RIP Bob Colonna

I got some sad news today.  One of the stalwart theatre artists of Rhode Island, Bob Colonna, went into the hospital and died on April 25 after a brief illness.  He had suffered some health issues for the past few years, and had moved out of Rhode Island, where he had lived for most of his life to be near his children.

Bob was a great actor, comedian, and artist.  He was the adopted son of actor Jerry Colonna, and worked with his dad on numerous occasions as a child and young adult. In fact he started his career with his dad in the British Music Hall!  He was one of the core ensemble members of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, having come to work at Trinity in 1966.  He was also the founder and chief artistic force of TRIST (The Rhode Island Shakespeare Theatre in Newport) for many years and he graced many of the other stages in Providence and beyond, including the Gamm, Second Story Theatre, the Colonial Theatre, the Huntington Theatre, Theatre at Monmouth, and so many others  He taught acting regularly at Rhode Island College, authored several books, and worked as a voiceover artist and commercial actor as well. I remember him telling me that he had done something like 5000 radio commercials.

REMEMBERING BOB COLONNA

I first remember seeing Bob at Trinity Rep as an actor.  I think it was in a production of Mice and Men (but my memory is hazy- this would have been almost 50 years ago). I don’t remember what show it was, but I remember him as being great. I saw him in a number of other shows there as well.  A few years later, I was in college, and at this point wanting to be an actor, and my mom took me to an outdoor production of Shakespeare in Newport that was great.  Bob was there, having directed it, and I think he might also have been in the show.  I was really impressed with him.

I worked with Bob a few times, notably on two productions of the Pan-Twilight Circus (one in which he played a gardener/ringmaster (and I played a bumbling bee who was unable to fly), and the other where he directed our circus version of The Tempest and I played Caliban as a 9 foot tall puppet monster).  Our Tempest was fantastic, in good portion because Bob was a master of the text, and cut a fair amount to make sure that the story was clear to circus audiences.

We also did a tour of schools in a production of Much Ado About Nothing for Westerly Shakespeare Festival. I jokingly called this show Shakespeare in a Hurry, as I was cast on a Saturday, we started rehearsals on Sunday, and our first show was on Thursday!  Bob was one of the anchors of that show.

Bob was a master of his craft, and great at figuring out the nut of a scene, and then adding comic business in.  He was also a master of the pun, and even when I no longer lived in Rhode Island, he would share puns on Facebook.  One that I particularly remember him “enjoying” was this:  What do Charles Manson and Amtrak have in common?  They both have locomotives.

Bob also loved old fashioned music hall comedy, and silent film comedy, and the old masters of Hollywood, having grown up in that milieu.  He was a big fan of my flea circus.  He didn’t drive, so with a few of the gigs that we did together, I often picked him up and drove him, and we would have wonderful conversations chatting about all kinds of things, and his dad, and great comedy.

 

A few years later, I had moved away from Providence, and happened to be in town for an evening.  It turned out that Bob was directing and performing in a production of Taming of the Shrew (along with my good friend Mark Carter (who I went to high school with)
Bob can be seen in this photo in drag. (center)  I remember this production as being quite funny, and Bob was the center of this.

Not only was Bob a wonderful artist, he was a genuinely kind and wonderful guy.  He was a pleasure to hang around with, and a great conversationalist.  He had done a lot, remembered it all, and was happy to tell you the story.

I have a lot of fond memories of Bob, and I am sure I am not alone.  There is an old Jewish saying when someone passes away “May His memory be a blessing to all who knew him.”  Remembering Bob and thinking back to all of our interactions– it brings a smile to my face.  And that is a life well lived.

Please feel free to leave comments in this topic if you have memories of Bob Colonna that you would like to share.

Below are two resources I found on the internet– one is a 15 minute performance of Bob performing an old rhyming comedy bit, and the other a transcribed interview with author Molly Flavin that was in the Brown University archive.

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VIDEO OF BOB  PERFORMING

Looking online, I found this great video of Bob doing a mini performance of Bob performing some old comedy (The Lancashire Rhyming Tales) as part of a promo for the Newport Performing Arts Center.

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BOB COLONNA INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY FLAVIN

Late last year, I found this interview on the Brown University website when I was searching for something else about Bob.  It’s an interview that a woman named Molly Flavin did in 2003 when Bob Colonna was 62 years old.  (I was 61 when I discovered it)

The interview was here:  https://library.brown.edu/htmlfiles/1126055603803604.html
(I’ve included it below, just in case that link goes away.  I am not sure what project it was related to, and if it ever made it into a documentary.  But I love reading it and remembering

I can’t figure out why Brown has this in their archive, and if there is a project that this is related to. I am posting it here for future reference.

The interview is great and goes into great detail about Bob’s early life and coming up as an actor.  Well worth reading.

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Interviewee: Bob Colonna

Interviewer: Molly Flavin

Interview date: 2 October 2003

MF: So why don’t you introduce yourself?

BC: My name is Bob Colonna. I am an actor and writer. I’m sixty-two years old. I am usually broke. I don’t know, what can I tell you? I am unmarried. I have two grown sons who live in different parts of the country, and two grandchildren up in Northern California. What do you need to know?

MF: Have you lived in Providence your whole life?

BC: No, I’m from California. I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and as a baby, I was whisked to L.A, where I was adopted, actually, by the Colonna family, and brought up in Los Angeles in show business.

MF: What brought you to Rhode Island?

BC: I came here to work for Trinity Rep in 1966 and stayed. I worked for Trinity from ’66-’76 with Adrian Hall. He was the artistic director. And then, for a long time, I ran a theater called the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater. I ran it for about 20 years. There was a lot of overlapping. I started it while I was at Trinity. Then I did just that, I mean locally, for a long time. Then I came back to Trinity when Richard Jenkins was the artistic director. And this was around 1990, I guess. 1989 or 90. And then I was there until a couple, about two and a half years ago, when Oskar Eustis let me go. [Pauses] And now I do whatever theater I can, around and about. I mean, I’ve done stuff… I’ve done a lot of theater in Boston, I mean, over the years. 1 did a lot of voiceover work. I went through a period where I was working just about every day doing voiceover work in Boston, doing commercials, and what they call industrials. Do you know what

those are?

MF:No

BC: An industrial is a piece of tape. It’s an advertisement that goes from one company to… [breaks off] within the business. In other words, for example, I did a bunch of films for Tyrolia ski bindings, and these were tapes, they weren’t films, they were tapes. They were instructive tapes to teach their salespeople and they were motivational.

MF: Ok, so you…

BC: Motivational and instructional. You know, we’ve gotta get out there and sell those…

MF: So you would do the voice track and…?

BC: Well, for Tyrolia, I was on camera, actually. I was doing a takeoff on George C. Scott’s General Patton. (both laugh) and being a motivational speaker, you know. (takes on commanding voice) “GET OUT THERE AND SELL THOSE BINDINGS!!” (both laugh again) You know, those sorts of things. And [pause] I felt very justified during those years, you know, because when I was a kid, I used to play around with a tape recorder. My father had given me his old Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder and I used to play with it. And my mother would stick her head in and say [nagging mom voice] “I hope that you find something better to do with your life than talking into a microphone into a tape recorder.” And so when I started making all the money in doing it…

MF: Oh, the irony in that!

BC: I was thrilled!

MF: Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and your parents?

BC: Sure! Well, I was adopted. And I was an only child, as an adopted child. I’ve since found out that I have living brothers and sisters, but I don’t know where they are…

MF: Oh, wow!

BC:II…which is kind of distressing, but…Anyway, it was not kept from me that I was adopted. 1 knew that from the beginning, But my father was a fairly… in those days, I was born in 1941, so we’re talking the real radio era. And he was a big radio star.

MF: Your dad was Jerry Colonna?

BC: Jerry Colonna. And he worked with Bob Hope. He was mostly associated with Bob Hope. He was sort of a second banana on the Bob Hope radio show. And he was [pause]…of course, he was a recording star. He made a lot of comedy records. He made a few movies. He did some voice tracks for Disney. Have you ever seen Alice in Wonderland? Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland?

MF: Yes.

BC: Well, my father was in that. Did you know that?

MF: Was he, which one? I don’t know. Was he the Mad Hatter?

BC: You’re close. He’s the March Hare.

MF: Oh, okay!

BC: No, Ed Wynn is the Mad Hatter. So Dad is the one who’s [adopts animated voice] “A very merry un-Birthday to you!” And that kind of…that’s what his voice sounded like. So he was…

MF: Was that his normal voice? He didn’t have to work too hard to change it?

