Actors are challenged to bring their instrument to the highest level of availability—their voice, their movement, their psyche, their understanding, their emotional life—so that if they are doing a great play that deals with great issues and great emotions, they can fill that greatness with their instrument. — Dakin Matthews
I’m thrilled to welcome Dakin to the show as the first season finale! Thank you so much for joining us, whether this is your first episode, or you’ve been along for the season—it’s been a fantastic journey and I’m thrilled to close it out with Dakin.
Not only is this a great conversation, we also get a mini-Shakespeare master class from one of the best people in the country! He’s made quite an impact on my life and education, especially with Shakespeare. I feel deeply honored to have studied and worked with him, and I’m so excited to share his story and wisdom.
Just a bit of what we cover:
- Where he feels confident, and when he gets intimidated
- His path from studying to be a priest to teaching high school Algebra to acting
- How he developed his acting skills, despite never taking classes
- Why doing the classics and being in a repertory company can be so important for actors
- Landing a starring role at Center Theatre Group in The History Boys and the critical reception the production received
- What qualities distinguish him from other actors, and why he stands out
- What being a professional actor means to him
- and much, much more!
About the guest
He’s got a bio that can stagger you, so buckle in!
Dakin Matthews is an actor, playwright, dramaturg, director, teacher, and Shakespeare scholar. He is an Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, California and attended graduate school at NYU.
Dakin began his stage career in the San Francisco Bay Area, appearing in both the Marin and California Shakespeare Festivals. He acted and taught at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, and at the Juilliard School in New York
Former Artistic Director of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, the California Actors Theatre, The Antaeus Company (which he co-founded), and the Andak Stage Company; he is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre; and a founding acting member of John Houseman’s The Acting Company and Sam Mendes’ Bridge Project.
He has written verse translations of six seventeenth-century Spanish comedies, and his play Capulets and Montagues won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation. He’s been a regular at Center Theater Group in LA and South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, and has acted and directed at many other regional theatres. Stage work includes numerous productions of Shakespeare and Shaw, and he appeared in Romeo and Juliet directed by Sir Peter Hall.
He has 150 credits on IMDb, with a 30+ year career on screen, and film work includes Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Bridge of Spies, and the Coen Brother’s True Grit. He was a series regular on Soul Man with Dan Aykroyd, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, and The Office. He’s also been a recurring character on Gilmore Girls, Desperate Housewives, The Mentalist, and King of Queens.
He has appeared on Broadway in Henry IV with Kevin Kline and Ethan Hawke, A Man for All Seasons with Frank Langella, Rocky the Musical as Mickey the trainer, with Helen Mirren in The Audience as Winston Churchill, in Waitress the musical, and is scheduled to appear in two more Broadway shows this year: The Iceman Cometh with Denzel Washington, and in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird with Jeff Daniels.
He has been a dramaturg on Broadway for the aforementioned Henry IV, for Macbeth with Ethan Hawke (both directed by Jack O’Brien), and for Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington, directed by Daniel Sullivan. Dakin won a special Drama Desk Award for his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, which combined both parts into one play, and a Bayfield Award for his performance in that show.
His handbook on verse-speaking, Shakespeare Spoken Here, has been used in universities and training programs throughout California; and he has given master classes in Shakespearean acting around the world.
Please enjoy my chat with Dakin Matthews!
Total Running Time: 1:43:43
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Want to hear more from another Shakespeare teacher and actor? Check out my talk with Armin Shimerman, famous for playing “Quark” on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
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Show Notes
Dakin Matthews around the web
Film/TV | Wikipedia | Broadway | Off-Broadway | Actors Access | His former Andak theatre company
Highlights
- Dakin’s father as an indentured servant
- How acting in a Shakespeare play gave him a more intimate knowledge of it
- The situations when he feels in awe of people
- How he approaches working with or teaching younger actors
- The production of Shakespeare he saw that really changed his view of what theatre could be
- How he ended up teaching at Juilliard and eventually performing in The Acting Company
- Why he feels acting is his primary skill, above being a teacher or scholar
- Why there aren’t great Shakespeare acting classes online
- How he approaches playing real people, and the roles that he couldn’t quite figure out
- The out-of-left-field offer to get involved with Rocky the Musical
- How Dakin has had time to be involved in so much
- Working on the “Come vial” speech from Romeo and Juliet
- Why many actors either shy away from or miss the mark with emotional moments
- Why it’s so important to find a group of like-minded creative people
- Quotes that matter to him
Selected People and Items Mentioned
- Antaeus Theatre
- Portuguese immigration to Hawaii
- ACT, San Francisco
- The Juilliard School
- USD San Diego MFA (Old Globe Program)
- Cal State East Bay, Hayward, CA
- David Ogden Stiers, actor
- Kurtwood Smith, actor
- Liz Huddle, actress
- PCPA Theatre
- John Houseman, actor, director, and teacher
- Stephen McKinley Henderson, actor
- Group 1 at Julliard: Patti Lupone, Kevin Kline, David Ogden Stiers, Mary Joan Negro, Mary Lou Rosato, Sam Tsoutsouvas, David Schramm, Tony Azito, Jim Moody, Gerald Gutierrez, Norman Snow, Benjamin Hendrickson
- US bombing of Cambodia
- Jack O’Brien, director
- Sherlock’s Last Case (play)
- Remington Steele, TV show
- Henderson Hogan Agency
- The History Boys (play)
- Frank Langella as Nixon
- Rocky the Musical
- Waitress musical
The Acting Company, 1972 with Dakin
Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 3
[accordion clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item title=”+ click to view/close the monologue” id=juliet state=closed] JulietFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
Laying down her dagger.
What if it be a poison which the friar
Subtly hath minist’red to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonor’d
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is, and yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place—
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest’ring in his shroud, where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking—what with loathsome smells,
And shrikes like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad—
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud,
And in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains?
O, look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink—I drink to thee.
- Juliet, R&J, Act 3, Scene 2: “Gallop apace”
- Lady Percy, Henry IV, Part 2: Act 2, Scene 3: “O yet for God’s sake, go not to these wars!”
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Photo credit (Dakin’s headshot): Walter McBride / Broadway.com
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