Court Theatre recently spoke with Allen Gilmore (Endgame’s Hamm) about Court, Christopher Bayes, and the theater.

Court Theatre: This is your third production at Court Theatre. What about Court do you find appealing?

Allen Gilmore: Well, the people and the city. They have been ... the people here have been so good to me. What can I tell you? You know, charming. I came here sort of by force because I was already cast in something that came from Seattle. But they were just so great to me when I got here. Charlie (Charles Newell) came to Seattle and kind of previewed the show Scapin and we just had such a good time here. I know I did. And the city, I had never been to for any length of time. It was really just a wonderful, wonderful place to be. And the same thing with Charlie and Jim gave me that chance to be able to play the lead in Cyrano. It’s just the role of a lifetime, the chance of a lifetime. He has just been very, very good to me and the people have just been so great – Cree, Mele, Bill, Diane – just wonderful. I love the theatre; I love the town from my heart actually. I really do.

CT: How does Chicago compare to other cities you have worked in in the past?

AG: It’s just got a lot of bustle to it, and culture. It’s got a lot of everything. You know it’s got a big city feel to it. It’s got a very blue-collar big city appeal to it that I really enjoy. I remember last time I was here driving through that meat district while I was on my way to Red Moon Central. You know, you’ve heard of the meat industry in Chicago from any place in the country. It’s a major, major industry here. But driving through it, seeing it. Some mornings I would actually arrive late to rehearsal because I would already be kind of close to schedule, but going through that district there were a lot of trucks going through there. It was always really, really busy. You just kind of see and feel the energy and the muscle of the city at work, just on that little trip from Hyde Park to Red Moon Central over there. And it’s got lots of lots of culture. It’s a real theatre town. Lots and lots of people. People are making a living here as actors. And that’s unlike many major cities in the country. I come from Houston. You can’t really make a living as an actor working from theatre to theatre in Houston. There’s just not enough work. There are some theatres there, but they are quite small. If you are a company member at The Alley, then you don’t have to worry about it, you’re going to be employed for whatever their season is. And there are many scenes like Houston, like that. But here in Chicago you can literally go from show to show to show as a number of my friends here do and make livings as actors on stage sand in commercials and in movies. To my knowledge there’s only New York where you can do that. In Los Angeles, you cannot make a living as an actor on the stage. You can certainly make a living as an actor on TV and sometimes do the stage. But I’m talking about actors making a living acting on stage. Not in Los Angeles. Here – yes. New York – yes. Maybe in Washington D.C. A handful of people in Seattle, Washington. But I like it cause it’s easy to do that here, there’s that much work here.

CT: Your previous work has varied in terms of both medium and style. But I noticed you consistently come back to the stage. I was wondering what draws you back to it, and more specifically back to classical theatre?

AG: Well, I guess I keep coming back to the stage just because it is really where I feel most comfortable. In film and television, successful actors of my sort of level are just selling something different than I sell. The stage is what I really have been kind of built for, trained for. And as much as I sometimes like to say no, I’m trained to be a classical actor and I feel really at home in the classical environment. Now, I certainly do contemporary theatre. I love to do it and I want to do more of it. It would be a joy to do more contemporary African-American theatre, contemporary black theatre, but my roots really are in the classical theatre. And I think that that would have been the case with me wherever Id gone to school and whatever my experience would have been. I grew up in a family where language was a way of life. Both my parents were very into language. My brother was a French teacher and a Spanish teacher. So this language English and other languages had some meaning in my home. As a matter of fact, we had to learn Spanish, my sister and I. And my father was a schoolteacher, but both of them were educated, college grads. He was always using big words that I didn’t understand when I was a kid, so it was important to me that I learn about what he was talking about when he would say things that I didn’t understand. I’d get a dictionary to look it up or ask him or something. So from an early age I was a communicator. In my elementary school they would always say, “Oh, he’s so intelligent. He uses these words.” And I didn’t even think of it. I wrote, just communicating like my Dad did to me. So, I think just for that, for the sheer pleasure and ability of communicating that was probably going to lead me more toward classical repertoire work as an actor.
The other thing about the classical theatre is that it deals with things on kind of a human scale that the contemporary theatre and certainly television don’t deal with. You start to get into archetype, the innate human heart, the innate human condition. Stuff that still happens to people, that people still feel and discuss and go through without any respect to what century it is. People are still loving and hating and fearing and envying and have passions about a number of things. It doesn’t matter what century we’re talking about. And so that’s the kind of stuff that classical theatre deals with very often. The innate human condition, the innate human heart and its many, many secrets. And that’s why I love classical theatre and that’s why I take classical theatre and theatre in general over TV or something, even through the money for that can be quite good. The big issues, the big questions – it’s the theatre and probably the classical theatre for me.