BC: He didn’t have to work too hard to change it. Well, I mean, around the house he certainly didn’t sound like that. 1 can’t even do his around the house voice. He was very quiet. He was like the oppo…[trails off]. His image, you know, as a comedian, was a very wacky character. Very big. A very loud, wacky character. And he was very quiet. Very conservative. He was, um, he loved to relax, he liked to read the newspaper. He just, I don’t know, he just enjoyed being quiet. But, on the other hand, he had great adventures. I mean, he was on the very very first overseas Bob Hope tours

MF: Oh, wow.

BC: And we’re talking now around 1942,41 or 2, I think might’ve been when. And they went to the South Pacific, where all the hot action was. And they island-hopped. And they played almost every, whether it was the army or the navy, 1 mean, they played on aircraft carriers, and they played on little islands that barely existed. You know, we had all these guys. In those days, it was all men.

MF: Was it like a USO show sort of format?

BC: Yes. It was the USO, but it was nothing like what we came to think of as USO shows. I mean, they had-excuse me. [pauses to blow nose]. They had a total, everything, the whole crew, I’m talking everything, six people. Six people in a little airplane. And that included Bob and Dad, and a singer named Frances Langford, and a little girl who was a dancer, and she was kind of a little glamour girl for the group, named Patty Thomas, and one writer, Barney Dean, and the band, which was a guitar player named Tony Romano, who’d play guitar. And he’d be behind Frances when she’d sing, but he also noodled (?) vocally. He’d be bah-dah-do-boo-dee-bah [scatting noises]…he’d sort of be a band behind her. And this little troupe, and this was the first time any of them had seen any action, and I don’t think they were ever the same after that. I mean, you know. I think [pause] you had a double whammy thing happening to you. You had the shock of what was going on. You had the shock of war. I mean, they got shot at! I mean, [with

urgency] a couple of times, the planes went over and were dropping bombs, and they had to go…they had their own foxholes they had to get into!

MF: Oh, my…I can’t even imagine it.

BC: Oh, it was incredible! So they had the whole war experience, but the other side of it was…and this was the significant side, especially for Bob Hope, I think, [pause] that you never found a greater audience.

MF: Well, they were so grateful, I’m sure, for the entertainment.

BC: Well, yeah! Oh, yeah! I did one once with my dad. I did one Gl show, well, it was

hardly…I mean, we didn’t go overseas. It was in…it was fifteen miles from Las Vegas, is where it was, right in the middle of the desert.

MF: How old were you?

BC: I was twenty-two at that time. Twenty- two or twenty-three. And, we went out, and we did a show in the back of a truck. You know, we had a few people. And there were thirty thousand men sitting, and they would sit all day. They got out in the morning and sat down and waited for the show. We didn’t come ’til three in the afternoon! In the broiling desert sun. And you’d say good morning, and they’d go crazy! You know, “hi guys!” [cheers]

MF: I’m sure they just needed the diversion.

BC: Well now, can you imagine being the person, you know, being…people who go into show business, especially entertainers, as opposed to actors, well, actors…well, me. I’m one of them, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Most entertainers, I think, who go into show business, I think we want to hear that. I mean, that’s the food. You know, that’s the response, that’s where the energy comes from, you know. And, you… after you experience a GI audience, everything else is water.

MF: Yeah.

BC: So I think this is what kept Bob going over and over and over and never giving up. And how shocked and stunned he was when he started getting booed in Vietnam. You know, the people who were…and whatever. God bless the guys, and they were whacked out and so forth, and you know, there was…[trails off]. When Hope died last month, I got to thinking about this a lot, and I realized that I don’t think that World War II would ever be topped in those guys’ experiences. My dad, and Bob and the people who went over there. That was the great one, in terms of being an entertainer. It’s kind of a crass thing to think about, you know. Although, I mean, they would have the emotional impact. You know, for example, they would always go into the hospital tents, and they would always do a little show for the wounded. And they used to make a lot of noise. You know, because they had them so quiet in the tents. And the guys would really love it, you know. And they’d bring in Frances Langford and she’d sit and sing to these guys and they’d cry,

you know. So they had these very emotional things. Or they would goof with the nurses and make the guys laugh. Whatever would do it.

MF: I’m sure the nurses appreciated it as much as the patients did.

BC: Oh, yes. Absolutely. And it helped. It really helped these guys, a lot of them. I mean, Frances Langford…[pause] There was a kid that wouldn’t respond. Just wouldn’t respond, you know. He was emotionally hit and he was mentally hit and he was physically hit, and she just sat down and sang to him and he started to cry, and then he began to recover.

MF: Wow.

BC: So they would have these incredible emotional experiences, and at the same time, you’ve got that gratification of your ego. You couldn’t top the experience, you know? So anyway, in the meantime…and they would do broadcasts, you know, from wherever they were, and send them back, and all that kind of stuff. So that became…so that was a very big deal. So I was adopted in the middle of all of this.

MF: So would your dad be traveling then?

BC: Well, yeah, actually. I was adopted in ’41 in February. No, I was born in ’41 in February. I was adopted in… [trails off] I was 6 weeks old, so I was adopted before Pearl Harbor. So we weren’t in the war yet, but we were pretty fast. So I grew up with the war. And, oddly enough, Dad would go away for a few weeks, and then he would come back, and he’d be around. Then, he was on the Hope radio show, for Pepsodent toothpaste, for…’til around 1950. 1949, 1950, in there somewhere. And then, Dad got it into his head that he was really tired of being the second banana, and he wanted to see if he could go out on his own and be, you know, number one comedian. And he might have, but what Dad didn’t have…[trails off] He didn’t have the ambition. He didn’t have the shark’s teeth that you need to do that kind of thing, that kind of survival. And he began getting screwed right and left. And he finally…he got screwed by his own business agent to the point where he was sued for a million dollars. And the guy won! Now, a million dollars…

MF: Is a lot of money!

BC: Is a lot of money anyway, and in 1951, you know, a million dollars would last you all your life. You were a millionaire. You only needed one million dollars to be a millionaire, you know what I mean?

MF: Right.

BC: And it was gone. [snaps fingers] I mean, we went from being millionaires to, literally, not having…[trails off] I mean, we came out of church, and the sheriff was standing by our car, ready to take the car.

MF: Oh, wow.

BC: Never mind the humiliation, and all that kind of stuff. So, my mother, who was Irish, this was her meat, actually. She was raised, well both of them had been raised in poverty, anyway. Dad was Italian from the West End. They were both from Boston, by the way. And, my mother was used to hardship. Very used to it. She had a very, very rough time as a kid. So she just pulled up her socks, and began to figure some way, you know, to get blood out of turnips. And, my god, she did. And, of course, Dad had to just scrabble around for work, with the result that, from that point forward, I didn’t see much of him. He wasn’t home a lot. He was away for months at a time. He had to go on the road and get a gig, you know, two weeks in Philadelphia, two weeks in New York, and two weeks someplace else. And do this kind of stuff. At the same time, we had to keep this fictional ball in the air that everything was great, because if they smell that you’re dying in L.A, you die.

MF: Right.

BC: It was tough, it was tough. I have no love for L.A. I never… I mean, really. I have no

intention of going back there, certainly not to live. I mean, I pop back sometimes. My folks are both gone now, but I’d go back and visit them. But really, there’s no reason. It’s a terrible place! [both laugh] And, so anyway, I think that I grew up with this, with a lot of things that sort of messed me up, and of course, put me right into show business. First of all, I got right away what it was, what show business was. And to me, to a child, if you’re going to be affected by show business, you’re affected by the fact that you stand up there and everybody looks at you and goes “Yay!” That sounded pretty good to me. That looked real good. [Pause] And then, I had a very rich fantasy life. Only children tend to do that, you know. You’re not an only child?

MF: No. I have a younger brother.

BC: Yeah, ok. Well, it’s almost the same thing. [laughs] There tends to be…You know, you make up a lot. You really do. I used to build masks. I used to…I mean, I had a very, very creative head life. So, as soon as I could, I was getting into plays in grammar school. You know, I did all the schools plays in grammar school in high school. And then I went to college. I went to Marquette University in Milwaukee. And they had a really hot little theater group there that I got involved with. It was very professionally aimed. The guy that ran it was really tough. He didn’t want to do school plays. He wanted to train actors. I mean, we did plays. And he was murder. And I did not graduate from Marquette, only because I spent all my time at the theater. And I didn’t like school in the first place. I never wanted to go to college. I wanted to go to a drama school. In fact, that’s what I did. Unfortunately, I flunked out of the college while I was at it, you know, out of the university. But, I did learn a lot. And it was never…[trails off]. And I

think there was a momentary thought, when I was still in grammar school, that I might become an animator for Walt Disney. That was the only…

MF: Was a career in show business encouraged in your house?

