ABOUT
MARY&WILL began with Shakespeare and with a bargain made with God during the winter of 1996. At the time I was in the midst of a protracted legal battle having to do with the guardianship of my mother who had fallen into dementia. I had spirited her away in the middle of the night from a situation in which she was being systematically neglected, and then found myself in the position of having to prevail in the courts in order not to see her sent back there. The bargain with God went something like this: I would (not sacrifice something as there had been enough of that) but would take on something; would embark on a course of study which I had long yearned to undertake but found too daunting to begin: the committing to memory of many of the great speeches and soliloquies of Shakespeare. God, on Its part, would see to it that my mother was safe. I was in the courts once a month over the next year, but eventually prevailed, and was able to see to it that Mother lived in safety until her death at the age of ninety-two in 2001.
During this period I resided in Santa Monica, CA and there were many early morning walks to the beach where I would recite -- and frequently to an audience consisting of my mother and schools of dolphins -- Shakespeare's marvelous words. Within a year I had learned over forty speeches or sonnets or soliloquies and from plays ranging from Midsummer NIght's Dream to King Lear. Then, of course, there needed to be an audience. When I began performing these (seemingly) random speeches it was brought to my attention that Shakespeare's words -- removed from the context of the plays -- had formed something altogether new; something of a blueprint of a life. And people were saying: You know, you really must write about some of those things that have happened to you. And so I was encouraged to slip my own stories in between the spaces. It was a big challenge to find a voice within myself that would not clash with that of Shakespeare; one which would indeed blend with his. Eventually (sadly!) much of Shakespeare had to fall away. Every phrase not pertinent, not to the point, had to go. It is amazing to me even now, that that which remains, remains intact. Speeches are not carved up internally, but fit perfectly, as if they were meant to. And read exactly as Shakespeare wrote them.
WHAT'S THE PLAY ABOUT? A woman comes of age in the 1950's in a home where the truth about almost everything of significance is repressed, yet where the words of William Shakespeare have taken a prominent place from early childhood. She is the eldest of five children born to Irish Catholic parents; her mother an heiress and her father a civil servant. An incorrigible and unmanageable child growing up in various cities across the US, she is repeatedly delivered into the hands of nuns who have no more success with her than had her frustrated parents. Theatrics and calamities begin at a young age, proceed thru motherhood, multiple marriages, and a career on the stage where she will play -- to her own astonishment -- opposite various icons of the day, and with drama reigning both onstage and off. This is not as gratifying as one might imagine; there is the yearning to be part of something more substantial. The quest leads into regions intensely personal and with a great deal to unravel.