BIGGS RE-WRITES
THE BARD
Behind the Scenes of "Richard III"
Many thanks go out to Paul Taylor Robertson for this piece recounting
one of the evenings Casey took over the role of Buckingham. Paul
has had the distinct pleasure of working for Casey on three productions;
Richard III, Chekhov's Three Sisters and The Seagull.
For Richard III, he not only played multiple roles but was
the shows Sound Designer. For a more about Paul's experiences with
Casey, please visit his
website.
Casey Biggs stepped into the role of Buckingham for a three-night
stretch when Alfred was away and Steve Irish wasn't available to
do it. Caseys strategy was to cut the role down to the bare minimum,
learn it, and hope for the best.
The first two nights it worked quite well; he made it through with
a minimum of flubs. Unfortunately, on the third night, Casey seemed
to somehow mount the wrong horse. The problem was what we called
the "Mayor" scene; that scene where Buckingham assists
Richard in capturing the throne by convincing the Mayor and the
citizens of London that Richard is a holy man, therefore worthy
of kingship. In this scene Buckingham does all the talking, and
it's dialogue of the most brilliant order: funny, seductive, convincing.
Casey had, as I said, assayed the scene successfully (with minor
line-bobbles) the previous two nights; but on the third something
somewhere in the cosmos of acting came seriously unglued, and before
any of us knew it Casey was extemporizing.
A lot.
It was about the funniest thing I've ever experienced on the stage;
and let me tell you, I'm not one to snicker during a show. I think
corpsing is by and large very adolescent behavior. But this was
simply mind-boggling. Casey would start a line, get a little lost,
then bravely make up Shakespearean-sounding lines in an effort to
get back into the script. But the problem was, it wasn't working;
he'd start making stuff up, and as often as not within thirty seconds
he'd find himself in a dense hedge of Elizabethan verbiage far from
any recognizable Shakespearean landmark. It got to the point where
he'd sometimes get so lost his lines weren't even making sense ("...and
therefore, my lord, unto what to and withal indeed this supplicant
performs, and thou hast said it, with grace, thou tak'st thy form
... wherefore unto ... withal...") The rest of us couldn't
help without screwing up the scene; Richard is supposed to be quietly
holy, and I (as the Mayor) quietly awed. Still, we did our best;
once or twice I cut Casey off when a sentence (or his eyes) seemed
to be particularly begging for it. So did Jack. And somehow we managed
to make it through. But when the scene ended (mercifully it was
also the end of Act I), I literally ran offstage and fell down on
the floor in the hallway and lay there helpless for a good two minutes.
I was exhausted. And laughing my head off.
To give him credit, Casey never let on that a thing was wrong; the
audience, watching, would have thought he was a marvelous, confident,
got-getting Buckingham. But to the rest of us on that stage it was
like riding a roller coaster with a couple of loose wheels. Thrilling,
and scary, and every minute possibly even fatal. A fun memory, sure.
But I wouldn't want to repeat it!!! |