BC: Not particularly. Not particularly, no. I mean, why would it be? They had seen the best and worst of it. And, as I was growing up and getting ready for college, they were experiencing the lowest part of Dad’s career, which eventually recovered. While I was in college, he started working nightclubs in Vegas and stuff, and that became what he wound up doing. And it worked very well for him. He put together a band and a review, and all that stuff. But…I’m skipping over something valuable, important. When I was…As I say, they didn’t encourage it, but, at the same time, I mean, my mother, especially, didn’t encourage it. Well, she’s Irish. I mean, number one, she wanted me to be a priest.

MF: Oh! [laughing]

BC: You know, number one. That’s always the first… An Irish mother…

MF: It happens in Irish families.

BC: In those days, anyway. That was the first thing.

MF: My grandfather says the same thing.

BC: Yes. And the second thing was, oh, a lawyer or a doctor or something like that. The usual stuff. Anything but show business. Because show business was killing her! It had been a great gift and a wonderful thing, and now all the toys had disappeared, you know. But, when I was fourteen, my father went over to England for a few weeks on a tour, and it turned out to be a great, great tour. They loved him over there! For all the, kind of, apathy that American audiences had with my father, the British just thought he was it, thought he was great. I’m surprised we didn’t move there, to tell you the truth. But the following year, he went back, and he decided to bring mother and I along, and to give me a walk- on in his act.

MF: Really?

BC: Yeah, And this was actually Vaudeville. Remember I was telling you about the book I wrote. This is where I got the inspiration for that. England was still doing Vaudeville in those days, in the 1950s. They called it Variety, but it was Vaudeville. And I’m talking eight, ten acts. You come and you pay a very cheap price, and you sit in the theater, and you saw all these acts, one after the other. I’m talking jugglers, and ventriloquists, and animal acts…

MF: And was the comedian’s part like the straight man/funny man sort of set up?

BC: Well, no, not necessarily. And if you had a feature… In this case, Dad was the star. So he got the last twenty minutes of the thing. Twenty minutes is long for a Vaudeville act. So he got the last twenty minutes, or maybe it was about forty minutes, come to think of it. It had to have been longer than twenty minutes. Could’ve been forty minutes. No, he would just come out and do…first of all, he had all of these…[truck passes by. BC stops talking]. I will play you, if you remind me, a recording of him, and you can hear what he did. He had this comedy song styling that was a takeoff on the operatic style that had just preceded his era, you know, and was still kind of hanging around. Like Nelson Eddy and that sort of thing. And many people sang…when you hear recordings of George M. Cohan, he sang like that. I mean, it’s weird. But, it was rolling the r’s and it was very grand. Burlesque, burlesque. (?) And he was very funny.

MF: So what did the walk-on entail?

BC: Well, I’m going to get to that. So the bit was very simple. I have a picture of us doing it. I would just walk on. I was fifteen. I had a nice little suit. And I came on. And he would bring me on, and it was a little bit. He’d say, “Do you want to do something?” And I would pretend to be very scared. Actually, I was thrilled.

MF: Right.

BC: I was never scared for a minute! [both laugh]. I was just so excited. But I came on looking very scared. You know, stage fright, and all that stuff. And we did a lot of jokes about that. And he’d wind up trying to see what I could do. And I was out there, and I can’t sing and I can’t dance. And I finally…I tell him I’m going to tell a couple of jokes. So I’d take a piece of paper out of the pocket and I’d tell these two terrible jokes, these dead jokes [makes spitting noise] You know. And he bawls me out. He says, “How could you…? Where do you find stuff like this?” And I tell him “This is your suit. I found them in the pocket.” And then I’d turn around and walk off. And that was it. That was the bit. [MF laughs] Well, you know, I got laughs! I mean, if I was, if I had any doubts before, that settled it.

MF: So you knew then. BC: Oh! No question! And, I was good at it! I mean, he helped me a lot.

MF: In the genes, maybe?

BC: Adopted!

MF: Oh, right! There you go.

BC: No idea, no idea who my folks are. Except that they’re farm people. No, they are. They’re from the farm belt. Not…they’re farm people. I mean, they’re from the farm belt. They let you know certain things, but they don’t want you to, you know, be able to trace them. [Pause] So, that was something. So, as I said, I did all the shows in high school, and in college. I got out of college and I knocked around for awhile. 1 finally got started working at the Old Globe in San Diego. The Old Globe Shakespeare Festival. I did that for a season.

MF: This is after college?

BC: After college. This is 1963, in the summer season. I did that, and that was really good. And then I was just…I had nothing to do in the winter. I was hanging around San Diego, and my father called up. Now, by this time, he was doing the nightclub act. He said he wanted to put me in the act, the nightclub act. And I really didn’t have anything to do, so I said okay. And one thing I should say about…one of the unfortunate things about college was that I began drinking in college. I wound up with a drinking problem for a few years. That started in college. I went to Marquette. It’s in Milwaukee. And one thing I usually say is, they had an excellent drinking program at Marquette in those days.

MF: Right. [both chuckle]

BC: And so, I wound up…I was beginning to have trouble already. So then, anyway, Dad puts me in this nightclub act. And I did that for a year and a half. That was an expanded thing. In those days, by the time I did the nightclub act, I was probably about 260 pounds. And, I had already started wearing a beard. I picked that up in college. Fat men usually grow beards. Have you noticed? We don’t want to look at our chins.

MF: Interesting. No, I hadn’t noticed. But yeah, now that you mention it.

BC: And also, that’s acceptable. You can be a fat man with a beard, and that’s far more acceptable than a fat man without a beard. We think. It makes us feel bluff and hearty, and that stuff. And eventually… I’ve had a weight problem for most of my life, which has been under control for the last few years, thank God. But my last blowup was about 325 pounds. Yeah. So, you know, the beard.

MF: Were you traveling nationally with your dad?

BC: No. We were mostly the Nevada thing. We did Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, and we did travel to Puerto Rico. We did six weeks, five weeks, in San Juan, at the Americana Hotel. We were playing the lounges, not the big rooms. But they weren’t toilets, either. These were very respectable. We were at the Tropicana in Vegas in the lounge…

MF: Who else did you see? I’m sure that you saw…

BC: Oh, in my life, oh yeah. I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve had some, some nice experiences. I’ve had a few experiences where I got to meet somebody I really wanted to meet. And that was neat, you know. And a couple times when I got to say things to people that they really wanted to hear. And that was nice. I was a big fan of Robert Preston, for example. And I was with my dad. We were in New York. And Dad came back…We were at Danny’s Hideaway, which is a restaurant that no longer exists, but it was a place where celebrities used to go because you literally could hide. And Dad came back from the can, and he said, “Bob Preston’s here. Do you want to meet him?” You know. And he had just had a movie come out that hadn’t done well, but he was really good in it. It was Dark at the Top of the Stairs. And it was the movie after Music

Man. And Music Man was such a smash, and then here was this difficult, dramatic role. The box office went ppphhht. [makes noise suggesting downward descent] You know how that goes. It was like Jim Carey, when he did that wonderful Truman Show. And everybody went…

MF: It’s not Ace Ventura!

BC: [echoing, in ‘dumb’ voice] It’s not Ace Ventura! And the people who should’ve seen it didn’t see it because it was Jim Carey.

MF: Because it was Jim Carey. Exactly.

BC: And it was a shame! I don’t know if you saw that movie.

MF: Yes, I did. It was very good. I really enjoyed it.

BC: It was wonderful. God! What a great performance! So, same thing. Here’s Bob Preston, doing this good job. So I went and I told him, what a great job he did, and he was so happy.

MF: Oh, I’m sure.

BC: And you could see that he was just waiting for Music Man to come out, and when I said Dark at the Top of the Stairs, he grabbed my hand and he kissed my hand and got excited, like an actor, you know. So anyway.

MF: So you came to Providence.

