28 Years Later, A 'Gospel' Revival

Michael Tolaydo Brings 'St. Mark's' to Theater Alliance

It's been nearly 30 years since Michael Tolaydo took "St. Mark's Gospel" on the road. He took over the solo piece from its creator, Alec McCowen, and toured the show in 1979 and 1980 around the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and in South Africa, Germany and Bermuda. Now the Washington-based actor is reviving it for Theater Alliance at H Street Playhouse June 12 through July 6.

"Thirty years is a long time," Tolaydo says, and it took him six months to relearn the text, which is the King James version of the New Testament book. He would speak it in the car as he commuted from his Capitol Hill home to St. Mary's College in Southern Maryland, where he is professor of theater, film, and media studies, and to acting gigs, most recently as Blind Pew in Round House's "Treasure Island" and as an Israeli settler in Theater J's "Pangs of the Messiah."

When Tolaydo began rehearsing the piece back in 1979, British actor McCowen gave him a cornerstone on which to build his presentation of the text. "The way that Alec McCowen described it to me," recalls Tolaydo, "imagine you spent all night in a pub and you hear this great story . . . and you come out and want to tell your friends." The life of Jesus as told by St. Mark contains less "religious dictum" and more "reportage" than the other Gospels, the actor says.

"When you read it, it's very much like a historical journey -- it doesn't proselytize," Tolaydo says. "The show is the telling of this wonderful story. It's not an attempt to convert anyone. It's got a lot of humor in it. . . . It humanizes everyone."

During rehearsals, says director Paul Takacs, he and Tolaydo constantly ask themselves: "Are the colors right, are we telling the story in as truthful and as unvarnished a way as we can?" They don't want it to become "just a great pronouncement," he adds. "The danger is becoming stentorian," interjects Tolaydo. There are passages in which the text can become "very dense" or repetitive, as in some of the parables, and episodes recounting miracles or boat trips can sound similar.

"It's a great story, and I'm talking with you for close to, let's say, two hours. So I need to keep you engaged in the story, not in me. So even though you may know the story . . . it becomes new for you," says Tolaydo.

When he first toured "St. Mark's Gospel," he was performing it one night in San Francisco when he had a brief memory lapse and reflexively quoted a few lines from "Richard II" to fill the dead air while his brain got back in gear. "It was the only time that I got lost for a second," he says. After the show, an Episcopal priest came up to him and said, as Tolaydo remembers it, "I followed you word for word -- and you were perfect."

From Lady Macbeth to 'Girly-Girl'

Kate Eastwood Norris is known for her steel-trap memory for text and her Olympian energy level. Hence, her smooth move at the Folger Theatre from a bloody Lady Macbeth to a gossipy Lady Teazle in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's "The School for Scandal." The Restoration comedy continues through June 15.

"I'm glad it was in that order, you know? Because this Lady Teazle is kind of a relief after the Sturm und Drang of Lady Macbeth," the actress says. "In one show, I'm bleeding; in one show, I'm flouncing."

Eastwood Norris paid her dues at Shenandoah Shakespeare, now called American Shakespeare Center at Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va. There she learned to downshift or gear up between roles in rotating repertory. "At one point, I think I had five different plays going," she says. "That was sort of what I like to call my grad school, doing a bunch of plays in repertory."

Even after "Macbeth" closed on April 13, she found the production, co-directed by Aaron Posner and the magician Teller, clung to her psyche the way all that stage blood still clings to the dressing room walls. "Lady Macbeth was eating at my soul. It's not a happy part to play at all," she says. The Folger production's take on the character was "I killed myself because I screwed up the most amazing man in the world . . . that's why my Lady Macbeth got so upset," Eastwood Norris says. "Not because she was obsessed or felt so sorry for herself because she couldn't be queen."

Even now, the role lingers "almost like a wound. That sounds bad, but it's not. . . . You cannot work enough on this role. . . . You would never feel, yep, that must be it. That's the curse of an iconic role like that," she says, and "also the blessing."

Part of the attraction of Lady Teazle, a gossipy but innocent clotheshorse who drives her much older husband (played by David Sabin) to distraction, is her sheer exuberance. "She's out to have some joy in life," Eastwood Norris says, "and I've just totally embraced that and filled her with as much joy as I could." Otherwise, Lady Teazle would "just be a ditsy Little Bo Peep," she says.

"I've never played a girly-girl like this, ever," says the actress, who was still assaying Lady Macbeth when "School for Scandal" rehearsals began. By day, she tried to rediscover the upper registers of her speaking voice and to explore "the goofy side and the comic side and all that stuff. . . . I wasn't thinking so much about her character as about what fun I could have, because my soul kind of needed it."

Follow Spots

· Theater Alliance's board has decided to make Paul-Douglas Michnewicz the company's official artistic director as of July 1. Michnewicz took over as interim director when Jeremy Skidmore stepped down last year and has led the company through recent financial troubles. He canceled two shows and substituted less expensive productions (including "St. Mark's Gospel"). He says he'll announce Theater Alliance's coming season in August or September.

· Theater J will close "David in Shadow and Light" on June 15, a week earlier than scheduled, due to slow ticket sales, publicist Rebecca Ende said. The original musical about the Old Testament king was an expensive ($250,000), long-gestating investment for the theater. Those who have tickets for the canceled shows will be rescheduled to earlier performances.