A play about a play isn't a new thing, but George Brant's production "Into the Breeches," directed by Bryn Boice, takes the conceit in a new direction. It's a hilarious and heartwarming story about a group of women actors looking to keep their Boston theater alive while the men are overseas during World War II. These women are aiming to break a notable glass ceiling: Mount the first all-female production of Shakespeare's "Henry V." It's a story about community, perseverance and gender equality all wrapped up in a hilarious love letter to the theater.
"Into the Breeches" is ending its successful run this weekend at the Boston Center for the Arts' Plaza Theatre. Boice joined GBH All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about the play. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Arun Rath: So I gave sort of a brief summary of the play, but I mean, that feels like that's only scratching the surface. Tell us a bit more about it and how it ends up being so funny along the way.
Bryn Boice: Well, it's a really cute play. It's so heartwarming, as you said. I think that the thing that inspired me to want to direct it is that there is this group of women who get sort of talked into doing this play that actually has 33 male roles and three female roles and how it's something that we should be able to do, period. We should be able to play any part we want.
Personally, I think Shakespeare's been dead long enough. We are we actually have the ability to do whatever we want with it. And so this play set in 1942 makes that just exciting and funny to watch these women who they haven't even taken off their heels yet, learning how to walk like men and pretend to be men and they actually find themselves in it. Instead of play acting like they're some other gender, they actually are able to find themselves in these characters. And it's hilarious. Absolutely. And it clutches your heart to make sure it makes you feel like you really learn something. In the end. It's really just a sweet play. I've really enjoyed working on it.
Rath: It's interesting because I'm as you're talking, I'm thinking more about "Henry V," which is definitely one of my favorites. And I'm realizing because you're talking like, yeah, it is a very male play up until the very end and a lot really about kind of about the nature of male relationships and friendships and how a young man comes into his own. Talk a bit about what that kind of reveals when you have a cast of women performing it.
Boice: Well, it's great. Women come into their own as well. I love to talk about how Shakespeare is great for people to do because you use your own filter of your personal self, and the language flows through you. And so the ladies who experience that feeling in this play really grow, and they also come into their own.
And the thing about "Henry V," it seems like it's super male, but it's actually super human. And as these women get to experience these characters, which they might not otherwise have done, had the men not gone away to war, they wouldn't have been able to see how human they are within the context of of everything else that was going on. They actually get to experience this thing — which is acting in a Shakespeare play, getting to play these male roles, traditionally male roles — they get to find themselves in these characters. Finding yourself as a woman as you're playing Hotspur, who is incredibly defiant, wants to fight and then realizes upon being slain how silly and futile that that fight was. And getting to experience that is actually really exciting. It's like all these super human feelings that seem to be reserved for male bodies, and they get to be played by women and you get to experience that humanness. I don't know. It's just a really, really cool concept for a play.
Rath: Yeah. I mean, it turns so many things around in a fascinating way. Again, my head sort of spinning as you're talking about it because, you know, "Henry V" also, it's a play about war. Of course, women experience war as well. And then it's set in the context of World War II. Even the play "Henry V" has always been important in England during during wartime.
Boice: It really speaks to the war effort being not just not just the men on the ground. It's the women at home and it's the people trying to keep the community together.
Rath: So how does it work as a theatrical production? Do we see these characters work up to performing the play, or are bits of "Henry V" sort of worked in, you know, throughout it?
Boice: It's really a backstage comedy with a little bit of rehearsal here and there, and how the words in "Henry V" actually inform and contextualize moments that are happening in these people's lives.
And it's fun. They are not great when they begin. They audition and they're just OK. And they get better as the play goes on, as the rehearsals go on. So it's been a really fun challenge to have good Shakespeare actors to play bad Shakespeare actors. It was a fun casting experiment as well. You have these people who are actually very talented playing people who are really green and they build their talent as the show goes on. So that's like an acting feat in itself, which is really fun for the actors to play.
Rath: How do you direct actors to do like three different roles at the same time?
Boice: Oh, it's so much fun, but the bad acting is super, super fun. So you just let it like do all of the things that you're trained not to do, like using more gesture than you need or being really monotone. You get to use all those things that are sort of trained out of you as you learn to become an actor. And it's really fun. I chuckled pretty much solid through all of the rehearsals.
Rath: The run began in early November. You've had some some time in this. Now, tell us about how the experience has been and how that has developed.
Boice: Oh, it's it's been really fun and so much growth with the cast. It's hard to describe the last few days of rehearsal of a comedy because we start to doubt ourselves that it's funny anymore because we were just sort of laughed out. And the audience, really, is the final ingredient in and rehearsing a comedy. As soon as they get there, their energy feeds the actors and you get to sort of feel the play again as new. That other character, the audience, makes all the difference.
And so that has been really fun being able to experience them, enjoying all the funny in-theater jokes and people who don't know the old theater jokes learn the theater jokes, and the actors have just grown. They've gotten to be worse actors in the worst parts and much better actors at the end when they're great. And it has been an excellent run.
Rath: Your company Hub is the first and I think the only theater company in Boston with a pay-what-you-can ticketing policy which sounds like the opposite of Ticketmaster right now. Explain this to us how this works.
Boice: Yes. Hub Theatre Boston. All their tickets for all of their shows are pay-what-you-can because they don't want any barriers to access to the arts. Anyone can go to see these shows. There's no barriers.
Rath: Well, it's been been a delight talking with you. Thank you so much.
Boice: Thank you.
