This past spring, on the 500th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the Folger Shakespeare Library circulated editions of the famed First Folio of his work – the posthumous collection of poems without which The Bard might never have become The Bard. The men who got this anthology into print – actors John Heminge and Henry Condell – are the subjects of local thespian Kevin O’Leary’s new script, "Roles of a Lifetime." It runs at the Portland Ballet Studio Theater, staged by Luminous Productions (which brought us last season’s all-male King Lear) with the formidable cast of Rob Cameron, JP Guimont and Corey Gagne.
Muted medieval hues adorn the stage, ochre and sepia, quills, a workbench, a few curtained doorways, and many bushels of hand-inked sheaths. The show begins with a long, riddly monologue by dramatic Henry in meticulous blue (JP Guimont), with the occasional interjection by the shaggier, less ceremonious John (Rob Cameron); Henry pontificates on whether and when someone entered, or didn’t enter. They are, of course, actors, passing time in theater trash-talk whilst waiting for a printer, Edward Blount (Corey Gagne), to whom to present these many sheaths of their old partner and, possibly, friend. Is their project about The Theater, or Friendship, or plain financial gain? As the men bicker with, bait and entreat each other, O’Leary’s homage to Shakespeare also explores the borderlands between art, love and commerce.
