Shakespeare returns after year-long intermission
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
URBANA — Eric W. Miller has waited a year to fall four times and drown at least once.
That's what the second act of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" has in store for the Urbana University actor.
Extras
Get latest headlines via RSS feedsBut a year ago, when Urbana first tried staging the play, Miller's accident in the first act wasn't exactly scripted.
He ended up breaking his knee, ending the show.
"Everyone thought it was still part of the show," he recalled. "The audience still didn't catch on until the paramedics took me out."
The Urbana junior did, however, have great timing.
His fall came just in time for intermission. A really long one.
A year later — 8,852 hours, if anybody bothered to wait around in the lobby — Urbana will stage the overdue second act today, April 23, in the Hub.
"We didn't want to throw away that effort," Miller said.
Along with Miller and returning alumna Megan-Marie Johnson, two freshman have been pressed into service to finish the show on, fittingly, what's believed to be Shakespeare's birthday.
He'd be 444 this year. (Happy birthday, you old Bard.)
Nobody's really sure what happened a year ago during the first of two planned performances of the physical comedy. (It slams all of Shakespeare's plays into 90 minutes.)
Miller remembers jumping off the stage wrong.
Margaret Piatt, director of theater at Urbana, said he made a bad step onto a platform.
Johnson blames the curse of Macbeth.
Whatever the case, Miller went down.
"He was really quiet," Johnson said. "Then we knew something was wrong."
But the show at least ended with flair.
"It was the most fabulous exit ever," Piatt raved. "The audience was applauding and Eric was waving."
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
