Expectations are running high for Steppenwolf Theatre's production of The Tempest.
Not only is it Steppenwolf's first-ever Shakespeare production, but it features a plethora of acclaimed ensemble members in the cast ( notably Tony Award-winning director and playwright Frank Galati as the exiled Prospero ) .
Tina Landau—a playwright, director and Steppenwolf Ensemble member since 1998—directs The Tempest. She recently took some time out of her busy rehearsal schedule to talk about her approach to setting Shakespeare on the Steppenwolf ensemble.
Windy City Times: Could you talk a bit about how Steppenwolf chose to do its first full Shakespeare production?
Tina Landau: I think the genesis of The Tempest was in both [ Artistic Director ] Martha Lavey and the staff's determination to do a season about the imagination—coupled with a desire on the part of the ensemble to do Shakespeare.
I had actually put The Tempest on a list for Martha for projects to consider probably about five years ago because it has been one of my favorite plays and a play I've always wanted to do. And when I got a call from her, seemingly out of the blue, asking if I wanted to direct The Tempest in this season of the imagination, I did not miss half a second before I said, 'Yes.' And then that was only four to five [ seconds ] when she told me the idea of Frank playing Prospero.
WCT: Now when you see Shakespeare nowadays, you always wonder when and where it's going to be set. Is your approach going to be an eclectic approach with different time frames in terms of the look of the production?
TL: We're thinking of it as creating our own brave new world. And I'd say, "Yes," that might incorporate elements from different periods, but it is fundamentally in the theater, in the imagination of Prospero. So it's through the consciousness of a 21st-century brain re-imagining and reliving and bringing to life The Tempest.
WCT: Now we always think of Steppenwolf actors as being rough-and-tumble in jeans and stuff like that. How are the ensemble members tackling Shakespeare?
TL: You know, fantastically. It's what I had hoped and continue to hope as it goes into performance—which is there's such a fierce commitment to truth, honesty, spontaneity, danger and extremity on stage. All of which has served to awaken the text in ways that I never could have imagined. So rather than the Steppenwolf actors kind of kowtowing to a certain formality, they've just juiced it with a brand of fire that is very much Steppenwolf and I hope very organic without playing it naturalistically.
WCT: In the theater community, you're held up as one of the more prominent women directors. Do you prefer to seen just as a "director?"
TL: I never classify myself by gender, but I'm very aware that I'm a woman and I know that informs my work and how I perceive the world and material in front of me. But it is certainly on equal par with the fact that I'm gay and I'm Jewish and I play the piano and I was raised in New York and like sushi. [ Laughs ]
I do get asked often what it means or what if feels like to be woman director and I always don't know how to answer that—because I do think I am that and those things I said before, so it just feels like me.
WCT: Now Steppenwolf is famous for being founded as company of actors. When did you get invited to join the ensemble and what was that like?
TL: I think it was in 1996 and, in fact, it was Frank Galati who had seen a production I did in New York of a musical I co-wrote ( with composer Adam Guettel ) of Floyd Collins. Frank went to Martha and said we have to do this piece at our theater. So Martha invited me to come and direct something here. We decided not to do Floyd because Steppenwolf at that time was not doing the musical thing. But I did another play, a Charles Mee play called Time to Burn, and the next year I wrote and directed a play called SPACE.
It was the day after SPACE that Martha invited me to be in the ensemble. I can't remember if Gary Sinise was there or if he had just seen the play the night before, but I really thought she was joking and making a mistake. I kept saying, "But Steppenwolf is actors." I couldn't believe it was true and that such good fortune would befall me.
WCT: How do you feel you fit in with the company?
TL: Oh, great. I was a long while ago when I first came here slightly worried. In regards to doing some training I do which is known as The Viewpoints. And I worried that my approach into material would be different than some preconception I had about this company. And it turns out that I have never felt more at home or in my element than I do here.
WCT: Do you value the creative freedom they've offered you?
TL: It's Invaluable. It's a creative freedom and a creative bedrock and comfort and support system. For me it's both about being able to explore and also being able to feel safe and like you have a home. Whenever I think of this place I think of home with capital 'H.'
WCT: Now other than the imagination and the play's emphasis on forgiveness, is there something else about The Tempest that you wanted to touch upon?
TL: Just that I'm learning so much from the play. I feel blessed to be working on a play that feels like it gives me lessons every day about wonder and humility and it is a play about wonder and seeing things as if for the first time. And it's also a play I'm discovering more and more about our desire to control and the inevitability of having to let go. So I feel like's been an extraordinary experience working on it in terms of all those issues as an artist and a person.