BC: Came to Providence. But before I did that, I did a couple of other…I did a year and a half with Dad on the road. And then I said, “I’ve got to get out of this.” It wasn’t doing it for me, and I really wanted to be in theater. I wanted to be in plays. And Dad, I gotta tell you…my father…my communication with my parents was never good. My mother was fairly hysterical most of the time. She was a very nervous…[trails off] And she had a lot to be nervous about. She was hard to…and Dad was the other way. He was so tacit, he eventually gave himself an ulcer, from, you know, worrying, and keeping it down. But, so once in a while…once in a great while, we would be on the same wavelength, but that didn’t happen very often. But, when I said I wanted to leave, that I wanted to go back to the theater, he said, to me, a beautiful thing. He said, “All right” He said, “You have the right to leave because you did a good job at it.” And I thought, that is…

MF: Because you did a good job at…

BC: At being…[trails off] In other words, I finished my work.

MF: Okay, so you finished your work on the West Coast, so now you…

BC: It wasn’t that. It’s “You have the right to leave because you’re not walking out a failure.

MF: Oh, okay. You’re walking out with your head held high.

BC: Yeah. You’ve succeeded, and you have the right to move on. And I didn’t quite get it at the time, but I think that was quite a thing to say to your kid.

MF: That is. That is.

BC:…full of power, you know. So then I went back to San Diego, and I did another season at the Globe, and I did a season at Milwaukee Rep. And all of these came through mends, or something, or contacts. I almost never auditioned for anything. It was amazing. You know, somebody would see me in something and they’d say “You want to do that? Or do that?” So I got kind of spoiled in this business. And the same thing even happened with here. I got offered to Trinity from something I’d done in Milwaukee, you know? And, I’m, at this point… 1966, I was twenty-five. I was huge, but I was useful. I wasn’t a really good actor, but I was useful. I was useful because I knew my way around a stage, and I was adroit, and I was clever and I could do a lot of voices, you know. And in college…One of the things I learned in college, again, was a lot of dance, so I was nimble, too. Even for a fat guy. [pause] There are two kind of fat guys. There are the clumsy ones and then there are the really nimble ones. Like Ned Beatty is nimble. Ned Beatty can always dance. He’s morbidly obese, but he can dance. Gleason can dance.

MF: And movement is something you can learn, too.

BC: But you have to learn it early. You have to build up that [slaps thigh]. This has to be there for you, you know. Anyway.

MF: What kind of shows did you do when you came to Providence?

BC: With Adrian? Some of the damnedest things you ever saw. That was his…66 to 76 was a hell of a great time to be involved with Adrian Hall. He was changing the…he was part of what was changing the face of the American theater. He had a strong…he was strongly influenced by… First of all, he was very influenced by Brecht, and he was very influenced by the work of the Polish Laboratory Theater under a man named Jerzy Grotowski, who was…[trails off] The way of looking at theater was, instead of saying “let’s make pretty pictures” and “let’s make it all…let’s make ‘let’s pretend” and “you pretend to be that person. you pretend to be that person,” it was a way of acknowledging the fact that we were all in the room together. And that, yeah, this is all a lie, but if you’re in on the lie, then it’s not a lie, is it? You know? To kind of give you an example. [pauses] The most striking example I can think of was, we did a play, and this was the play that

[phone rings inside] Oh, I’ll get it later… Adrian predicted would change everything about Trinity. And it did.

MF: What play was that?

BC: It was called Brother to Dragons. It was originally written as a verse drama, or I should say, as a poem in dramatic form, by Robert Penn Warren. And it was about a true historical event, which was that Thomas Jefferson had a nephew named Lilburn who was a little bit touched, and when Lilburn’s mother, Thomas’s sister, died, Lilbum, who was a young man then, went a little nuts, and killed a slave on his estate by systematically chopping him to pieces alive in front of the other slaves.

MF: Oh, gosh!

BC: Now, believe it or not, that was illegal. You know, even though a slave was property, there were some things you just couldn’t do. And eventually, he was… they were going to catch him, and he and his brother…Lilburn did a suicide pact with him, except at the last minute…[interrupts himself] They were going to shoot each other across their mother’s grave. But, oddly enough, at the last minute, Lilburn shot into the air, so his brother ended up killing him and being alive and surviving. So Penn Warren got it, great (?)…we have this major event. The central event of this whole thing is chopping a human being to pieces.

MF: Great selling point!

BC: On the stage! So how are you going to do this? You know? I mean, when Laurence Olivier played Titus Andronicus, he found a way to cut his hand off onstage, right there in front of everybody. What was wrong with that? What was wrong with that was, you went [gasps] “How did he do that?” And the story goes pppttt. [makes noise suggesting descent again]

MF: Right.

BC: There’s no story. The event is gone. The event of a man chopping his hand off is blown because you’re wondering how the hell they did it. In the movies, they can do it easy. In the movies, it happens, and you say “Hand chopped off. Good. Just saw it happen. Know it happened.” The stage is trickier. So, what they did was…[interrupts self] In the dialogue, Lilburn says, you know, “Bring the nigger in here, and put him on the thing.” And, you know, we’re already shocked from the word. And then, there’s butcher block. And they took the man, the actor, and they hung him up upside down by his heels on the side of the stage.

MF: Oh, my goodness.

BC: Okay, so that’s one image.

MF: Right.

BC: But he’s still pointing to the chopping block, and they bring down a shoulder of beef and throw it on the chopping block, and he grabs his ax, his hatchet, and he says, “This is the last black hand, by God, that will make my mother breathe!” [makes thudding noise suggesting the fall of the ax] Into the meat, and the man is screaming. The narrator voice says “And the hand went into the fire!” The chorus goes hhhssss [sharp intake of breathe, hissing sound]. Right? And I can see what this is doing to you already!

MF: [shakily] Yeah, and I’m not even watching it! I’m just hearing you.

BC: Now, there was no escape for the audience. There was no fake. There was no pretend. There was no “how did they do that?” It was obvious. You know? It was obvious. There was the ax going into the meat. You had to deal with it. You had to deal with the reality of it. It was so profound. I mean, people were very upset. A lot of people said, you know, “This doesn’t belong on the stage.” You know, and all the rest of it. But the point was, we had broken through. We had found something, and there was no going back now. You know? You had to, in every time…This method, every time…and I’ve become a director since then. And I try to do this. What counts on the stage is the event. [Pauses] Nothing else. Anything that doesn’t contribute to that, you know…Does this mean you can’t make a set with a house and furniture? Yeah, of course you can.

Does it mean you can’t dress in Victorian clothing? Yeah, of course you can. But what’s the event? What is happening here? As soon as it becomes about the actors, or the set, or the music… I mean, this is why I hate what’s happened to the New York musical, you know. It’s about the set! I mean, the Phantom of the Opera. That’s one of the great stories. It’s a great, great story. It’s a real story. One you should read. And the film that [car driving by, unable to hear rest of sentence.] and the musical…but it’s about the set! “Oh, did you see the boat? It looked like a real boat!” You know, that’s a circus! That’s not a play. [MF laughs] That’s a circus. So, you know, you have to ask yourself how…That was the big thing I learned there.

MF: What effect did that play have on Trinity?

BC: It put it on the map.

MF: Oh, really?

BC: Yeah. And many of the things we did subsequently. I mean, we did Shakespeare, and oh, so many shows that…and he would always…[trails off] And half the time, it wouldn’t work. Which lets you know that you’re really trying. I mean, there were things that just didn’t work. And, if it works every time, then you’re not working. You know, you’re not doing your work. I mean, you know about Edison and the light bulb? There were something like a thousand failures. And finally one of his assistants said, you know, “Shouldn’t we….What bothers me is all the time we’ve wasted.” And he said, “Hey, we know all these things that definitely don’t work!” [Pause] It’s like, as a director, I’ve learned as much from bad directors as good directors. Maybe more. I’ll

say, “Okay, never do that! Never, for example, get so involved in one scene that you forget about the rest of the play. Never forget the arc. I mean, one of the things that Adrian used to do, and it was hard on the actors, he’d want to have a run-through as fast as possible. And it would be hard! You’d be running around, and you’d still have the script in your hand. And, of course, his plays were very physical, so you were always running up and down ladders, ringing bells, throwing water up in the air, you know. In Billy Budd, we shot full-sized cannons into the audience!

MF: Oh, my gosh! [both laugh]

BC: I mean, we really did!

MF: Maybe that would have made Billy Budd more interesting for me in English class!

BC: Oh, yeah! And we hung him, too. We sent the crew people right up in the air!

MF: Wow!

