Equivocation star John Pankow

photo by Joan Marcus

Where to begin… Firstly, without equivocation, you would be depriving yourself, your heirs, your assigns if you do not at the very first opportunity see Equivocation. Invent birthdays, anniversaries, holy and unholy occasions to see it again and again and take your children, your grand children, your friends, your enemies. Shower all and sundry with tickets as a humanitarian and connoisseur. Bumps and all, Equivocation is a tower of strength no matter the rest of the season... It’s got brains, it’s got heart. It’s got blood and guts. It’s got terror. It’s got suspense, laughs, tears and it goes pell mell. Oh – did I say it’s got Shakespeare?

Hold on, hold on, Shakespeare is not only good for you, this Shakespeare is a frazzled, overworked, overweight toiler, threatened with having his head and other parts cut off if he does not perform, burdened by a bawd for a wife, battered by a fractious company of actors and haunted every day by the memory of a son whose twin sister, Judith, racks his heart because she knows Shakespeare wishes it were she who were dead instead of his beloved Hamnet.

Ah, but that is only the beginning. Shag, as he is known (the fantastic John Pankow) is working, rehearsing with his fellow company members when Lord Cecil, the King’s right hand, left hand, under hand, brains and eminence grise hands him a script. It is the King’s own recounting of the Gunpowder Plot. Shag is to turn it into a play within two weeks. Or else. Since Shag and all the company are the King’s Men, under King James’s personal patronage, the King’s word is doubly law. To disobey or disagree is treason. And since Cecil speaks for the King, not to obey means to have your living entrails cut out as you watch, then to have your body cut into four pieces while you are still alive and aware plus other refinements civilized people engage in. Especially in difficult times. England is nothing but difficult times. Shagsper as he is known, remonstrates at terrible peril, then caves. We see the company rehearse his acting version of the Gunpowder Plot. Does not work. Too may holes, too many basic questions, which may not even be asked. Shag, in terror for them all, gives back the gold payment to Cecil, who himself feels thus imperiled and grants Shag access to a tortured, still alive prisoner in the Tower, Wintour, one of the plotters. It is a deadly, harrowing visit.

At this point it is necessary to describe the extraordinary setting Francis O’Connor –he did the evocative costumes, too --has devised. It is a clanging steel box of many doors, lit with David Weiner’s bare, hanging bulbs some distance over the heads of the audience, pulling us in. At the foot of the ramped, wooden floor is attached a long trough. A grate running through the floor empties into the trough. It’s to catch the blood drained from victims. It is the daily rehearsal space for the acting company. Death and imminent death is a daily experience, hardly the same as watching it on television, or in the movies, or in a magazine, or on a screen. Serving the same purpose: warning and entertainment.

Yes, but you are asking, what has that to do with the title: Equivocation? What was – or is – equivocation? The Gunpowder Plot was part of the seething religious wars tearing England apart. Its purpose was to blow up the Houses of Parliament and all their men of power including the King. Every Catholic priest was considered part of the plot, a criminal by association, a target for the severest of questioning. Meaning outright, commonplace torture. As clerics, they had to tell the truth. But clerics, in their answers, answered the underlying question as they saw it: if asked, was a wanted individual in the house, the priest’s reply of “No” when in fact that person was indeed there was the answer to the underlying question unasked: “”Are you giving him up to be killed?” And the equivocated answer, “No” was the priest’s truth. Which, of course, the King’s soldiers knew.

Playwright Bill Cain’s astonishingly theatrical instincts and command of his art keeps his story flexing, from the players’ lives, to their enacted characters’ lives, to the embroiling of both. The company of actors are observed and served daily by Shag’s daughter, Judith, Hamnet’s surviving twin. Mostly, they ignore her, useful though she may be. And in playwright Cain’s breathtakingly clever hands, she is their salvation when her father, Shag, is at loggerheads with Lord Cecil and dooms them all. Charlotte Parry plays Judith as an outsider, far too Today to blend in with their times. But the company, such a company! Praise David Pittu, Michael Countryman, David Furr, Remy Auberjonois, and verily, John Pankow. Praise them all. Director Garry Hynes has directed as if she were in Bill Cain’s head. She has never done better work. Superb. Equivocation is the richest theatrical experience in town.

NY City Center, 131 West 55^th Street, east of 7^th Avenue. Tickets: $75. Tue, Sun 7 pm, Wed-Sat 8 pm, Mats Sat, Sun 2 pm. Google theater tickets or 212-581 1212.