CT: I’ve noticed that you’ve worked with Chris Bayes as your director in the past.

AG: Oh yes.

CT: I’m curious what kind of working relationship the two of you have developed.

AG: (Laughs) Well, uh, it’s like a vaudeville stick. I don’t know if I’m the straight man or if he is. I think I am, cause he’s the zany one. I’m his sidekick maybe. You see, we did Scapin he and I. I worked with him the first time in Boise, Idaho. And he was forced to work with me just like Charlie Newell was because I was already cast in a company of actors that they just gave him and said, “Okay do Scapin now. Here are your people, do Scapin.” So he had me anyway. I was actually hired not to do Scapin. I was hired to do another role that they were doing in that season that summer at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. We just kind of hit it off. I did not think of myself as being very funny. I was glad, relieved, so glad that I looked at him and thought that he was funny. And I could see stuff that he was doing and say, “Oh, I’m just going to imitate that. Or I’m going to take that idea and do something with it.” And that is where our stick has grown from. And now, sometimes we are finishing each other’s sentences. Sometimes were coming up with the same punch line when somebody says something. So our relationship in terms of working is just ... I don’t know. He inspires me to do the kind of work that he does. And to me that’s what an actor really looks for in a good director. And that’s what I’ve found in him.

CT: Is there anything or anyone who continually inspires your work?

AG: My work in general?

CT: Yes.

AG: You know, there’s lots of actors that I really, really enjoy. Really like. And lots of directors out there that I really enjoy. I was very very fortunate to work with this director Michael Langum several years ago as Othello. That was like a master class in Shakespeare. So that was wonderful. And working with Charlie Newell and Jim Lasco doing Cyrano was such as education. Such an education! As I said before already, Chris. And I really enjoy working with Bart Shear. He’s a very dear friend of mine and we’ve worked together a number of times and I anticipate more. And actors. There are a number of actors out there that I’m very much inspired by. Morgan Freeman- I’ve always loved him. James Earl Jones, of course. I love these old actors. Katharine Hepburn, she’s a real inspiration to me. And Geraldine Page. Of course, there are a number of individual performances and stuff that I’m real inspired by. I remember once I went to see The Cherry Orchard. It was on Broadway with a lady named Irene Worth. I will never forget it. She was just brilliant. You know who else was in that production too was Meryl Streep, but she was not famous at the time. She was getting to be famous, almost famous, but she wasn’t famous at the time. But this lady Irene Worth – you just couldn’t take your eyes off her. Oh, so many. Well, you know, no one else leaps to mind at this moment. I always loved Denzel Washington. I’ve never seen him on stage, although he’s going to be on stage I understand in a little while. I saw Lawrence Fishburne on stage in Two Trains Running many years ago. He was very good. I enjoyed him. I’m going to have to think about that. As we go I’ll keep thinking about that.

CT: When you’re preparing for a role how do you approach it?

AG: Wow. You know I guess that depends on the role. You know sometimes there’s quite a lot of research to do if you can, to get your hands on. With Cyrano it was like that. There was a lot of research to do because Cyrano was a living person. And so you could research him, his life – the life of Cyrano de Bergerac. I forget what his name really was. He took his name from the castle where he lived, the town where he lived, but he had a different family name. But anyway, you could research him. And you can do a lot of research on (Edmond) Rostand and how he came to write that play. With Scapin, for example, to approach that there was not the same sort of lead for research, but Chris did do a workshop with all of us in Boise, and come to think of it, he did another workshop when we were doing the production that came from Seattle to here. He did kind of a clowning workshop, getting us into the world of comedia. So that is a form of research, a form of background work. It was definitely a big help in approaching the role. You know, what I like to do I guess, in general is get an idea in my head, a picture in my head of the character and sort of a visual. I sort of start from there. If I can imagine it and then put myself into that picture … I remember when I was working on Othello I said to myself, “Well, there’s no way I can do this role.” I’m not six foot four, and I don’t have this basso profundo voice like James Earl Jones or like what I imagine what Paul Robeson had. So it was very difficult for me to imagine myself in that role. When I got the role, actually, I thought I was in big trouble because I was going to be found out that I was in no way right for this. But, you know, I imagined Colin Powell as Othello. And when I did that it began to open the door in my own mind that perhaps I could do this role. Not that I was going to try to imitate Colin Powell as Othello. It just meant that all of a sudden my own mind was more available to this role; being inhabited by not just one type of person or performance. I got this imagine into my head of a number of different roles. I thought I was going to be playing Iachimo in Cymbeline and I got a very clear image in my head of who Iachimo was. I began to try to put myself into that image and just kind of move towards that. I’d try to see this image move and speak and all this kind of stuff. And I just tried to absorb him in .. imbue or whatever. Put that image in me – move to the image and put that image inside of me.