BC: I mean, he was standing on the ground and the guys went up the aisle with a rope, and he went straight up into the air. And we had bilge pumps with water shooting, you know, like twelve feet in the air and all. It was fabulous! Fabulous! The idea was, you know…What we decided that was about was “How did this event take place? How did it happen? Why?” Well, because of life on those boats. And that’s what we really investigated. And we found out that…lt was a horror…it was a horror show. They said it was worse than a jail because you could drown. And that’s why so many of those seamen were impressed. They were knocked over the head in a dive and thrown onto a boat, and you woke up and you were at work. You know? Even the military boats. So, having that information…[trails off] And it wasn’t all grisly. I mean, we did a wonderful Taming of the Shrew where we reproduced the whole Elizabethan experience, with big barrels of peanuts for the audience. And we encouraged them to throw peanuts and stand around and throw shells and we sang. You know, marvelous, marvelous stuff! I mean, theater…it became about…about getting the audience willing to… willing against their will, to join with you, to be with you, to experience whatever the event was, to walk out knowing. And again, we were trying… [trails off] Well, this got me so excited that, in 1971, having been at Trinity for six years…five years, I, well…I’m saying this wrong. I’m kind of Iying. I was offered a job directing kids, teenagers, on a boat in Pawtucket, at a youth center that had been developed out there. And we did Shakespeare. I decided we’d do Shakespeare. We did Twelfth Night. And we had a rock band, and we had slides and all of that.

MF: That play is great. It’s one of my favorites.

BC: Yeah. And we had all these kids. And I had a few adults brought in. I had an adult Malvolio and I had an adult [pauses] Toby Belch. And the rest was kids. And an adult Olivia. But it was all contemporary, and this was the 60s, so everybody…you’ve got the hot pants and the long hair and all that kind of stuff. Bell bottoms, you know. It was cute, and it worked. It was a lot of fun. It was very experiential. And then, we did Shakespeare every summer on the boat for a few years, then the boat went out of business, and by that time, I had a company. So now we’re doing Shakespeare…and we called it the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater. It was called the Young Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater at first, and then we dropped that because everybody was getting too old! [chuckles]. And that went on…it started in Pawtucket, and it went to… eventually it rattled around Providence in a few different spaces, and then we had a theater in Newport for almost ten years. Eventually lost that space, and it kind of fizzled, finally. Mostly because the 80s were so tough. It was very hard to get any kind of grant money anymore. Contributions were way down. There wasn’t any sense of volunteerism. That had gone, totally gone. And there was no way to keep this thing floating. It wasn’t constructed as a business, you

know? Eventually…[interrupts self] even a nonprofit business. We didn’t have a strong board…base. We tried, but we didn’t. We didn’t know how. So eventually, it went phhht. [noise suggesting descent again] And I came back to Trinity, as I said, around 90. Came back to work with Dick Jenkins, who was another genius. In the meantime…

MF: How was your second time back at Trinity different from your first time you’d been there?

BC: [Pause] I was older. [another pause] And I learned, well…in the meantime, I must say, that while I was…Before I came back, I had done some shows in Boston, and in other places. I did…even in Rhode Island, I did a couple of things. I did at least one show at Second Story Theater, and I mean, I did both…I directed at some other places, colleges and so forth. I ran the drama department, not the drama department, the drama club, at RISD for a while. For about a year somewhere in the 70s, I forget exactly where. And I was doing…I did stuff at theaters in Boston. I did plays up there, and I was doing all this voice over work I was telling you about. [Pause] When I came back to Trinity, in ways, it was a great relief because I didn’t have to run anything anymore. I didn’t have to…you know. From having my own theater company, which I will never do again…it was a relief.

MF: Just because it was tiring?

BC: It was tiring, and the tiring part about it was constantly having to explain to people what we were doing. You know, to try to say to…[cuts off] The big problem with the arts is that you need money, and you need a board and you have to bring money in. And the people who do this have a hard time understanding that they can’t control you. They’re supposed to give you the money or not. That’s it. That’s the extent of your participation. You don’t get to tell me what to do. That’s what you have an artistic director for. And most people who have money…There’s only one reason to get rich, and that’s to have control, of your life and of other people’s lives. Oh, and things are nice, too. If I got rich, I’d want things, but the main reason to get rich, I mean, particularly for males, and for some females, is to be able to control. And so, to have all this money, and to say “I’m going to give you money.” But, to say “Yes, but you can’t control me” is…it just doesn’t compute. They just don’t get it, you know? And so I was fighting that fight, and I was just so tired of it. So… I was exhausted. So to come to Trinity, a place where someone else was fighting the fight for you…And the money was better. I mean, there was money. [chuckles] And all I had to do was show up on time and do my work and go. And then, plus, Richard Jenkins happens to be one of the great actors. Do you know who he is?

[MF shakes head]

Have you seen Six Feet Under?

MF: Yes.

BC: He’s the father.

MF: Oh, wow!

BC: The dead father. That’s Richard Jenkins.

MF: I’ve only seen it once or twice.

BC: Well, he’s a hell of an actor, and a hell of a director. And he had been there for the thing with Adrian, so he got it. He knew exactly…[trails off] So he picked up the ball and ran with it for a few years, and did some extraordinary work. Some beautiful, beautiful extraordinary work. And I got to be part of that, and that was wonderful. [cuts out] And he left because he really wanted to pursue his acting career. And for the same reason I left. It got to be tiring. It got to be too hard to do all the other things that involve being artistic director. So he left. And we got Oskar. And Oskar Eustis did an amazing thing when he came in. He saved the place, because we had… for all the artistic work we were doing, the financial…it was in a big hole. And Oskar understood that. And knew how to be…He’s extremely charismatic, too. And he came in and began bringing people in and doing a lot of schmoozing and whatever, whatever it took. And within a matter of three years, we were out of a debt that was so big I don’t even want to go into the figures with

you. It was horrifying.

MF: Right.

BC: But…And it’s none of my business anyway, but I will tell you that he turned the place around. [clears throat] And said at the time, “I don’t believe I’m a great director. I think I could be a great artistic director,” which is two different things, as a director of plays. I think he’s a good director of plays. I think he makes the same mistakes everybody else makes, you know, and has the same degree of success everybody else has. Philosophically, it was a big change, in the kinds of theater that would be done there. Not to say that he went commercial, because that’s not true. But, I don’t know. There was something going on between him and me, and I, to this day, don’t get it. And nobody else gets it. But he just, I don’t know, he finally…I think I was probably difficult. I know that my weight was going up and down in those days, and I was having a lot of fluctuation, and I was feeling very insecure, so I probably whined a lot or something, in rehearsal. “You want me to do what?” [voice goes up an octave] and that sort of thing. Anyway, he finally just eased me out of the building. He didn’t actually say “You are fired,” but it became pretty clear that he didn’t want to use me anymore. My friends were shocked. The other actors were shocked. Nobody quite gets it, but whatever it was…[trails off] And also, he had to get rid of some dead weight at my age level because he was bringing in new people, which you have to do, of course. Mostly from the conservatory. You know, you need a lot of fresh blood. If you have a lot of octogenarians up there trying to do Romeo and Juliet, it’s not going to happen. So, you know, I saw the handwriting on the wall pretty early on, and it made me twice as nervous, and I probably misbehaved twice as bad. And I said, you know, “I’m going to be put out on the ice.” And I was, and it turned out to be a good thing. I immediately got a couple of shows at the Huntington Theater in Boston, which surprised me. Since then, I’ve had some very strong local success. Last year, I was in…had two big shows. I mean, two big parts in wonderful productions of shows. There was a production of Angels in America last year that wasdirected by a fellow that came out of the conservatory at Trinity, and it was an amazing production that nobody saw. But it got amazing reviews. I mean, it was just like… But it was funny. Nobody came. We had very small houses. And yet it was sheer genius. This kid is, like, crazy. He’s really a mad person. He’s kind of hard to be around, actually. And he’s gone now. He’s in L.A. But he did a fabulous piece of work. And then, I just got to play Willy Loman this past year at Second Story Theater, for Ed Shea in Warren. You’ve never heard of Second Story Theater and (speaks too fast)?

MF: No, I haven’t.

BC: It’s one of the best…it’s a terrific organization. I think. They’re doing A Delicate Balance right now. And I’m going to go into…I start this Saturday. I’m going to play Candy, the old man, in Of Mice and Men. You know, these are roles I never would’ve gotten anywhere else. And Ed brought me in on a guest equity contract to do Willy Loman, and I never…It was an incredible experience, and I never got such reviews in my life. And it was a great production. And it was very spare. It was done in the round. There was no furniture. At all. I got to sit down twice, and both times on suitcases. For about two seconds. And then it was up again. You know, everything was [snaps fingers]. And it worked. It worked like nobody’s business. So, what am I doing now? Besides talking to you. Okay. I write a biweekly column for FindRI.com, which is…and this column is just like a sidebar. FindRI.com is an online magazine about what to do in Rhode Island,

and this is…I cover something called “Sights and Sounds” which is entertainment and activities and so forth. Every two weeks I write a column. So I have to go do that this afternoon, because my computer blew up. So I have to go down to the office and do it there. [Pauses] I have just been asked by a publishing company to write a book about my father, which is very exciting.

