Column: Shakespeare Project of Chicago will present a new dramatization of Ben Hecht's memoir at the Newberry

Chicago Tribune

25-02-2025

Writers William Shakespeare and Ben Hecht will make quite a pair on Saturday afternoon when some fine local actors well versed in and passionate about Shakespeare will be speaking Hecht's words at the Newberry Library Saturday afternoon in a new dramatization of Hecht's memoir, 'A Child of the Century,' by Shakespeare Project of Chicago, one of the city's great, if relatively quiet, treasures.
'You might think of us as Shakespeare unplugged,' said Peter Garino, one of the founders of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago and longtime artistic director, when I first met him a decade ago. 'We are unadorned and direct, and sometimes a person will tell us after a reading, 'I finally get this play.' That means a great deal to us. … We are under the radar. We are barely, if ever reviewed, mentioned by the mainstream press. We are up and gone in a weekend.'
There is something charmingly 'Brigadoon'-ish about that, and The Shakespeare Project is in the midst of celebrating its 30th season, which started in November with 'Measure for Measure,' then 'The Winter's Tale' last weekend, with 'The Tempest' scheduled for April and 'King Lear' in June.
Garino has been there from the start, explaining how he and other actors and Shakespeare fans would often bump into one another at auditions. A group of eight decided to meet once a week. One thing led to another and after a public performance attracted an enthusiastic crowd, The Shakespeare Project of Chicago was formed.
No one is in this for the money and all shows are free to the public. The group is a nonprofit and, 'the classic itinerant company,' says Garino. It presents shortened versions of the plays with casts composed of theater pros, all members of Actors' Equity, the professional union of actors and stage managers. All of these people have long lists of credits, from dozens of local stages and Broadway to TV and movies.
Hundreds of actors have participated, tackling the work of other writers too, a few of them Shakespeare's contemporaries, but also such offerings as Lynn Redgrave's 'Shakespeare for My Father' and Truman Capote's 'A Christmas Memory,' shows based on Shakespeare's poetry and a few musical offerings.
(It should be noted that a decade ago, as an acknowledgment of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago's ongoing importance, the Newberry invited it to contribute artifacts such as scripts, production notes, photographs, programs, posters and other materials for a permanent archive).
This Hecht presentation came to them through Scott Jacobs in 2018.
Wisconsin-raised (as was Hecht), Jacobs came to Chicago in the mid-1970s. He wrote for the Sun-Times before devoting himself to a career as a pioneering videographer and writer. In 1985, he and Michael Miner, the Chicago Reader columnist and his former Sun-Times colleague, used Hecht in their play, 'Kiss It Good-Bye,' which had its world premiere in 1985 with Organic Theater.
He was introduced to actor-director J.R. Sullivan by a mutual friend, actor-director and former newspaperman Gary Houston, who knew of both men's affection for Hecht's work. Amazingly, they had never met before but Sullivan too had a connection to Hecht, having written and performed in a one-man show based on 'A Child of the Century.' I reviewed that production for the Tribune in 1995, writing, 'The few periods of dullness that afflict this show might be erased with some judicious, if for Sullivan painful, editing. Hecht's life and times … tote an inherent romanticism that has never had a problem capturing readers and easily could grab audiences as well.'
Jacobs and Sullivan's collaboration sadly ended in October 2021 when Jacobs died of a heart attack. Sullivan was determined to finish what they had started.
'This book is a treasure trove of fantastic tales. The real challenge is to structure it, to bring it down to two hours,' he tells me, and it's exciting to hear that Saturday's reading will also feature music and many photos, most taken from the mountain of Hecht materials now housed at the Newberry.
'A Child of the Century' was published in 1954, Hecht died in 1964 and in 1979 his wife Rose donated all of his papers, correspondence, photographs and other materials to the Newberry.
That includes material from his Hollywood years, very fruitful years since, thought likely most famous for writing, with pal Charles MacArthur, 'The Front Page,' he is also credited with writing 65 films, including 'Spellbound' and 'Monkey Business,' and had his uncredited hand in dozens more, including 'Gone With the Wind.'
It is a vast gathering, 92 linear feet that includes a small statue. It is an Oscar, handed out at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Remember this if you are watching Sunday night: The first bash took 15 minutes to present awards in 13 categories. 'Wings' won best picture, and the award for best original screenplay, then referred to as best original story, was won by Hecht for 'Underworld.' He would later write, 'A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland, there are scarcely 50 men and women of wit and talent.'
He was surely one of them, and his shadow abides.