CT: When preparing for the role of Hamm in this particular production of Endgame has your preparation differed at all?

AG: Then usual? Well, I did do the research, because obviously with (Samuel) Beckett there is a lot of information out there on him. Another thing I try to do if possible is see if there is any kind of recorded version of whatever it is. I always try to look at that, say, “Oh, how did they approach this problem?” or ‘How did they tackle that piece of text?” or whatever. My process of approaching this I think was pretty routine, pretty usual. Once again, I try to get an image in my mind of who this person was. And I still am doing that. I’m still in that process right now. But I do have some ideas in my head that now that I’m working with director – now that I’m working with Chris – I can modify these things according to what feed back I’m getting from the director and what direction we are going in with certain things. Again, working with Chris is kid of a little different than my usual way of approaching something because whereas with other roles I might not say to myself, “Oh, do I need a different voice?” Sometimes I do in fact actively try to make myself sound different, move different. I do that regularly. But with Chris it’s a little bit different for me. I’m really kind of searching for a voice and a body and a different sort of a take on the world. When you’re in Chris’ world, kind of clown world maybe or a comedia world, you have a different perspective. Your character, possibly, has a different perspective on things – can be a little bit out there. So, I guess in approaching this one my preparation was pretty much what it usually is, just tempered with, Chris might have an idea ready for maybe voice, or for body, or for a certain sort of a psychological angle on this character. You know, because this is going to be the Chris world. So, that was really I guess the only thing that I would say was maybe a little bit different. I was trying to prepare myself to be in his world.

CT: How doe Hamm appeal to you, as a character?

AG: You know, I can say, “Oh I love it!” and that would be it. But while I was reading this play and also knowing about how stringent the rules are in terms of doing this man’s work. You know, Beckett has an estate that watches very, very carefully what people do with his work now that he has passed on. And as I was reading this and thinking Hamm was kind of a voice of Beckett in this play. And I was all ready to sort of be shocked and appalled at how this character is abusive and mean and self-involved and all that. I really came away from reading this having such a truly great admiration ... not only admiration but a desire to have met this, what I imagine must have been, truly, truly wonderful spirit – Samuel Beckett. Wonderful spirit. Wonderful man. Beautiful human being. And the artist wants to have his work appropriately represented even when he’s not there. So I think he has left this estate of his with very, very specific rules because he is not here to see the work himself. Here is, I think, a very interesting situation of the author’s death meant that you’re not going to see certain kinds of representations of this same play that you would have when he was alive and could come and see it for himself and say, “Oh, that was an interesting thing that I never would have thought of. How wonderful for you to have done that!” You’re not going to see that. You know, Joanne Akalitis tried to do this play, and the estate shut it down, whereas perhaps if he were living and had the opportunity to come and actually see it he might have, and probably would have, really enjoyed what she had done with it. All of that to say that I’m expecting as I was going through this to say, “Oh this Hamm character is so mean and so nasty and is going to be so vile. This man was so difficult and so angry.” Not at all. I hope that the character of Hamm comes off … that we see who he is really beyond the bossy pettiness and the selfishness and the ego and the diva quality and everything as really a representation of something that is in all of us. Desire - desire for love or connection to other people. Desire for beauty, for meaning in life. A real need to connect with other people. A real wanting to have meaningful relationships and meaningful work and to leave something meaningful behind. Not only that, but also a sensitivity in the heart. The same fears that we share – the fear of death, fear of not having things mean anything, fear of the uselessness of just being alive here, just wasting time, time for nothing, routine lives - you wake up in the morning, you get your cup of coffee, you trudge off to work staring at your feet, you sit there at your desk for eight hours staring at the wall, you go home and eat something, go to bed, get up and do it again - fear of that type of life, and the fear of dying having had a life like that. Again, I think that these are all the type of things that we can identify with to a certain extent and we get in touch with those things within ourselves. I think this guy was in touch with all of that. It’s a way of living that makes living really exhilarating sometimes and really frightening sometimes. Really living in a certain way, naked. So all of that to say, that we really see the dimensions of this man Hamm and through Hamm and through the play as a whole we see the real scope and scale of this man’s (Beckett’s) huge, huge humanity.

