Performing Shakespeare in Kabul

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Navy Reservist Tyrus Lemerande and his wife, Amy McLaughlin Lemerande, who together manage the Knighthorse Theatre Company.

During his recent deployment to Afghanistan, Ty brought his one-man Shakespeare show to troops in Kabul.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Tyrus Lemerande recently returned home to Massachusetts. He’d been in Afghanistan for a six month deployment. Lemerande is a Navy Reservist and he was serving as a public affairs officer in Kabul. But Lemerande is also an actor and he put on one-man Shakespeare shows in Kabul. Back home, he and his wife, Amy McLaughlin, run the Knighthorse Theatre Company in Massachusetts. They bring Shakespeare to audiences across the US. When Ty Lemerande got deployed to Afghanistan, Amy continued their tradition of performing free summer shows on Cape Cod, but they’d collaborate over Skype.

Tyrus Lemerande: It was not the most ideal conditions for rehearsing, but she would do Shakespearean lines for me and I’d be like well, you need to hit that verb a little bit more, or I think you need to go a little faster here. And so that was what we kinda did across the…maybe Amy could give you a bit of a sonnet because we picked this sonnet specifically because of my being deployed. What number’s the sonnet, 27?

Amy McLaughlin: I think it’s 27.

“Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.”

Mullins: And so that specifically was, you chose that because you, Ty, were in Afghanistan.

Lemerande: So far away, and it’s…

McLaughlin: It was my life, yeah.

Lemerande: One of the great things about Shakespeare’s sonnets of course, is that you can find ones that apply to your particular situation. And we just love that sonnet because it was about love separated, and about this person who goes to sleep at night and the only solace that they have are thoughts of their loved one who’s so far away. And so we thought it was a great way to start out Amy’s play. And so we were bound together even though we were separated by so many miles.

Mullins: So how about on your side then? You performed Shakespeare for the troops.

Lemerande: I did, I felt this connection to Amy because she was doing this monumental Herculean task back home, two shows by herself on the Cape while taking care of our two-year-old son. And so I thought you know, I have to do something to kind of connect with her and connect back with Shakespeare, and so I created this free Shakespeare. I came up with a poster and I hung it all over the base. And Amy sent me my costume. It’s this really cool piece because our particular telling of Hamlet is that Horatio, who of course, is the only character who’s alive at the end, Hamlet says to him at the end, “Draw they breath in pain to tell my story.” And so the whole play unfolds in Horatio’s memory. And of course, after 2-1/2 hours I’m drenched in sweat. And I didn’t know who was going to come to this particular performance. I put on there one night only, free Shakespeare, come and see it. And the show was going off at 8 o’clock and by 7:15 all the chairs were filled. A dozen different countries, we had generals, we had everyone down to the lowest sergeants and petty officers. So we had standing room only, about 300 people that came to watch Hamlet of all things in the middle of Afghanistan. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. And we got a standing ovation at the end.

Mullins: We? Well, you had a lot of help, but it was you on stage.

Lemerande: That’s true. I tend to say “we” because everything that we do is Amy and I, so even though Amy wasn’t there with me I felt that she was because…

Mullins: It’s just so romantic. You’re holding your heart, I can see why Amy.

Lemerande: Well, I pictured her that night standing in the back with my boy. And to be Hamlet, and Horatio, and Claudius and Gertrude, and Ophelia, because I get to play the girls too, so it’s very fun when I get to play the girls.

Mullins: All right, so give us girl-boy, whomever.

Lemerande: This is the speech from Hamlet that made me fall in love with this play, when he says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern after the play within the play when he realizes that Claudius is in fact guilty. And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been called back to try and find out why he’s acting so crazy. And he grabs a recorder from one of the players and he says, “Will you play upon this pipe?” And they say, “We cannot, my Lord.” He says, “Come, ’tis as easy as lying. Look you, these are the stops” and he points out the holes on the recorder. And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both say, “But we know no touch of it, my Lord, we cannot.” And he says, “Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak? S’blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.” I’ve always loved that bit.

Mullins: But what about, what is it about Hamlet that spoke to them or do you think you could’ve done anything?

Lemerande: It was interesting because the second show I did was called The Shakespeare on Demand, and I actually did anything. The night that we did it they asked for Henry V, for example, which is very, very popular with military audiences.

Mullins: How come?

Lemerande: The band of brothers speech, people know that phrase, they know band of brothers. They know Crispin’s Day, but they don’t know where it comes from. It comes from Henry V. And there’s this great passage when on Crispin’s Day when Henry and his men are confronted by a superior French force on a field outside of the Castle Agincourt, outnumber five to one, Henry rallies his hungry, sick and tired troops to victory simply by rousing them and making them believe in each other. And he says, “This day is called feast of Crispian…

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentleman in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

And they scream and they go into battle, and they win. And I believe that they reason they won that day is because Henry got them to believe not in themselves, but in each other. And I think it resonates with men and women who are separated from their families, that tall they have are their brothers and sisters in arms to rely upon, to talk to, to confide in, to be with for six months, nine months, twelve months, however long it is, that idea of a band of brothers I think they understand it.

Mullins: The words “band of brothers,” did they come out differently for you because you were then stationed in Afghanistan?

Lemerande: Oh, of course, because those were my brothers, when I said we few, we happy few. I’m looking at this group of people who are sitting around me in uniform and literally from 12 different countries. And here they are all sharing in me, with me, this moment in time. And you learn as an actor to allow that emotion to come forward and to infuse those words with a special meaning that the audience feels, that symbiotic relationship between actor and audience is very special. It’s one of the reasons I love what I do.

Mullins: Ty and Amy, thank you.

McLaughlin: Thank you.

Lemerande: You’re very welcome, thank you very much for having us.

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