Audio Hear an extended interview with NEA Chairman Dana Gioia Photos Othello at the Guthrie Lab NEA funds Shakespeare Iago and Emilia More from MPR State of the Arts Resources Guthrie Theater National Endowment for the Arts Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

	E-mail this page			Print this page

Guthrie takes Othello on tour
by Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio
November 30, 2003

Lester Purry as Othello and Cheyenne Casebier as Desdemona in the Guthrie Theater's production of Shakespeare's Othello. (Photo/ T Charles Erickson, courtesy of the Guthrie Theater)

Starting in January, the Guthrie Theater will take Shakespeare's Othello on the road. The tour is part of the National Endowment for the Arts' initiative to bring Shakespeare to communities across America.

Minneapolis, Minn. — At the Guthrie Lab in Minneapolis, actors run through a series of fight scenes, just hours before going on stage in Shakespeare's Othello. The slip of even a dull blade can do damage, and with so many swords in play, there's great potential for injury.

It's essential for the actors to avoid falling into a sense of false confidence. They're going to be playing these parts not just for one month, or two, but for the better part of a year.

Between now and next summer, the actors will travel across the country, performing Othello from Massachussetts to Arizona. For many, it's the longest acting job they've ever had. Bill McCallum plays the part of Iago. His real-life wife, Virginia Burke, plays the role of Emilia, Iago's wife.

	Iago and Emilia

For the tour, Burke and McCallum will need to take a cousin as a nanny for their two children. They will drive their own car across the country rather than putting the entire family on the bus. Burke says financially, they don't expect to see great gains from this job, but they're doing it because it's a unique adventure for the family.

"We get to be together, see these wonderful places, and perform Shakespeare with each other as husband and wife," says Burke. "On so many different levels it's just a blast. It's a wonderful, wonderful once in a lifetime opportunity, but no I don't think we'll make a lot of money."

There will be other challenges ahead. Burke says being on the road will keep her from auditioning for local jobs as the tour comes to a close, but she'll try to stay on top of things by phone and e-mail.

Stacia Rice is also excited about the tour. She's taken a leave from her day job at an ad agency to be a part of it. This is the first time she will be employed full time as a professional actor -- she compares it to chasing a dream. Stacia is not actually cast. Instead she's an understudy for all three female parts.

I think we should be saying to the politicians ... 'Free the NEA up! Don't put these restrictions on them, and allow them the right to fund art at all its excesses and all its safeties and all its sense of engagement with the community.' - Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling

"I may not get on stage and that's completely fine with me, because the pride I feel just being associated with the production is amazing, and I hope that touches the audiences we get in front of," says Rice. "I hope people are inspired to do theater if that's what they love, or that people are inspired to seek out more Shakespeare if that's what they love, or that it just makes them think a little bit more."

This is the fourth year the Guthrie has toured a production. In the past, those tours have been limited to the Midwest. Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, as part of its initiative to bring Shakespeare to communities across America, the Guthrie was able to expand the scope of its tour. Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling says he's happy to have the NEA's support.

"Anything that makes certain that more people get to see Shakespeare is a good thing," says Dowling. "And if there's money available from the National Endowment for the Arts to do this, I think we should all rejoice!"

The Guthrie is one of eight American theaters that will take works of Shakespeare on tour across the country this year as part of the initiative.

However, not everyone is happy with the NEA's decision to spend $2 million on performing the classics. Michael Phillips, theater critic for the Chicago Tribune, wonders if the money might not have been better spent elsewhere.

"On lesser-known writers, let's say, or small galleries or dance companies or composers," says Phillips. "People who are on the way up and who may or may not become the next big thing, but who really could use that money to continue working on their art."

Phillips says the initiative is a move by the NEA to burnish its image. He says the NEA couldn't play it any safer than by putting money behind Shakespeare in American communities. But he says arts funding is not the same thing as funding, say, highway repair. He says funding for the arts should often be a leap into the unknown.

"The phrase that worried me a bit that the NEA used is, 'The agency intends on bringing art of indisputable excellence to all Americans.' Now that phrase sounds great -- but it's impossible," says Phillips. "There's no such thing as indisputable excellence."

	NEA funds Shakespeare

Phillips says he'd rather see art of "potential excellence" or "disputable brilliance."

But NEA Chairman Dana Gioia says a quality production of Shakespeare can be just as provocative as anything created in this century.

"To me, excellence is a kind of innovation because excellence on its own is not self-sustaining. It requires throwing yourself into it, doing these things again and again and again. Mediocrity -- that's self sustaining," says Gioia.

Gioia admits the NEA has not done a good job in the past explaining to the average American the importance of its work. And in the organization's 40-year history, some areas of the U.S. never have received NEA funding.

Gioia says the NEA needs to be more ambitious and more visionary, as it creates new programs that reach deep into America. He says that initiative is already well underway.

"This last year, in addition to the beginning of the Shakespeare program, we sponsored 138 new plays -- including a play that ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize," says Gioia. "So it's not like we're doing this instead of something else - we're doing it in addition."

Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling says the NEA is avoiding risk by touring Shakespeare instead of more avant garde work, but he says he doesn't blame the NEA for that.

"Rather than attacking them, I think we should be saying to the politicians -- and particularly to the federal government -- 'Free the NEA up! Don't put these restrictions on them, and allow them the right to fund art at all its excesses and all its safeties and all its sense of engagement with the community,'" says Dowling. "That's what funding for the arts should be about, not just reflecting the views of just one section of the community."

Othello runs at the Guthrie Lab through Dec. 21. It then goes on tour across America through May 2004.

News Headlines

Related Subjects