students and adults) a Bard-lover forever.

Macbeth (Michael Basile) swears allegiance to King Duncan (Jonathan Dewberry) in the presence of his
subjects (Terence MacSweeney and Colin Ryan)

Everyone who has graduated from an American high school knows the plot. Three witches prophesy that a courageous Scottish warrior named Macbeth will become Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and “King hereafter.” The first two predictions are fulfilled in short order, but his hopes for the third are dashed when King Duncan names as heir his young son Malcolm. Egged on by his beautiful spouse, Macbeth takes matters into his own hands, murders Duncan, assumes the throne of Scotland when Malcolm and his brother flee the country and, to cover up the crime, commits subsequent murders, among them the vulnerable family of his nemesis, Macduff. Buoyed by further predictions by the witches, Macbeth faces Macduff, and upon learning that he is not “of woman born,” accepts his fate with dignity.

There are two aspects of the ASC production that really stand out for me. One, is the striking scenic design by Timur Kocak, which consists of a long playing space set between two facing banks of seats. There isn't a bad seat in the house, and one feels almost as if he/she is watching an athletic competition for the soul of Macbeth. At either end sits a granite plinth holding a large basin, one red as though filled with blood, the other clear. The seven actors sit in two groups at each end of the stage, where they provide sound effects and change costumes to assume the myriad of parts they assume (more about that later). If you have ever wondered just what a lighting director/designer does for a play, then this production is a fine example. Most of the time, the ends of the stage are shrouded in darkness, with spotlights pointing us to look to where the action is occurring. Creative lighting projected on the floor suggests a witches' cauldron and even conveys the presence of a table in the banquet scene. It's inspired lighting! Eva Lachur-Omeljaniuk's costumes are appropriately medieval (the real Macbeth lived in the 11th century), allowing actors to change character by the addition of a tabard, a cloak, a hat, a robe. Michael Hajek has provided props galore to enhance the sense of place and time. And yes, there is lots of blood.

If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well . . .Macbeth (Michael Basile)

You may wonder how just seven actors can portray the large cast of thanes, courtiers and servants (not to mention the three witches) needed to tell the tale of Macbeth. This is accomplished by a technique called "doubling," whereby one actor plays several characters. Most of the time, this works quite well; trouble comes with the actor playing Malcolm/Young Macduff and another taking the roles of Macduff and Macbeth's servant Seyton. The characters don’t look sufficiently different to make a quick distinction. Perhaps a hat or a different tabard would help. But both occur near the end of the play so that viewers who have been paying attention heretofore can easily make the adjustment.

Playmaster Colette Rice confers with Michael Basile in a pre-production meeting

Praise goes to director Colette Rice for selecting a cast of stellar actors and letting them loose on the large stage while keeping a tight rein on the action. As Macbeth, Michael Basile is the only character who doesn't double in a speaking role. He commands the audience's attention from the minute he appears, resolute and confident in his ability as a military general. His disappointment at being passed over to succeed Duncan as King ((his being named Thane of Cawdor, the messengers tell him, is "in earnest of a greater honor") is totally understandable, and even as his wife works her feminine wiles on him, we sense he is at heart an honorable man, albeit an ambitious one. Basile delivers Macbeth's several soliloquy's naturally, as though they are the ruminations of his mind. And by the time he faces his end, we are almost rooting for him to prevail, despite his horrible deeds.

A small company of players (Colin Ryan, Patrick Harvey, Elizabeth Belzoni) play multiple roles

Denise Hurd's Lady Macbeth is less evil temptress than mature, supportive wife who knows her husband better than he knows himself. When she tells him she'd dash her nursing child's brains out had she promised him to do so, we really believe her. Her performance is also natural, and the chemistry between the couple is convincing.

"But stick your courage to the sticking post, and we shall not fail."
Lady Macbeth(Denise Hurd) to Macbeth (Michael Basile)

As Macbeth's lieutenant Banquo, Elizabeth Belonzi is stalwart, wary, curious and, as a ghost returned to haunt Macbeth, frightening. Patrick Harvey as Malcolm grows before our very eyes from callow youth saved from capture by Macbeth to a survivor who sizes up the situation after his father's murder to hie himself to England for safety to crafty politician who toys with Macduff to discern whether the thane's loyalty is real and trustworthy. Jonathan Dewberry's star turn as the drunken porter is a comic foil to the awful events unfolding within the castle; the truth of his lines comes clearly through after what we've just watched. And Terence MacSweeny is equally as stellar in the role of Macduff who comes loaded for bear to confront his nemesis in the final scene. Able support is provided by Colin Ryan in a variety of roles.

