"Directing Thomas of Woodstock"

An interview with Michael Hammond
by Chuck Berney

CB: How did you happen to come across Thomas of Woodstock?

MH: It was pure serendipity. I got my undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa in 1973, and one of my teachers there was an Elizabethan scholar named Oscar Brownstein. Another faculty member, Eugene Lyon, was assigned the job of directing an Elizabethan play. Eugene was a bit of an iconoclast and didn't want to do anything 'normal,' so Oscar suggested Woodstock. I ended up playing Richard II in that production. Much to Oscar's dismay, Eugene decided that what he sensed in the play corresponded to an athletic contest, and he decided he wanted a hockey-game dynamic, so he put the entire cast on roller skates, with the exception of Woodstock-who of course refused to skate-and Nimble, who had one skate and an elevator shoe. Eugene included Oscar's letter of protest in the program, and they remained friends.
So when Emerson approached me and said 'We'd like to do an Elizabethan play-what would you like to do?' I thought of Woodstock, and they bit!

CB: So who do you think wrote Woodstock?

MH: I don't have a well-defined opinion about the authorship of this play, but I'm open to the debate.

CB: Where are you in your development of your ideas about this play-are you blocking it now? Have you cast it yet? Do you have an 'approach'-like a hockey game?

MH: One of my first responses to the play when I reread it recently was that I was really struck by its unabashed cruelty. So a contemporary correlative that I immediately considered was the World Wrestling Federation-though of course we all know that's not really cruel, since it's completely staged. Some of the characters are more two-dimensional than three-dimensional, so I thought a cartoonish approach like the WWF idea might work. I have to admit now that was not a very respectful response to the play. I've begun to take it more seriously, and have backed away from what might have been an unfair treatment of the text. I'm still interested in a kind of 'spectacle' or 'event' dynamic, so I've been thinking about the popularity of bear-baiting and bull-baiting in the Elizabethan period, and in my early discussions with the scene designer we are thinking about a performance arena that will suggest a kind of pit where blood sports are staged.

CB: Do you see any major problems that you're a bit scared about as you think about this play?

MH: There are a couple of things that make me uneasy. It has to do with sexuality. It has to do with Richard being the fulcrum of the play. Clearly, Green is his lover. He seems to spend far more time with the boys than with his wife. It's not that he's rude to her when he's with her-he seems to be attentive enough and affectionate enough-but there doesn't seem to be much invested in the development of that relationship. And yet, Richard does have pangs of conscience, does begin to develop an awareness of how history will judge him, and then when he learns of his wife's death, he has this passionate outburst of love and loss. So I'm wondering how we're going to build the foundation for that.
Another danger that I think is hooked into this question of sexuality is how Green is played-whether he's a stereotypical faggot, or whether he's an opportunist, not necessarily homosexual, but using it as an avenue to Richard's favor. Either way, the risk is run that homosexuality can be equated with evil, and I don't want that to happen-I want it to be a human story, with human complexity and human weakness; I don't want it to be the homosexuals undoing the kingdom.

CB: Are you going to use a real horse?

MH: I've cast a man as a horse, just as a kind of preliminary casting provision. Unfortunately, a real horse is the perfect solution to that scene. The dynamic between Woodstock and the 'dumb' animal has both touching possibilities and comic possibilities, that I don't know how one can get any other way.

CB: Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts about this play. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

This interview took place 27 November 2001.