Classic Harlem

Director in Harlem takes stage classics to new places
Friday, May 25, 2007

Photo courtesy of alfredpreisser.com.

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Imagine growing up on a dairy farm in upstate New York where "forms of art were regarded as alien and weird."

Now imagine falling in love -- with the plays of one William Shakespeare.

Alfred Preisser found himself in this situation when he went to the Circle in the Square Theatre School in Manhattan. For eight years, he has been the head of the department of theater at the Harlem School for the Arts -- and, more important for theatergoers, he is the artistic director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem, where he often stages new and challenging interpretations of his beloved Shakespeare.

He took some time to chat with us about his new production, Sophocles' "Electra" -- and about moving to greener pastures.

Q. Tell us about your take on "Electra."

As with all of our work, we tried to find the present tense, the reason to do this play now. It's not just the fact that this "Electra" is set in the United States, that looks very much like it does now.

It's also the fact that she will not let go of the past, that she is forced into a situation where she must repeat the past. I think what's very "now" about it is the problem with the men in her life just not being there. They're very absent.

The other interesting thing is that her brother Orestes has become some kind of hero in some kind of war. And like all other wars, it has been advertised as something that will benefit our civilization. But the civilization he's off protecting is not doing so well, because all the men are absent.

A production photo from "Medea," also directed by Alfred Preisser. Courtesy of alfredpreisser.com.

Q. Is there a direct tie to current politics?

Instead of being very obvious about it, and talking about oil wars, [the production] invokes the questions about war. This [royal] family is destroying itself: It's stuck in its past, obsessed with things that happened 20 years ago.

I think the United States is stuck in the past. The version of the country that we get from our leaders is based on cowboy movies in the 1950s. The Eisenhower era casts a very long shadow. I don't want to underline it, but those elements are just there, and a modern audience will pick up on that.

Q. What is the draw, for you, of Greek plays?

People send me tapes, saying, "This is how it was performed in 500 B.C." -- and it's not interesting. I don't care.

What's interesting is that [these plays] are the essential human experience. How mankind acts in the family and reaches for power and glory; ages and loses control of the power and glory. They are expressions of nature and human nature.

Q. How did you come to teach Shakespeare and run a theater company out of Harlem?

Sir William. Courtesy of crrs.ca/images.

When I came here, there was no Shakespeare class. I started teaching a Shakespeare class here in the 1996-97 school year. We did scenes from all the big plays, the pivotal scenes like the Ann and Richard scene [from "Richard III"], the scene where Cleopatra commits suicide [from "Antony and Cleopatra"], or the balcony scene [from "Romeo and Juliet"].

I was teaching these teens, and it was like I was experiencing them for the first time and remembering what I loved about them in the first place, which I kind of forgot just slamming around NYC for years just trying to get work as an actor and director. When we did some of the scenes, everything just seemed so fresh and apt. ...

It was teaching here, and teaching Shakespeare here that made me think [a classical theater company] would be a good idea.

Q. Will you be staying at the Harlem School of Arts, after successfully bringing the downtown audience uptown?

Next year we'll be working on 42nd Street at The Box; the Gatehouse in Harlem; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. But the Harlem School of Arts will no longer be our home base.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.