MF: That is exciting.

BC: It’s a small outfit that does nostalgia type things. I do have a literary agent in New York, and I was telling you on the thing, as we were walking down here, I’m doing a series of mystery stories about silent movies, with a ten-year-old protagonist, this little girl who is a silent movie actress. So they’re handling that. Nothing’s really happened yet, but publishing is a 1ong…You know, thank God I’m an actor because I know how to throw something in there and not worry about…and not listen for the splash, you know. One of the things you learn is, you audition, or you send in your manuscript, whatever you do, and you forget it ever happened. You just forget it ever happened. If you wait around for the phone to ring, you’ll go out of your mind, because you’ve got plenty of competition, no matter what you do. You learn how unspecial you are. I will never forget this. I was watching television, Barney Miller, a series called Barney Miller. It was a detective show out of New York. No, it was out off L.A. And I looked up, and I was on the screen. I was in the show. Now, I knew danm well I never did a Barney Miller. But I know what I look like, and what I sound like from the tape. And that was absolutely me.

MF: So that was you?

BC: And I thought, “Well, there’s another reason not to go to New York. Yet another reason not to go to L.A. I’m out there already. They don’t need me out there. They’ve got this guy. You know? And that was really frightening.

MF: How did it happen? Do you know?

BC: What do you mean, how did it happen? MF: Did you try out for something and then forget about it?

BC: No, no, no. It wasn’t me!

MF: Oh, it just looked like you!

BC: It was another actor who looked, sounded, moved, acted. It was me!

MF: Wow. But it wasn’t you.

BC: And so, I said, “Well…” I mean, so that’s what you’re up against. I mean, it’s true. If you were to receive a casting and say “We want a person…” “My God, that’s exactly me,” there’d be twenty-five “exactly me’s” there.

MF: Right.

BC: You know, that’s how it goes.

MF: Like Charlie Chaplin coming in second in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

BC: Exactly! Exactly! Yes! Did you know, when Charlie Chaplin first came over here, he came over with an act called “A Night at an English Music Half’ produced by a guy named Fred Karno. And it was a Vaudeville act, and there were about six…No, about eight people in it. And do you know who the second clown was, his understudy?

MF:No.

BC: Stan Laurel. Laurel and Hardy.

MF: Okay.

BC: So they both had…Anyway…

MF: I wanted to ask you a little bit about Providence, like the art scene in Providence in general.

BC: It’s pretty cool.

MF: How has it changed since you’ve been here? Have you noticed?

BC: Oh, it’s gotten a lot better. I think Trinity had a profound effect on the theater scene.

MF: How does Trinity differ philosophically from other theaters that you’ve worked in?

BC: Well, Trinity has to have a certain agenda. They operate in blocks of, well, Trinity is,

always has been, and always will be our professional repertory company. No question, you know? Nobody else has the budget. Nobody else can really afford it. Many, many people have said “by God, we’re going to make a professional repertory company out of this!” Trinity has the wherewithal. And it’s not like a Wal-Mart or something. It’s quite the reverse, as a matter of fact, especially since the conservatory came into being, about twenty years ago, I guess, or longer. It has spawned [cuts out]…so many kids have decided to stay! And start groups! That’s how Perishable started.

MF: Right.

BC: Perishable Theater started. That’s how Sandra Feinstein Gamm started. Other theaters grew up…I mean, now you have your multicultural theaters, which are growing. You have, not one, but two, black theaters, Black Rep and Rites and Reason, you know? The Native Americans are starting to get together and do things and think about theater. And this is very, very exciting! I would love to see an Asian company here. I mean, there’s so many talented Asian students at Brown. You would think that some of them want to hang around and do something. But that hasn’t happened. I mean, when I say “Asian theater company, Black theater company”, that would, you know, pursue works that are specifically cultural. I mean, this is an amazing multicultural city. But I do think that…[trails oft] And then we have Second Story. Now, Second Story Theater has actually been around for a very long time in different incamations, but this is its most successful, the one in Warren now. [Pause] It will continue to happen. This company…I just finished directing a play for a new company called First Stage Providence, and they’re only a couple of years old. And they tour. I’m going to direct Winter’s Tale for them in the winter. The show that we’re doing now, we’ve gotten tremendous critical response, and the show is selling well in the different places we bring it in. There is still plenty of room, and there’s a lot going on, and you have the advanced companies, you’ve got your opera now, you have the Providence Singers, which have brought in a new artistic director a couple of years ago who kicked them up several notches. They’ve become a major…they are now a major force, and, you know. I mean, when I came here in 1966, there was next to nothing. I mean, Trinity and the Barker Playhouse, which still is…the world’s… I think it’s America’s oldest, existing community theater. And it is community theater, with all that entails, good and bad. They have no aspirations to be anything else. It’s a club, really. So that existed. And there was something called NEBET or something like that, but it was the Black Ensemble Theater. Oh, no! Before that, there was something called

Scitamard, which is ‘dramatics’ spelled backwards, which was a black community theater. And I think that developed into the Black Ensemble Theater, but…oh, it was named The New England Black Ensemble Theater, both of which have died since. But you know, that was it. I mean, there really wasn’t a lot going on. And now, there are so many theaters, you fall over them. And they’re all doing… if you pay attention to reviews, most of them are doing pretty goddanm good work! They have The Crucible running, for God’s sake! You know? You’ve got…[cuts off] Our show, Not About Heroes, which was about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen… Can you imagine putting that on twenty-five years ago here? Who, what? Trinity Rep, you know, blew the back out of everything and changed the face of Providence. And we got quite a bit of help from our favorite felon, because, say what you like, that man loved the arts.

MF: Mr. Cianci.

BC: He loved the arts. He loved supporting the arts. I don’t know if he loved the arts. He loved being a supporter of the arts. You know who he was? He was like a Medici.

MF: Yeah.

BC: You know, it was that…[trails off] He even said, he set it up so that our sister city is

Florence. Did you know that?

MF: I know that’s where he got the ideas for the gondolas during Waterfire.

BC: Yeah, why not?

MF: Do you think that he is one of the primary reasons that theater has grown so much in the past few years?

BC: I think it’s a combination of things. I think he had a lot to do with allowing it to grow, and quite often, helping. He, quite often, gave a big helping hand, especially if he could help keep Trinity in Providence. The former mayor, before him, was actively trying to get rid of Trinity Rep.

MF: Really? Why?

BC: He didn’t like it. Didn’t get it. Thought it was a bunch of goddamn fag hippies.

MF: Wow.

BC: And it was! You know what I mean? It was like red baiting. He just felt that we were

commie. Commie, hippie punks. You know? And he was a happy Irish [makes drinking motion] you know, politician. He was just as crooked as Buddy, but Doorley did nothing for the city. Buddy made the city what it is today. There’s no question. He turned it I mean, I saw a 180 happen in this town. Everybody was like “1 live in Providence” [very ho-hum tone] and now they’re like “I live in Providence! I live in Providence!” [proudly] Even if the guy’s in jail! You know, at least we’re on the map. And I think that the arts had a terrific amount to do with that.

MF: Right

BC: You know?

MF: Oh, I agree.

BC: And the fact that he tapped into…I mean, RISD has always been here, but the fact it really got tapped into. “Yeah, okay. Listen, we got all these people here. Let’s use them!” I mean, you don’t find a Barnaby Evans every day of the week! Let’s face it. Not to mention people who are less known, less commercially known. No, I think it’s great. And yeah, I think Buddy had a lot to do with it. He did have a whole lot to do with it. A city…often, a city…usually, a city is…the image of a city is not the creation of a man. In this case, I think it was. A change in the image was certainly the creationand there was one driving force. There were lots of people involved, and many contributors, and many, many people who created, and so forth, but it didn’t have to happen. Waterfires could’ve been a one off. It was supposed to be. It was supposed to be a one off. One night. It was…Barnaby created it for First Night one year, and you know. What do you

know? It’s our big tourist attraction.

MF: It just keeps going.