CT: So, you’re approaching him as if trying to tell Beckett’s story?

AG: Well, I mean, I’m approaching Hamm from what I get from the director and what I bring to it myself. It’s a collaboration between me and Chris, all of us and Chris, in terms of how he wants to realize this piece. But I say my reaction to Hamm is that, I say he’s a beautiful, beautiful character – a beautiful person with all sorts of wonderful facets that all of can look at and relate to. That’s how I see Hamm. I see him as funny and witty with great heart and great desire. Fear. He’s like a mean child at a lot of times. He’s selfish and cruel. He has that potential, but don’t we all?

CT: In general how does the subject matter of Endgame intrigue you?

AG: Well, you know, the question is ‘What is the subject matter?’ He’s called in Endgame and there’s been lots of critical analysis of what that means, what that’s supposed to be. But like a discussion I was having a few days ago with Anne who is still currently playing Nell the mother, ‘What is the subject matter?’ We said to each other there are so many things in it. We were saying, “Is this a story about relationships between parents and children, specifically between fathers and sons? Is the subject matter of this play the inevitable approach of death? Is the subject matter of this play the oppression of the lower classes by the ruling class? Is the subject matter …” So many things! There are just so many things that you could go through this text and say, “Oh, we haven’t talked about this!” In fact since we’ve been around the table there’s daily, practically, something else that comes up that you say, “Here’s a recurring theme in this play. It comes around again and again. And we’re just now getting around to it because we’ve spent the other days talking about so many other aspects of this play. So, my answer it, it is a play that encompasses so much – so much – that it’s just rich in so many ways. And it treats things in such an unexpected way. This guy, I think, maybe was one of the first … he was doing quite different with language and the theatre than people had done previously doing in the twentieth century. So he’s a father of a sort of certain specific other writers. I can think immediately of Edwards Albee and the previous writer on the stage of the Court Tom Stoppard. Even watching Travesties just a few days ago, I said, “Ah! So many similarities between that text and this one just in terms of style of what he was doing.” So its very interesting. The subject matter – what is it? It’s everything. And how does that draw me to it? I’m interested in talking about, in doing something that says something about our loving relationships or whatever they are between friends, between parents and children, between ourselves as different members of society, different positions in society. It’s all worth discussing. It’s all worth watching. Worth learning something from, even when you learn what not to do, and you see that here also. Sometimes you see oh, that was a good move, I like how they did that, that was the right thing to do, and oh, no, that was the wrong thing to do. You always are kind of watching and hopefully making decisions as you watch about what’s the best way to approach whatever this situation is that you’re watching here, the relationship between two people. And I think that ultimate that’s what theatre does. It hopefully shows us things that make us better, more human people when we walk out of there. Shows us things that gives us something we can take with us to hopefully burnish us and make us better.

CT: Is there anything in particular that you would like the audience to get out of this production based on your work so far with the group?

AG: To get out of this production? You know, again, certainly. But there are so many things in it, it’s very hard for me to narrow it down and say … let me get the script here a second. Who knows who’s going to be coming to see this? So you don’t know what “issue” somebody might have, one person might have when they come and sit down in one of those chairs. Somebody may be an elderly person who is struggling with the idea of death. This is being discussed in very sort of straight on terms in this play. Somebody else may sit down and they have an issue with a child or a friend or a sibling or something like that. That’s happening in here as well. My hope is that whoever sits here and watches these relationships sort of play themselves out for them leaves the theatre a better person more able to positively manage or cope or improve their own understanding, their own relationships or whatever. I think the theatre is not something just to come to and sit down and say, “Oh that was cute.” Sometimes it’s for entertainment and that’s great too. But something like this is one of those things that I think is nourishing in a deep sense. Hopefully anyone who comes to see it brings their whole self to it and leaves with something more, something else that makes them even more “whole”. You know, there are so many things in here, I’m trying to sort of see exactly what other issues that … oh god. So many disconnects between these people. So many disconnects between these characters that are in this play. You know, mean, cruel, dysfunctional things that tell us and teach us things about ourselves and about who we are inside that hopefully we can say, “Okay, yes I can accept that that could be me.” And if it is, “Can I really honestly do better? Can I really honestly, honestly change something? Or is that just the human condition?” And even just that knowledge, just that awakening to that is something. It’s something to have taken that way from this play. Just that.

—Kendra Kocinski, Marketing Intern