Sometimes things just don’t work out like you plan. Mike M. Donahue ’05 came to Harvard an actor, in love with the bright lights of the stage, addicted to performance. Three years later, the climax of his theatrical career will be behind the scenes.
“I never wanted to be a director,” says the former actor. “I always fought it.”
Having lost that fight, Donahue is now in the process of directing his first show on the Loeb Main Stage, the pinnacle of Harvard theater productions. By the time this magazine goes to press, he will have learned if his application for a special concentration in directing was accepted. Things have changed since freshman year.
It wasn’t long after arriving at Harvard that Donahue found his true calling.
“I used to act and love to perform, but there came to be a point where I found that what turned me on was actually directing, just being there in the room in the moment of genesis when you bring something to life. Then I had no interest in performing in shows anymore,” he says.
Donahue knows he wants to spend the rest of his life directing, and he knows directing is what he’s passionate about, but beyond that life is a blank slate. He thinks freelance directing would be a good way to break into the industry, matching his strong desire to explore different genres and styles of theater.
“My dream job would be to work in all different cities, to never become stagnant in the type of work that I do,” he explains.
The more immediate hurdle is “The Physicists,” Donahue’s first effort on the Main Stage, which will open on Nov. 12 for a nine-day run. He’s already directed three shows at the Loeb Experimental Theater and two smaller plays in the Adams House Kronauer Space, but this will be his biggest experiment yet. It all comes down to November.
Though he stubbornly resisted their suggestions, Donahue says his high school directors all told him he had the makings of a good director. The way he analyzed the script, deconstructed the scenes—all of it suggested the young actor was meant for something more.
“So I decided to direct a play and see what would happen,” he says.
The play, put up in the Ex two years ago, was “Closer.” Natalie Portman, soon to be featured in the film version of the Patrick Marber play, did not star.
The reviews were great. The Harvard Independent reported that the play was a success furthered by Donahue’s “ingenious interpretation of the set and staging.” Donahue was on his way up the Harvard theater ladder.
After directing Tartuffe in Jan. 2004, he went on to what he describes as the “best show I’ve ever done”: Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. He found, despite his love for the piece, that it was not entirely well-received. A review in The Crimson assailed the title actress, calling her “eminently unbelievable ... recklessly artificial and horribly overplanned.” The review sparked a controversy in the Harvard theater world, leading Ursula G. DeYoung ’04 to write a long letter to the editor defending the actress’s performance and calling the play “a brilliant confirmation of Mike Donahue’s genius.”
“He is one of the best directors now at Harvard and this production reveals his unmatched control over his own show,” she wrote. “He is a director who actually has visions, and they work.”
In all likelihood, Donahue will try to out-do himself with “The Physicists.”
“It’s a crazy play,” he says, describing the work as a “macabre satire comedy that turns into tragedy.”
Written by Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the play takes place in a world where “technology and information can end everything in a single moment.”
Sitting in the Garage Starbucks, Donahue pauses for a second.
“It’s like the TV show Alias mixed with the play Copenhagen mixed with Marat/Sade,” he says with a laugh.
“The Physicists” will prove an extraordinary challenge not only because it is his first Main Stage show, but also because of its content. The action takes place in an insane asylum and features the likes of Einstein, Newton and Mobius.
In preparation for the task, Donahue is continually trying to perfect his art. “Someone told me that ‘good artists steal’ and I think that’s entirely true,” he says. By any guess, he will steal from the whole of his theatrical experiences for the November production.
“I believe very much in the rhythm and the pace of a scene,” explains Donahue. “When that’s on, you can almost direct just by listening to it. It’s like an orchestra, like a piece of music.”
Whether the music resonates beyond his ears, of course, remains to be seen.
