You’re one of KC Shakespeare Festival’s most beloved and familiar faces! What about this festival makes it fun to come back to year after year?
Well, it’s a joyful experience to return to the festival, for sure. I’m not only getting to return to a place that always feels like home to me but also to a community of artists I love and respect. I have some working relationships on this project that go back over 30 years. What a pleasure and privilege it is to step back into that kind of comfort zone for creative collaboration! And then getting to know and work with a new generation of talent that is now occupying your stages here in Kansas City. What a blessing!
Prospero’s one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic and complicated protagonists. What draws you most to this character, and how did you approach the role?
Just that, actually. The complexity of the role is certainly bait to any actor. While his backstory and need for revenge are quite obvious on the surface of the story, there’s a much deeper-seated need for reconciliation and redemption that only becomes clear as he encounters and experiences the events of the play. It has a wonderful arc. He begins the story desperately wanting one thing and ends up in a totally different place. He’s a man who thinks he knows and understands everything, but then he learns lessons that deliver him to a new level of understanding. He finds his own humanity.
Prospero has so much emotional range—is there a particular scene that’s the most fun for you?
That’s a tough choice. And “fun” is a strong word, isn’t it? The role certainly runs the gamut of emotional highs and lows. But a very simple moment near the end has become very significant to me. And it’s a moment that I was taking for granted until very recently. I ask Ariel, my “partner in crime,” to release Caliban and his companions, who we have captured and are holding as prisoners. This letting go is my final act of forgiveness in the story. And while it may appear on the surface as a plot-driving moment, it’s significant to Prospero’s journey. If I’m going to forgive anyone, I have to forgive everyone. Empathy isn’t something we only parse out to the deserving few. When I recognized this, it changed the entire ending of the play for me.
What about The Tempest do you find relatable or timely for the world today?
I’m going to use that same word again. Empathy. This seems to have become lost to us in today’s world. We are so divided in every way that coming together at all seems almost impossible. But The Tempest speaks out loud and clear to the need for forgiveness. And understanding and making space for those different from ourselves. It’s the only path forward. Prospero doesn’t teach us this lesson. He learns this lesson. And the play teaches by example.
Catch Bruce and the rest of the cast at The Tempest at Southmoreland Park until July 2. Tuesday—Sunday at 8 p.m.
