Serban and Taymor: The King Stag

Clarice (Lynn Chausow) and Tartaglia (Richard Grusin)
Photo by Richard Feldman. Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

When I saw The King Stag 30 years ago, it was like nothing I had ever seen. Since then, I have seen things like it I suppose, but there is only one King Stag.

One King to rule them all.

It premiered at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard, and it was the perfect storm of script, director, designer, and cast. And it is perhaps my favorite show of everything I’ve ever seen.

And I saw it at least a half a dozen times.

Julie Taymor designed the masks, the puppets, the costumes and also designed the movement for the show.

It was directed by Andrei Serban, a Romanian-born American who began his career in the US in the early 1970s.

Before Taymor became world famous as the director/designer of The Lion King on Broadway, she designed and choregraphed this show at the age of 32. It was only her fifth show. Taymor had many influences. She studied mime with Jacques Lecoq in Paris. She worked with Joseph Chaiken and Herbert Blau. And she apprenticed in Japan and Indonesia, igniting her interest in masks and puppetry. This is not the full sum of her creative incubation, but it shows some of the threads that would be woven into her indelible artistic fiber.

Serban directed at the ART for two decades as well as for The Public Theatre, Yale Rep and others. He is an Obie-award winner and was professor of theatre at Columbia University for nearly 30 years.

The King Stag was one of the ART’s two signature pieces, along with Six Characters in Search of an Author. The ART toured the world with The King Stag. The show was so universally acclaimed, it played in their repertoire for 16 years, from 1984 to 2001.

The King Stag was written by Italian dramatist and theatrical gadfly Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806). Gozzi’s big hits were Turnandot, and The Love of Three Oranges, which were turned into operas by Puccini and Prokofiev, respectively. Turandot the opera contains perhaps the most thrilling song ever written, Nessun Dorma. Find Pavarotti’s version on YouTube. I dare you.

Gozzi’s contemporaries, like Goldoni (his literary nemesis), had moved away from Commedia dell’arte, thinking it old-fashioned. As a result, Commedia was in danger of disappearing. Gozzi was a member of The Granelleschi Society which sought to preserve Italian culture. The society championed Commedia dell’arte, and did not want the art form to die out. Gozzi’s plays invigorated the tenuous art form and he is responsible for a revival of Commedia. Many of Gozzi’s plays, like The Serpent Woman and The Green Bird, are a blending of Commedia characters and fairy tale plots. The King Stag is the quintessential example of this.

King Deramo (Thomas Derrah) and Angela (Diane D’Aquila)
Photo by Richard Feldman. Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

King Deramo is searching for a wife and meets the beautiful Angela, who loves him - not for being king, but because he has a good heart. However, the evil Prime Minister Tartaglia wants Angela for himself. When Tartaglia discovers that Deramo knows a magic spell that allows him to transfer his soul, he devises a scheme to steal Angela.

Deramo (Thomas Derrah), and Tartaglia (Richard Grusin)
Photo: Richard Feldman. Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

When King Deramo is out hunting, Tartaglia challenges him to demonstrate his power: “Send your soul into the corpse of the stag we have just killed.” The King does so, whereupon Tartaglia, repeating the spell, sends his own spirit in the body of the King. The King, now in the stag’s body, runs off. Tartaglia, now in the king’s body, tries to seduce and marry Angela.

Tartaglia in the body of the king. Note the distorted mask.
Deramo (Thomas Derrah) and Angela (Diane D’Aquila)
Photo: Richard Feldman Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

How the real king triumphs and regains Angela - achieved through much comedy, magic, and reversals - is the rest of the drama.

Photo: Richard Feldman Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

The great Tommy Derrah played King Deramo in the performances that I saw. Tommy was the ART’s resident comic actor and usually played the quirky, funny roles in the ART’s productions, as well as all of Shakespeare’s fools. But like most accomplished comedians, he moved beautifully. He said that it was liberating to play the romantic leading man for once. And he played Deramo for 15 years.

Deramo (Thomas Derrah) and Angela (Diane D’Aquila)
Photo: Richard Feldman Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

Taymor explained the costume design: “The oriental aspect of the play allowed me to experiment with a variety of styles from all parts of Asia – Japan, The Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and China. The unifying factor was the blending and juxtaposing of the forms, so that not one costume was recognizable as coming from a specific place.”

Serban makes a case for taking the imagination seriously: “Gozzi’s scenarios represent first and foremost an homage to the theatre – to art, and the power of art that can create laughter, healthy and athletic laughter that can heal – an homage to that intentional game that engages the imagination, the emotions, the intellect, and longing. For that reason we must play it truthfully, which means that we must not at any price undercut the joyous craziness of the work with a true-to-life lie that would be contrary to its nature.”

I love his idea of a “true-to-life lie.”

Deramo (Thomas Derrah), Smeraldina (Priscilla Smith), Truffaldino (Dennis Bacigalupi)
Photo: Richard Feldman Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

This play was a marriage between an extremely entertaining and moving story, and an extraordinary design. Serban and Taymor created a world where everything fit – story, costumes, movement, puppets – but it was a world that had been created afresh. With a show like this, there is the wonder of discovery – and I can’t stress the importance of this enough. If you set a Shakespeare play during the Civil War (for example), even in an excellent production, chances are there will be very little discovery. Once the characters and incidents are fed into the creative machine and they come out the other side, all will be pretty much as you expect.

Truffaldino (Dennis Bacigalupi) and bear.
Photo: Richard Feldman Courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

When you enter a completely new world, you are engaged in the story in an active and thrilling way. Taymor created a signature way of moving for each character, making the entire play a dance.

Add to the experience that it is one gorgeous scene after another - a world that you would be glad to lose yourself in for 90 minutes.

The invention and genius to make an entirely new world is probably the highest theatrical bar there is. Because its creation is added to all the other elements necessary for drama.

And that is one of the things that has fueled my making a life in the theatre. At its best, theatre does not wrap you up where you are in your everyday life. But it allows you to step through a door and live for a while in a singular world of wondrous and breathtaking truth.