BC: I mean, if you want to know the downside of everything in Providence, take cabs. The cab drivers will always tell you that nothing will work. That’s what they think. [adopts Providence cabbie voice] “This is going to mess up everything! This is going to louse up…This is never going to work!” The Civic Center, nobody was going to use it. The Convention Center, nobody would ever use it. Wrong! You know. Yeah, I think…and it’s funny. This was a blue collar town, and it has learned to celebrate its…[trails offI don’t know. What else do you want to ask me?

MF: How would you define “Avant garde?”

BC: Passe.

MF: Really? [both chuckle]

BC: Yeah, I mean, even the expression is passe.

MF: What do you associate avant garde with?

BC: I think it’s a very dangerous phrase. I think anyone who considers themselves avant garde is already kidding themselves. But the truly avant garde, which is I guess what you really want to know. I mean it’s just not an expression that’s used in the arts anymore. That’s what I meant by pase. It’s kind of like “new wave” or “new woman,” for example. Or “women’s lib.” You know, not a phrase that you would use. It was very powerful once. Now it’s almost offensive. So “avant garde” has that same effect. But what you want to know is about what is cutting edge, what is it? It only exists… it’s not a movement, exactly. The truly avant garde is always the effort to discover, I guess. It’s part of a learning process. You create…the avant garde is created when someone…[cuts off] You can’t be trying to create the avant garde. You have to be trying to do something. You have to be trying to, in theater, for example, find a new way to tell the story. Find a new way to connect, find a new way to make…find a way that will…[trails off] And the reason to be new is so that people will pay attention and listen. You know? One of the things

I’ve said a million times, and I learned it from Adrian…[interrupts self] I think I did… was that a bad audience is the audience that sits there and goes “Isn’t this wonderful? [smiles passively] Aren’t they…? It’s so good! Isn’t this wonderful?” That’s a terrible audience. This is the good audience. [with a sense of urgency] “Oh, my God! What’s going to happen?”

MF: What’s going on?

BC: Yeah! That’s the audience you want because it wants to know what’s going to happen next. That’s the only thing the theater is about!

MF: And they are thinking about what’s going on critically…

BC: I really believe, and this is an old bit with me, but I really believe that theater began when two guys came in from a hunt, and one said “We found a …We got chased by a saber toothed tiger, and it almost got us, but we’re okay!” And the other guy says, “Yeah, you should’ve seen it! It had these big things!” [goes back and forth between two voices very rapidly, motioning] “And he was like this!” “And the tiger was like [growling]” “And then he was like AHHH!” Now, the first guy was the writer. The second guy was the actor. That’s the impulse. The impulse is to…that you want to tell a story so badly that you can’t sit down. That you have to get up and do the story. That’s all theater is. That’s all it is! But without that, without the need to communicate something like that…if it gets to be about anything else, it dies. So the avant garde is created when you look for another way in. Another way in, another way to shake it up, another way to make people go, to feel that they’re seeing something…[cuts off] And it doesn’t have to be…you know, you don’t necessarily have to piss on the crucifix, although, apparently, it worked. But you know, you can alert people. It’s something that alerts you, something that makes you willing against your will.

MF: Right.

BC: It’s not attack, I don’t think. Well, it can be. I think you have to be very careful about attack, because attack invites…[cuts off] It’s attack that invites response, maybe. If it’s attack that repels…[pause] because once you’ve repelled people, you’re dead. You can’t just get up there and wait and put your little sign, and say….In other words, [pauses] a demonstration is not theater, unless there is theater involved in it. Because a demonstration is simply “I’m forcing my idea on you. You can accept it or not. Here’s what my sign says.” You know. And that’s a certain kind of politics, and so forth, but…[trails off] Theater is… will surround you. You come in, you come in, you want to play with us, you want to be involved with us. You come in for the story.

MF: More of a discussion, maybe?

BC: Not even a discussion. It’s a story. I don’t…I don’t think theater exists…I don’t think arts exist without a story. Even the most abstract art. You know, there’s something that’s gotta hit you here [points to heart). Not everybody thinks so. You’ll get a different opinion from a lot of people. People say “No, it can just hit you in the brain and still be art.” Maybe, but I don’t know. I don’t know.

MF: So, not to use a passe term, but would you consider yourself a member of the avant garde?

BC: I’m too old. I have learned from…[trails off] I have worked with some of the people who are the best along those lines, and in some of my work, I try to be. I try to do that. I still try to achieve that newness of experience. Yeah. Not for itself. And sometimes, it’s entirely appropriate to use very traditional methods. But, you know, I’m always searching for the best way to tell a story. That’s about as good an answer I can give you on that one.

MF: Just out of curiosity, what’s been your favorite play? Or your favorite role that you’ve done?

BC: Well, I guess my favorite role was Willy.

MF: Willy Loman?

BC: Yeah. My favorite role is probably the next good one. [both laugh] My favorite play is…[pauses] I can’t even answer that. My favorite play of all time is….I have two. They’re both Shakespeare. One is Antony and Cleopatra. That’s my favorite. And then my second favorite is Winter’s Tale, which I get to direct in a couple of months. So I’m happy about that.

MF: Did you do Anthony and Cleopatra when you were at…

BC: Antony.

MF: Oh, sorry. Did you do Antony and Cleopatra when you were at the Shakespeare company?

BC: Yeah. We did it a couple times. Let’s see. I directed it once for the Shakespeare Theater and once for Sandra Feinstein Gamm. And I would do it again. It’s one of those plays that I would love to do about every five to ten years, you know? Just go back and do it again, go back and look at it again. It’s such a sad [trails off]. Well, I know why I like it. I like it because it reminds me of my father. To me, it’s a play about getting older, and wondering what happened to your youth and to your romance, and to the glory that you had. And then, the question it asks, or answers, actually, is “Can you skate on that ice? Can you last, and can you live a full life without changing?” And the answer, of course, is no. I mean, Antony and Cleopatra are middle aged people who, yes, are the greatest lovers of all time. And we love them so much, and they die so needlessly because they just don’t acknowledge that somebody younger and stronger is coming up the back. [pauses] …which is the young Caesar, the young Octavius Caesar. And, you know, he’s shrewd and smart, and he’s going to take over. And they…when they…they can’t handle the reality, so they end up a double suicide. At the same time, they’re vindicated, in a way, because we love them. We don’t like Octavius Caesar, even though he is, in a way,

successful, but we wind up loving them. And nobody…You say to somebody, “Hey, what do you think of Octavius Caesar?” “Who? I’ve never heard of hirn.” But Antony and Cleopatra. Everybody’s heard of Antony, or Anthony, [chuckles] and Cleopatra. You know, they’re two of the greatest the images they stir in you immediately are very exotic and romantic and good. Good for them!

MF: Was the transition between acting and directing something that was easy for you to do?

BC: I was directing in high school.

MF: Okay, so you’ve just always been involved in both.

BC: Yeah, and every time I direct a play, I always say “Oh, God. I just want to be an actor.” And then every time I act in a play, I always wish I was directing instead. They’re always so hard! [laughing] I mean, it’s hard, you know? Especially if you’re doing good work. It really is hard. Every night, before the show, Death of a Salesman, I would think “I can’t do it. I can’t do this. I can’t possibly go out there and go through this again. I can’t do it.” And then I would do it! I’d do it because you do it in increments. You walk out, you say the line, you say the next line, and you see what happens.

MF: But there’s a different process that you have to go through, right?

BC: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, for one thing, in directing, you have to try to make people do what you want, which is always difficult. And [pauses] I mean, I like directing because of the vision. Because you can fulfill a vision, or try to. You come as close as you can to fulfilling a vision. And that’s…And I’ve done it a lot. I don’t mean to say that the plays I’ve directed have all been good, because they haven’t, but I had a few…a few that really paid off. And really happened. And landed where I’d hoped they’d land. And some of them went somewhere else and still landed and were still good. And then I had a lot of them that were just okay and a lot of them that were just disasters. But I got to do it, you know? And that’s worth it.

END OF SIDE ONE (There are a few seconds of small talk at the beginning of side two. The question is repeated.)

MF: [looks at notes] Let’s see. Oh, I know what I was going to ask. I’ve done quite a bit of theater. Do you have any pre-performance rituals?

BC: Only that I like to get there pretty early. I like to get to the theater, like an hour before the show, if I can. You know? Even though it’s usually only a half hour call. If I can…It depends what I’m doing, too. I mean, A Christmas Carol [laughs]. You know, I was doing that, and I’d be happy to walk in ten minutes before and put the fucking hat on and go.

MF: [laughing] What did you play in A Christmas Carol?

