‘Mortal Terror’ a Scattershot Take on Shakespeare’s Life

What do terrorism, artistic anguish, cross-dressing, Early Modern English, and fart jokes have in common? According to the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre’s world premiere of “Mortal Terror,” quite a lot. The play, written by Robert Brustein—who is also the founder of the American Repertory Theater—runs through October 2 at the Modern Theatre at Suffolk University. Brustein’s script takes a sweeping look at issues pertinent in Shakespeare’s time as well as today, and the downsides of this wide-ranging approach ultimately outweigh its benefits. The play fails to cohere dramatically or thematically, vacillating between terrorism and sordid affairs, comedy and drama.

As the second installment in a three-part series of plays on the life of Shakespeare, “Mortal Terror” is the story of the writing of Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, “Macbeth.” Brustein represents the genesis of the “Scottish play” not as a stroke of inspiration, but as the result of a commission by King James I (Michael Hammond). The king, unsettled by Guy Fawkes’ plan—now known as the Gunpowder Plot—to blow up Parliament, commands William Shakespeare (Stafford Clark-Price) to write a play about his Scottish ancestors and thereby legitimize his right to the throne. Shakespeare is reluctant to meddle in politics but pragmatically decides to obey the king. Eventually the dark and twisted characters of his own play take over the playwright’s life, give him nightmares, and threaten his faith in humanity. By the end of the show William is in “mortal terror,” afraid of the callous and violent nature of man.

The Modern Theatre is small and intimate, a complement to the nature of the show. The audience is placed right into Shakespeare’s study, where he meets with friends, struggles with the realities of life in uncertain times, and puts the immortal lines of “Macbeth” to paper. A play about the life of Shakespeare makes sense; there is very little biographical knowledge of the English language’s most important writer, so Brustein has plenty of room to put his own face on the Bard. This rendering is witty and sometimes profound, but it fails to solidify.

For all of the success that Brustein has in conveying comedy and drama, neither of these aspects is allowed to be the driving force. This indecision creates a play that is stylistically hermaphroditic. Instead of being a comedy with a few dramatic elements or a drama with a touch of humor, the play is an uncomfortably balanced mixture of both. This might be attributed to the performance choices of the actors, but the script itself must also come into question. The character of Queen Anne (Georgia Lyman), a relatively unimportant historical figure, is well-developed, while Guy Fawkes (John Kuntz) is mostly used for plot points and comic relief. Lyman is an unexpected agent in the dramatic struggle in the play, at one point giving a reading of Lady Macbeth’s lines that stuns William and thickens the darkness in his troubled mind. Meanwhile Kuntz discusses mass murder with his coconspirator with a dry wit that seems like it belongs on Saturday Night Live, not in Elizabethan England.

At heart, “Mortal Terror” is a play about the nature of art. It asks how it is possible for art that is forced upon the artist by higher powers to be as masterful as that which springs from inspiration. Sadly, the play tries too hard to be about other things as well. Does the play want to be a social commentary on religion, intolerance, and terrorism? Its emphasis on the Gunpowder Plot seems to suggest such an aspiration. Does it want to be a play on the abuse of executive power? The mentions of torture and Hammond’s loaded use of the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” point that way. Such thematic wandering makes the show lack unity and compounds the script’s tonal confusion.

Despite these flaws, a strong central character might have stabilized “Mortal Terror.” But William, who ought to be the fullest and most dynamic character, shrinks in comparison to those around him. He has less energy than the swaggering Ben Jonson (Jeremiah Kissel), seems to go through less moral torment than Sir John Harington (Dafydd ap Rees), and acts with less ego and less force of will than either of the royals.

For a play about the life and experiences of Shakespeare, it seems strange that half of the scenes do not involve him at all. At the beginning William worries about reconciling his commission to vindicate the king with his artistic integrity. At the end he questions his earlier faith in mankind and promises never to write another tragedy. At these two points Clark-Price manages to portray a dynamic and complex version of the Bard, but this Shakespeare is not seen for the majority of the play. Brustein’s Shakespeare “struts and frets his hour upon the stage,” but in the end he fails to leave any lasting mark.