Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso Star in World Premiere of THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY
By: Liz Cearns Oct. 05, 2016
The UW- Madison Arts Institute and the Wisconsin Union Directorate present the world premiere of Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso starring in, The Pleasure of His Company: Our Love Affair with William Shakespeare and the First Folio, an evening of personal recollections, dramatic scenes and stories of Shakespeare's influence on Kim and Occhiogrosso's lives and careers for more than four decades at 7:00 pm on October 21, 2016 at Shannon Hall in the Wisconsin Union Theater. The 2-character performance piece, conceived and written by Kim and Occhiogrosso for this occasion, combines performance of signature Shakespearean dramatic scenes with performance pieces which celebrate Shakespeare's contribution to world literature.
The evening is also a tribute to the First Folio, the 1623 collection of Shakespeare's plays which scholars cite as the most authentic and reliable versions of a majority of the playwright's texts. The October 21 performance is a prelude to the Folger Library national exhibition of an original edition of the First Folio in Madison November 1-December 11. The October 21 performance is free to the public with reservations required. Free tickets are available at the Union Theatre Box Office: 608-265 ARTS (2787) or online at:http://go.wisc.edu/shakesaffair
"The Pleasure of His Company" will include signature scenes from Hamlet, Macbeth and other Shakespeare plays as well as a "hands-on," audience participation lesson on how to interpret a First Folio text.
Occhiogrosso states: "We are delighted to be returning to Madison and have the opportunity to perform once again before the most wonderful audience we have ever played for over the course of our 40 year careers." Professional partners onstage for over four decades, Occhiogrosso and Kim are married in real life.
The First Folio, according to modern scholars, commonly refers to the 1623 collection of "William Shakespeare's Comedies, Tragedies and Histories." Although 18 of Shakespeare's plays had been published to prior to 1623, the First Folio contains the only published version of Macbeth and is arguable the most reliable text for twenty of Shakespeare's most signature works including: Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Antony & Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale and Coriolanus, among others.
Occhiogrosso enthuses: "The First Folio brings the plays of William Shakespeare to life in a way that no other text does. Over the centuries, Shakespeare's works were "grammaticized" by scholars who edited texts for the reader. Through our analysis of punctuation, capitalization, and unique spellings in the original texts, we have discovered that the First Folio provides clues to stimulate the actor's imagination and encourages a more spontaneous performance of Shakespeare's plays. I have never seen any actor work with the First Folio that wasn't overwhelmed by the discovery of this new insight into Shakespeare's texts and its powerful impact on audiences. Shakespeare's plays were meant to be performed and not read."
For over 40 years, Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso have devoted their lives to the classical theatre through acting, directing teaching, commissioning new translations of classical works and developing a singular approach to classical text interpretation which combines, research, training and production. Central to their work with William Shakespeare is their dependence upon the First Folio as an interpretative guide. This life-long dedication to classical theatre led to their founding, in 1979, along with founding partner Charles J. Bright, now deceased, of American Players Theatre, Spring Green, WI, the only professional, outdoor classical rotating repertory theatre company in America at that time. Most recently, Kim and Occhiogrosso performed "Then Came Each Actor" a 2-character tribute to the legendary actors and actresses of the great classical tradition on the east coast.
Winner of the OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence, Kim began his early career with the legendary Joe Papp and the New York Public Theatre's Shakespeare Festival and performed leading classical roles at some of America's finest regional theatres including Hamlet, Shylock, King Lear, Falstaff and Oedipus Rex, among many others. He has been seen on Broadway in Flower Drum Song, Golden Child and The King and I but perhaps is most universally recognized as "The Keymaker" in the film Matrix Reloaded and the voice of "Oogway" in the DreamWorks' animated films Kung Fu Panda 1 and 3. Mr. Kim's TV and film work includes the BBC Special Prisoner in Time, Anna and the King, Memoirs of a Geisha, Dragonball Ninja Assassin, Elementary and John Wick.
Director Anne Occhiogrosso received national attention for her body of work at American Players Theatre where she was co-artistic director. An acclaimed director, dramaturg, acting coach and actress, her focus has always been classical theatre with a special emphasis on the works of William Shakespeare. At the American Players Theatre, she directed 16 Shakespearean plays along with works of by Moliere, Ibsen, Plautus, and Chekhov. She also performed the roles of The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Gertrude in Hamlet, Natalya in The Proposal, Madame Arkadina in The Seagull, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and Anna Petrovna in Ivanov, a production which was co-directed by Morris Carnovsky and Phoebe Brand who have served as career mentors to both Kim and Occhiogrosso. She has also taught at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and the New York Shakespeare Festival.
The Kim and Occhiogrosso visit is made possible by the Arts Institute and the Wisconsin Union Directorate in association with the UW-Madison Department of Theatre and Drama, UW-Madison Libraries, and the Chazen Museum of Art with funding from the Anonymous Fund, the Brittingham Fund and the Jay Ruth Halls Scholarship Fund. Additional support is provided by the Wisconsin Book Festival, Hinckley Productions and Wisconsin Public Radio. This event is part of Shakespeare in Wisconsin 2016 initiative.
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