John Martin is an actor and director. He completed the graduate acting program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and was the founding co-artistic director of the Washington Theatre Ensemble.

INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE

JOHN MARTIN: It must be—it was probably when I was a freshman in high school and I—the very first show that I auditioned for in high school was Romeo and Juliet and I ended up almost getting cast as Romeo, as a freshman who had, you know, just done a couple of, you know, middle-school shows.

But you know, I was really good at reading—picking up and reading Shakespeare text and making sense of it and I sort of think that went a long—long way and I—it was just really sort of exciting to go, “Oh, wow, I’m actually kind of good at this; I’m doing better than I expected.”

And so I ended up—I ended up getting the role of Paris and—and learning how to sword fight and you know, die on stage.

And the opening night of—of my first Shakespeare play, my first play in high school, you know, Paris, you know, fights Romeo and dies and the way that our stage was set up there was this little lip—kind of half-moon shaped lip at the edge at the front of the stage, that kind of went out into the audience a little bit—so I’m—I die right at the end of this and I’m literally, you know, a foot away from the first two seats in the front row.

And there was a guy who was a senior and he had originally been playing the prince but had broken his foot in rehearsal and so he had to be replaced. But he was sitting there with his new girlfriend, in the front row.

And so it’s opening night and, you know, I’m the new freshman, it’s my first role. The scene went well; I died gloriously. I’m trying to be as still as possible, on the front lip of the stage, and I—I hear, from where this guy Nick was sitting—he leans over to his girlfriend and he goes, “Watch this.”

And he leans over to me—while the scene is going on, mind you—Romeo has, you know—has, you know, has found his Juliet by this point and is bemoaning her loss and getting ready to take his poison.

Meanwhile this guy Nick is leaning over to me going, “I can see you breathing. You’re supposed to be dead; I can see you breathing. You’re not supposed to be breathing, you’re supposed to be dead.”

And meanwhile I’m just trying to not react, to not respond. And he keeps kind of goading me in this way. And then turns to his girlfriend and he goes, “Watch this, watch this.” And he goes and he flicks me in the ear.

And—and, you know, I’m not expecting it coming and so my legs kind of jump out and so [slight laugh] and of course he thought that was great and so he continues to do that. You know, so that nobody else can see, but I just only can imagine what it must have looked like for everybody else in the audience. You know, Romeo is about to die and taking his poison and  then Juliet—Juliet is waking up. Meanwhile, Paris’ body is going through rigor mortis downstage.

THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE’S CHARACTERS

JOHN MARTIN: Part of the thing with Marlowe’s characters is that they all kind of speak the same, so it’s really hard to—for—for the differentiation of character to come through in the language, whereas Shakespeare, his characters speak very different from one another.

I mean, you know, in The Tempest, for example, Prospero speaks very different than his scheming brother, Antonio, and speaks very different from Caliban, who—who Prospero teaches language to. They all use language differently and they—they all use different kinds of—of imagery. And that goes such a huge—huge way in, you know, creating and shaping the characters.

And I think, you know, one, I would say the jazz of language, what they kind of mean by that, in the way that in jazz, you know, each soloist—you can tell, you hear a solo and you go, “I know that’s Miles Davis,” “I know that’s Dizzy Gillespie,” “I know that’s Charlie Parker,” by the way that they move through a solo.

And it’s the same with Shakespeare’s characters. You can take somebody’s text—you know, a text from a character, and know who that character is, based on how it is that that person is speaking.

THE CRAFT OF PLAYING SHAKESPEARE

JOHN MARTIN: If the language in the stories and these people aren’t everyday run-of-the-mill people that you’re going to see on the street. They’re—I mean, these are huge people. These are kings, they’re queens, you know, who are ordained by God to be in charge of their country.

I mean, you know, playing somebody like Richard II, for example, and you know, that whole play is about can you overthrow God’s anointed sort of squire here on earth. And you know, Richard believes in his all-powerfulness and that he is, indeed, chosen—has been chosen by God to be the ruler of the country. And—and that power that he carries with him because of that.

And so for a actor to play that, they can’t just kind of go around and physically act like, you know, as somebody sort of—an—you know, an average-day kind of person. This is an extraordinary human being, who thinks in extraordinary thoughts.

And—and so there is a lot of craft that goes in that. That is why it—you know, you have so much training in Shakespeare, why it requires so much training, to really make it look effortless. To make it look like that you can—that you are indeed, you know, the king who has been anointed by God, who is, you know, thinking these thoughts that, you know, some—you know, that—you know, can run on and on and compare heaven and earth in the same breath. And so that somebody watching believes that, yes, you—you know, that they can suspend their disbelief and—and believe that yes, you are the king, or whoever it is that you’re playing.

STEVE ROWLAND:  And some of this craft is physical and some of it is psychological?

JOHN MARTIN:   Yes. I mean, it really is psychophysical; it’s—it’s both. It’s—for an actor if any text, especially Shakespeare, if it becomes a mental exercise only, then it’s—it’s de—it becomes, you know, devoid of the sort of the active human spirit in somebody who wants something and so has to say those—you know, those words, right then to get what it is that they really want.

If it’s just sort of a mental thing you’re just making sense of the text. No matter how eloquent you might say it, it sounds empty and an audience’s attention will kind of—will start to drift because you’re not the—you’ve cut out sort of all like—all the desire and the need that’s—that’s in—in what it is that somebody’s—the reason why somebody is speaking.