Modern Hamlets & Soliloquies: An Expanded Edition

8. RANDALL DUK KIM: Sir, a Whole History

8 RANDALL DUK KIM Sir, a Whole History Randall Duk Kim is a Hawaiian American who has played Hamlet in the woodlands of Wisconsin. The American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, which Kim helped to establish in I979, is typical of the regional Shakespearean festivals that have sprung up in the United States since the thirties. Cofounders of this summer theatre festival are Charles Bright, who manages, Anne Occhiogrosso, who acts and directs, and Kim himself, who was artistic director as well as its lead player. These three determined people spent years searching for the perfect site for their classical theatre. Finally they found it in a bowl-shaped outdoor arena planted firmly on seventy-one acres of timbered farmland near Frank Lloyd Wright's home Taliesin in Wisconsin, thirty miles west of Madison. The site even had a farmhouse and a converted barn in which they could set up shop. The American Players Theatre has drawn audiences from around the midwestern United States, as well as interested Shakespeareans from both coasts. A cadre of faithful volunteers, along with grant funding and the unflagging industry of its casts and crews, have helped to keep a mid-June through mid-October season afloat. Kim's path to Wisconsin was certainly not direct: The first time I played Hamlet was for the Honolulu Theatre for the Youth in I977! I'm the odd one in my family, the only one to become an actor. My relatives were somewhat appalled in the beginning. They were concerned that I couldn't earn my living at acting. Given 153 my race, they were worried that I wouldn't fit into the structure of theatre in the United States. But I was determined and I loved Shakespeare 's plays, which have guided me for many years. I've not had much formal acting instruction. What I know of acting has been learned through experience on the stage. I started when I was a senior in high school and our community theatre happened to be doing Macbeth. We'd just studied the play in class, and I was intensely curious to see how they would mount it. I screwed my courage to the sticking place and went to auditions. I was really frightened; nevertheless, I got cast as Malcolm. Next, I acted in a number of plays at the University of Hawaii. I then went to New York to begin work as a professional actor. I vowed that during the summers, I would leave New York to work with a Shakespeare festival . The Champlain Shakespeare Festival in Vermont hired me for three seasons. I had a shot at major roles like Titus Andronicus and Richard III. My chief interest throughout my career has been performing in classical plays, especially Shakespeare.1 Kim has played in more than a hundred productions since his debut in 1961, working at the American Conservatory Theatre (Richard III), the New York Shakespeare Festival (Pericles), Direct Theatre (Richard II), Guthrie Theatre (Hamlet), American Place Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre , Baltimore Centre Stage, the Indiana Repertory Company, the Arizona Theatre Company, and many others. Based in Spring Green since 1979, Kim lengthened his flourishing list of classical characters with Petruchio , Falstaff, Shylock, Hamlet, Malvolio, Puck, Prospero, Tamburlaine , and Oedipus. One of the significant moments of his career was playing the role of King Lear under the direction of Morris Carnovsky and Phoebe Brand at the American Players Theatre in 1987.2 Kim has literally forged a classical actor's career out of the regional companies and festivals in the United States. Kim saw his earlier involvements with the role of Hamlet as preparatory for the definitive version he and Anne Occhiogrosso created for Spring Green audiences: In my earliest attempt I found myself playing a very angry young man with a bitter sense of humor, a mean-minded cynic with tunnel vision. Slowly, I found my way around to a character who is a much 154 Randall Duk Kim more generous and three-dimensional spirit, whose death leaves a void in the world. His appearance in the role at the Guthrie Theatre in I978 was an important step in helping him define the later Hamlet: It was an opportunity to become more familiar with the play. It was not the most important Hamlet that I did (despite the praise for my performance) because production-wise there were just too many things lacking...