IMAGINE AN ENCHANTED CASTLE IN A FOREST. A PRINCESS WITH A "HAMLET COMPLEX." AN EVIL QUEEN CONNIVING TO KILL THE KING. A LOVE POTION, AND A KING AND QUEEN OF FAIRIES. AND IMAGINE 16 MEN IN DRAG, SINGING IN FALSETTOS. THAT'S WHAT YOU'LL SEE IN THE UPCOMING STAGE PRODUCTION ROMANCING THE THRONE, WHICH MAY BE THE MOST AMAZING HASTY PUDDING SHOW EVER.
The play's student authors, Nell D. Benjamin '93, Mark O'Keefe '93 and Larry O'Keefe '91 have drawn on varied sources to create his fairy tale, which will be staged in February of next year. Romancing the Throne is a "comedy of 'manors'" that the Hasty Pudding Theatricals will eventually take on the road to New York and Bermuda.
"It's a puckish satire," Benjamin says of the play, which has elements of Renaissance drama, political comment and such Pudding traditions as the 'punrun,' anachronisms and time manipulation. Mark O'Keefe calls the show "more realistic," and adds that it is "a more sensitive or sympathetic treatment of women than in the past, if that is even possible."
O'Keefe cautions, "You have to be careful about how you call this a "play." I think that one of the strengths of what we've written is the fact that in it's own right it is a real musical comedy that incorporates certain traditions into it." He also notes that this year's script has been a "dramatic exercise" rather than a "writing exercise" as in the past.
A CAST OF CHARACTERS
ALL THREE ARE PUDDING INSIDERS. NELL BENjamin has been assistant stage manager and stage manager for the last two Pudding shows. Mark O'Keefe participated in the cast of last year's Pudding production Up Your Ante. "It was definitely interesting" says Benjamin, "to write the script as an insider."
Mark O'Keefe said that he would very much like to be in this year's production. "I had just the best time last year [doing Up Your Ante,] but I'm also a second semester senior and I'm going to have to make a decision about it pretty soon."
"In terms of money, time and space," the annual Hasty Pudding Show is "the closest that student theater gets to professional at Harvard," says Benjamin. "At the A.R.T., you come out feeling that you have all these wonderful facilities, but you need permission to use them. [Working under the A.R.T ] is like being in day care." In fact, the annual Pudding show has a professional director, choreographer, music director, conductor and costume designer--and a professional handles the props as well.
Nell Benjamin is the archetypal Harvard super achiever. She is an English concentrator with the kind of G.P.A. most people only dream about, and she is currently writing her thesis on Renaissance Drama. In just over six semester, she has acted in seventeen plays and two student movies at Harvard--in total, she has spent at least 1500 hours in rehearsal and performance! And that does not count the time she spends performing with the improvisational theater group "On Thin Ice," of which she is president, or in her role as president of the Dunster House Drama society.
A NEW MAJOR?
GIVEN HER ENDURING INTEREST IN THE DRAmatic arts, I asked her whether she rued the fact that Harvard does not possess a Drama major. "I like the fact that there is no drama major as such. It means you can get more of a liberal arts education. Personally, I would not want an undergraduate degree in drama, and Harvard doesn't really seem the place to go for a [degree in] drama, although I suppose that could change, because we certainly have all the resources.
"But it certainly is nice to know that you don't have to major in [drama] to get [extensively] involved in it and to be dedicated to it. There are people I know who put in as much time into [drama] as any concentrator would. It would be nice, though, if courses like the dramatic arts courses counted for more. It is very hard to get them to count for concentration credit even if you're an English major," she says.
Larry O'Keefe seems to agree: "I think that if there was a major in drama there would be a lot more segregation between the people who do it for fun and people who do it because it's what they study. In retrospect, I don't think I would have opted for a drama major either, although I was all for it at that time. Harvard makes you find some real substance in a liberal arts major in addition to doing drama. The bad thing is that a lot of people graduate from Harvard expecting to be actors, but with no training. They're much smarter than actors in the real world, they're much more interesting people. There are a lot of [professional] skills that [Harvard graduates] are not taught...how to audition, how to deal with people in power...."
Larry studied anthropology at Harvard and is presently a graduate student at the Berklee College of Music where he is studying film scoring. A Krokodilo and a serious actor while at Harvard, he says that it was the Pudding that helped him realize his potential for compositional music. Now he wants a career in composing music. It is natural, however, that he should want to compose for shows and movies.
He says that drama has always fascinated him, in high school and at Harvard. "Well, to me, drama is just the most fascinating of all the arts...it seems the perfect way to combine all the other arts, visual and audio. I don't know if it has to do with investigating characters. There is a great deal of stock that is set on historical characters. I mean, everyone will turn out to audition for Romeo, King Lear, Iago...it's a good ego boost but it's also tremendous fun.
"Another thing is, a lot of people, certainly myself, are drawn to drama because it allows you to fool yourself into believing that you are achieving something, because the rewards for drama in the college environment are so much more attractive and immediate than for a person studying say, government. He may work much harder, but he won't see the rewards till he gets out into the real world and achieves something because there are so many others who look just like him."