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more. Macbeth does murder sleep" . . . .
Macbeth(Michael Basile) to his wife (Denise Hurd)

Of course, everyone remembers the three weird sisters, the witches, in Macbeth, whose very appearance in the first scene sets the stage so that "fair is foul, and foul is fair," the conundrum at the very heart of the story. Donning ragged cloaks and hoods that have long hair attached, Jonathan Dewberry, Patrick Harvey and Terence MacSweeney have a fine time concocting those noxious potions and toying with our tragic hero. They are especially interesting in the final scene (not included by Shakespeare) in which they turn on the audience!

Music Master Anthony Bez and Fight Manager Mark McCarthy are to be commended for their efforts at making the production eerie and violent.

Far from the usual caricature, Colette Rice and her cast present a Macbeth worthy of being called a tragedy. It’s the tale of a highly regarded man who brings about his own downfall by a flaw in his character—in other words, “a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” But this production is far from that, one that breaks the play’s curse, one that should be revisited by all former students and experienced by those currently reading the play in class.

nj arts maven: REVIEW: “MACBETH” @ ACTORS SHAKESPEARE COMPANY IN ...

The critics have begun to speak!!! Check out this glowing review of our Macbeth in the NJ Arts Maven post, and CONGRATULATIONS to Colette Rice and her cast and crew on another huge success!

nj arts maven: REVIEW: “MACBETH” @ ACTORS SHAKESPEARE COMPANY IN ...: In my 34 years of teaching high school English, I've probably taught Macbeth to close to 3400 students, watched films versions countless ti...

Fair foul, foul fair . . . .

Michael Basile in rehearsal as Macbeth

Fair is foul and foul is fair . . . nothing is what it seems.  No one says outright what he or she is talking about.  The world is turned upside-down, and every person involved in the story is impelled or impeded by an underlying fear, something that belies every word that is said.

This is the world of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, as portrayed in the ASC's production, opening next weekend (16 March) at the West Side Theater. As the title character, Michael Basile is one of seven actors playing all the roles, and he plays Macbeth as a tormented poet paralyzed by his sensibilities but driven to murderous acts by "o'er vaulting ambition."  His ideas and imagination imprison the Thane of Cawdor, who is, according to Michael Basile, "stymied, frozen. . . by his deeds and can only break free from his state of inertia by acting violently, savagely."

Says Basile, "The man has a poet's ambition in the body and ambitious mind of a trained killer."

Though most of the other actors will portray multiple roles, Basile will only embody Macbeth.  Colette Rice, the production's director, has chosen a ritual circle-storytelling style for her staging to emphasize the centricity of the story.  Her rendering of the play is dedicated to the flow of the characters and their impalement on the crux of the story, which, according to Rice, is the about the coexistence of good and evil in everyone. 

Rice believes that the main message of Macbeth is that "we must all acknowledge that we are capable of great evil and must recognize what it is in each of us to do our best -and our worst! - and shed a light on our own motives for choosing righteousness or ill.” 

Worthy Macbeth, as Michael Basile portrays him, is deeply aware of and inexorably enslaved by his ability to foresee the abiding consequences of his actions.  Then he deeply regrets that once he has begun, he can never see the consequences to completion because there is no end.  "He wants to make the future the present and then have the present complete, but it never is.  He laments that 'it it were done when t'is done' but sees more and more clearly that there is no end. . . . he must kill and kill and kill again."  Worst for Macbeth, he sees the omnipresent and universal struggle between good and evil in himself defeating all his goodness.  "With each killing, a little more of whatever is noble within him is sacrificed."

Macbeth is consumed by his fury, and he becomes the embodiment of his own destructive passions.   He dies violently, entirely unsatisfied. 

Interestingly, the play's message, according to Michael Basile, is about inner peace, about telling the truth, being honest.  "I want the audience to believe that what they see and hear relates to their lives even though what the characters do -- their actions -- are far more hyperbolic than the actions of most humans."

                                                       The Actor Michael Basile

Which is how the actor lives his own life.  A teacher of English Literature and Composition at New Jersey City University, Basile has been a member of the ASC since 2007, and he has been on its Board of Directors since 2004.  He is proud to be part of the troupe, which he characterizes as a "hard working, generous cast, crew and administration," where it is the material in the play that takes precedence over egos.  He would like to see the ASC enabled "to produce more shows and give more of its fine people work."

Though he has loved interacting with Shakespearean text since he saw Zeferelli's Romeo and Juliet as a kid, he has other dreams. Basile is the antithesis of evil, but he is ambitious, especially creatively.  If he were not here acting, he might be home with his wife gardening or cooking.  He is at work on a collection of poems he has written about his family's life with their autistic son and nurtures a dream of belonging to the Audubon Society, being a birdwatcher; he'd also like to finally learn Spanish and take up the cello, which he had to abandon years ago. 

Clearly, one can only do what one can do.  Good deeds, too, can be unfinishable.