BC: Everything! We all played everything! We played twenty…we played ten roles! We used to run around…I used to call it the Trinity Stairmaster because all you did was run up and down stairs and put on hats and coats and things and be somebody else. It was insane! [laughing] But anyway… [pauses] If it’s something worthwhile, you know, I like to get there early. I like to…Oh, I’ll tell you one thing I do. Because I’m getting older, I always read…I go through the whole script.

MF: Really?

BC: At some point during the day, and as close to curtain as I can. I go through the whole script and just run all of the lines. Because the little gray cells are not what they were, you know? I mean, that’s one of my biggest concerns now, as I’m sixty-two and, you know,it’s just not as…not there. [snapping fingers] Sometimes you really know a line, and you get to this point in your life, and you get these little wink-outs. All of a sudden, you absolutely know what it is. Like, you’ll forget your…you’ll forget the name of somebody you’ve known for years…just for like, two seconds. But it’s two loooong [gasping] seconds!

MF: Really long seconds! Especially when you’re onstage!

BC: Especially, yeah. You know. So those are…those are concerns. So, the more I run it, the better I feel. But, actually, I’ve been doing it for a long time. That goes way back to my first long Shakespearean role, when I played Leontes in Winter’s Tale, which I directed myself. I was young. I thought I could do anything. But I used to go over that every single night, and it was a good idea. And now, I mean, for example, in this play that’s coming up, Of Mice and Men, I’ve actually learned all the lines already, even before rehearsals start. But this’ll be good because this is one of those things where I’m not on…[cuts off] I mean, with Willy Loman, you’re on phhht [makes noise and motions with hand) You know, you’re off for about…You have two patches where you’re offstage, and they’re not very long. But this, I must say, I can go over each scene before I go on and that will make me feel more secure. That’s the big one.

MF: If you’re not familiar with a play, do you usually read the books that it’s based on, see movies, etc?

BC: Oh, you mean during rehearsals? Oh, everything. Oh, anything, anything! Yeah, I go online and see whatever’s out there, whatever you can find out. And find out about the, I mean, not only about the…[cuts off] what commentators have said about the play, to a certain extent. Scholarship will send you down…quite often, scholarship will send you down the wrong tube, because a scholar always has an agenda. And, I don’t know, there’s something anticreative…[trails off] I mean, I, for example, hate Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare book. I don’t know what he thought he was talking about, what he was doing, but anyway…

MF: Why do you hate it? What is it about it that you hate?

BC: It’s not, you know, I’ve got to tell you, it hurts from not being experiential. I mean, he writes about Falstaff for chapters and chapters and chapters, because he saw Ralph Richardson play him once when he was young. That’s not enough. And I disagree with most of what he says, anyway. You know? And I also disagree with the fact that he keeps bringing it up throughout the book, and it’s supposed to be a comprehensive overview of all of Shakespeare’s characters, He says that Falstaff and Rosalind are the two greatest characters in Shakespeare. No! And, A, and B, he compares every other role to them, including Hamlet [scoff] And then says…[trails off] And, obviously, he saw some Rosalind once that knocked him out, too. I mean, God bless him, but for all of his erudition and study, he’s a baby. Once you have gotten into the plays and worked the plays with your hands, you know, you simply don’t feel the same way about it. You just can’t listen to, sort of, to all this theory. And yes, it’s very good to know that this word…[cuts out] I mean, what scholarship is valuable for is to say, you know, “This word, that’s not what it meant. It meant this.” You know, all that kind of stuff. And you need to know that. That’s information. And it’s very good to know something of the history. And that’s very good. And that’s what scholarship is good for. But sometimes, they…[cuts out] Like, somebody once sent me a paper. He said “Oh, I want you to read this paper. I’ve got this terrific thing…my professor had this brilliant….” And it was about something to do with Shakespeare. And it was something that we, as actors, had dismissed in the first five minutes. You know? We didn’t have to…It was obvious to us. You know? Of course it’s that! Now, I mean, we move on. You know? And also, I mean, I’ve worked with scholarly directors and their productions are always dead. Even if they try to be original. They die.

MF: Because too much is read into them? Why do you think that is?

BC: Because they haven’t taken the time to learn about theater, enough about theater. Not really. The history of theater, and what goes on in the campus. There’s some very nice work on a campus. No question. Always it’s not professional theater! It’s a different world! You know? And here’s the other thing. When you work as an actor, and you work in the theater, you lay your life on the line every single day. Not your life, but your neck. Every single day. Because you can always lose your job. You can always…and usually you will lose your job, because as soon as the show is over, you’ve got to find the next one. You are always searching. There’s some kind of crazy… [trails off] It’s a different drive than you have when you have tenure. When, every year, the same kids come through, because they do, if you’re in that position. I mean, I’ve lived around these campuses for years now, and I’m sorry, but I’ve met you before. You know?

MF: Yes.

BC: A lot.

MF: Oh, I’m sure you have.

BC: And I say that as a person who saw myself on television and I wasn’t there. [chuckles] But, you know, and also the fact that it’s a very dangerous thing that happens to teachers. Just because, if you’re liked, you see no reason to change. You know, because the same kid will come into your class every year and say the same thing, and go “Oooh. You’re really smart!” And, you know, you’ll be questioned, but it’s never anything you can’t handle. And you get stuck in this particular stratum…[trails off] I’m probably being very unfair, because I know they have to publish and they have to do their research work and all that stuff, but there’s this thing…[trails off] I’m just talking about theater. I’m just talking about the arts. I’m not talking about anything else, okay?

MF: Right.

BC: But there is that thing that prevents you from taking any real chances, because there are no real chances to take. There are certain things you know you can’t do with your students. It’s not the 60’s anymore. I’m not talking about misbehaving with them. I’m talking about onstage. I mean, you can’t get all the students to run around naked onstage. It happened for about five minutes in the 60’s and then it was over. You know, you can’t do that. Not that it’s desirable to do so. But there are certain places you can’t go, because the university will tell you that you can’t. But beyond that, I don’t know, you get comfortable. As soon as you get comfortable, you stop being an artist. And I’m afraid that’s the truth. It has nothing to do with money. It has to do with a comfort zone. Unless you… [cuts off] What makes art happen is discomfort is the “I’m not satisfied.” “You just did something wonderful. Can’t you….?” No! It’s over. That happened. I want to know what’s happening next. Curiosity!

MF: Right.

BC: Curiosity! Desperate curiosity. What’s next? What else can I do? What can I…? It’s very compulsive, being an artist. Obsessive. And I’m not even a great artist. I mean, really. I’m not. I have no delusions at all about that. I am a middle weight [trails off] but I’m getting better all the time. But I’ll never be great. I’ve done a couple of wonderful things, but the only reason it was wonderful was because I had a hell of a director kicking me in the butt the whole time. You know. But I know enough to tell you that. And you can call it passion, or you can call it sickness, or you can call it obsession, you can call it whatever you want, but it’s got to be there. You’ve got to not be able to relax. [Pause] So this is when…when art runs up against the academic… [interrupts selfJ Oh, and the other thing is, the academic is forced, by the very nature of the writing, to say “This is so.” Right? It never says “I believe… I think…It’s possible.” That’s not the nature of scholastic writing. The nature of scholastic writing is…

MF: This is so because…

BC: This is so. The nature of art is “This maybe be so. I wonder if it is.”

MF: Well, there’s certainly a difference.

BC: Yeah, yeah. “Maybe I can make something else. Maybe that’s not so.” The whole purpose of art is to say “No, I reject that. I’m going to try this. I’m going to build on that. I’m going to see what else there is out there.” Captain Kirk, you know? [chuckles] What else?

MF: Well, I just was curious. This is probably a difficult question for you to answer because you’ve been involved in theater for so long, but what do you think would be one of the most important lessons that you’ve learned over the course of your career?

BC: [long pause] There’s a couple of them. The one I just said. Never settle. And the other one is…this was the hardest. And it’s to listen to other people. To really listen to other people, especially as a director. Not turn over the reins, but to listen, and to allow…to give people space to work. As a young director, I was very dictatorial. I thought I had to be. I was working with younger people, too, so I know what I’m talking about. But, you have to…I discovered that the greatest joy is to have really good actors who know what they’re doing, and there’s not the slightest element of teaching or training involved in whatever we’re doing. And we’re all…[trails off] And I know what I want, I know what I want to happen, I love being able to help. I love being able to say “If you do this, that’ll happen. Try this.” But, listen. And that’s the hardest thing. It’s hard for guys anyway. But it’s a hard lesson. And it’s important. And so it applies, obviously, to all of life, as well. But that was the big one, I’d say.

MF: Well, that’s about all I have. This has been great. Thank you so much.