Benjamin agrees, saying "Yes, there has been talk about drama people [at college] being self-important, but what people don't realize is that if you walk out of here and try to audition in New York, then you are going to get a sense of realism real quick!"
Both Benjamin and O'Keefe feel that the best thing about Harvard theater--something that distinguishes it from theater at most other places--is the creativity that exists here. Benjamin likens it to taking "intellectual risks." "People are not afraid to take a stance on something," she says.
Benjamin also believes that the fact that no drama major exists at Harvard causes directors to draw on knowledge from their varied fields of concentration to interpret a play. O'Keefe concurs: "[The absence of a drama major] prevents people from getting too much of a 'drama attitude'. The good thing about this place is that a lot of people are not just into straight acting. There are a lot of people who want to be writers, directors...."
A.R.T.IFACTS
WHILE THERE might not be a drama major at Harvard, one does have the opportunity of studying the theatrical arts under a special concentration, and Harvard certainly does have wonderful facilities for drama. The Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street belongs to the College and Harvard has invited the A.R.T. to use the facilities and pass on some of their professional expertise to the students.
Students sometimes complain that they feel like they're being tolerated on their own land. I asked Benjamin how she felt about this: "No, I think they're really very good about it, although they occasionally give off the impression (laughs). But face it, they're a professional company and they have the space and the resources and they are going to use them. And they've been helpful...like, they have all these workshops, and David Wheeler will always come to watch any play by invitation.
"But it's really very hard to coordinate time between undergraduate theater and the A.R.T. in the same space. I mean, [the A.R.T. people] are professionals who dedicate their time to it and you have students who are 'Well, I can only be there between four and five because I have section,' and that makes it very difficult. But H.R.D.C. and the A.R.T. are trying to coordinate better all the time."
Larry's brother Mark is a philosophy concentrator. Yet another overachiever, he writes for the Harvard Lampoon, sings with the Kroks and is a member of the boxing club, in addition to acting in several plays, including two this semester.
Mark feels much the same as Benjamin about Harvard's relationship with professional companies. "I think the A.R.T is a great thing for Harvard. I know someone who is doing a 'play writing major,' which he probably couldn't do as well were it not for the various playwrights who are drawn to the A.R.T. and whom he can work with as faculty. Also, when we have such excellent graduate schools like for business, to have at least a top-notch professional outlet of drama, if not a graduate school of dramaturgy, is very important."
CLIQUEY CONCERNS
SOME HARVARD STUDENTS WHO WOULD LIKE TO break into theater note that the existence of a clique at H.R.D.C. makes this task difficult. This concern is especially prevalent among first-years who are trying to land that elusive lead role. Interestingly, neither Benjamin nor Mark and Larry O'Keefe seem to agree. "Well, it is notoriously cliquish," says Benjamin, "but I think it's because people have been in a lot of shows together at odder hours than anyone else. It's not like a group of people who all know each other and all live together in the same house. I think you just need a chance to get in. I think it's more just that by the time you're a senior, you know all the directors and the producers and they know what you can do. They're much more likely to give you a second chance than to some freshman who has yet to prove himself.
"But there are so many parts now, everyone has a chance. I don't think that [casting] is segregated or elitist. I think it's more like a professional association and people respect the fact that you've worked." Says Larry O'Keefe, "I don't think so either. The clique is very, very big. There's always a part for everyone." Mark O'Keefe calls it a "club, a neutral organization" which serves an important role. "Also," he adds, "there is such rapid turnover that it is hard to characterize it as a clique."
DRAWING OF THE THREE
WITH PROBABLY MORE STUDENT THEATER between them than most Harvard undergraduates, and Larry O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin considering careers in drama or related fields (Mark O'Keefe plans to go to Russia to do entrepreneurial work), one is apt to wonder what aspect of drama draws them together.
"Comedy, definitely," says Benjamin. "It is very important to me." The answer is validated in what each remembers as his or her most memorable moment in theater at Harvard.
Mark O'Keefe's most memorable laugh: "...when [the cast from last year's Pudding show] all rode around Hamilton (in Bermuda) on our mopeds in our costumes, in hideous drag, and also when we smashed our full bosoms, which are made of water balloons after the show, (it's a tradition) outside the town hall in Hamilton."
Both Larry O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin remember their most notable moments as events which occurred at Harvard itself. "God!" says Benjamin, "you just keep thinking of all these mistakes you made. I remember when I was doing this play...a very serious melodramatic play, a very serious love scene. And my contact just flew out of my eye. I had to pretend that I was crying and all the time I was trying to wipe the contact away. I couldn't see a thing! And then we had this big kiss where we came running across the room into each other's arms--and I missed him!"
Larry O'Keefe's shining moment happened in the prologue of a Loeb Mainstage production. "I was once an Earl who induced erotic hallucination by putting his head inside a tutu and drawing the noose around him. And one night there was no stool. So, my manservant realized this, and he first got a stool that was too short, and then one that was too long, and finally he came back with a big black chair that was marked with an "X" and all the time we were cutting and pasting our dialogue!"
Romancing the Throne opens at the Hasty Pudding February 21, 1993.
