Next Act’s ‘Equivocation’ speaks truth to power

How does one tell the truth when the news is fake?

And what happens to our best selves when we resignedly swallow the lies and say nothing, fearing we’ll suffer if we speak out?

While newly relevant, those questions are timeless.

Bill Cain drives that point home in “Equivocation,” a brilliant threehour exploration of what such questions meant for Shakespeare as he tried to tell the truth in a world of torture and terror. It’s now on stage at Next Act Theatre, under Michael Cotey’s direction.

Shakespeare’s world turned particularly nasty in 1606. It was the year he’d write “King Lear” and “Macbeth.”

But it was also the year after the Gunpowder Plot, unmasked and undone just before its Catholic conspirators could blow King James, Parliament and as many as 30,000 Londoners to smithereens.

That’s assuming things went down as the government claimed they did; the historical record suggests the government’s overly tidy story altered and destroyed evidence while giving James the star role in saving the day.

And that’s the sanitized version Prime Minister Robert Cecil (David Cecsarini) orders the Bard (Mark Ulrich) — Shag, here — to dramatize for posterity.

Saying “no” isn’t an option. Shag can either write propaganda while his company enjoys state patronage, or he can speak truth to power and risk torture and worse.

“Here are my choices — lie or die,” Shag bemoans at one point. “I don’t want to do either.”

Shag therefore does what he always did: he tells the truth but writes it slant, crafting a piece that tries to give Cecil what he needs while staying true to his own vision as an artist. In short, Shag equivocates.

But equivocating gets harder as he digs deeper and the official story gets flimsier. Shag’s vision therefore grows darker, slouching toward the nightmarish world of “Macbeth.”

Shag’s task is also made hard for reasons baked into the structure of Cain’s flamboyantly theatrical play. The quartet of actors in Shag’s company not only play historical figures in the Gunpowder Plot.

They also at times actually are these historical figures, from James and Cecil to conspirators and their priest confessors.

Hence Cecsarini is a company actor as well as Cecil (and a conspirator). Jonathan Smoots is both lead company actor Richard Burbage and a charismatic priest.

Josh Krause’s extra roles include a conspirator and a delightfully droll James. T. Stacy Hicks’ extra roles include a turn as a humorless lawyer. Only Shag and Shag’s daughter (Eva Nimmer) are always themselves.

Cain thereby blurs the line between fact and fiction, to the point where it’s not always clear to the audience which is which.

“Equivocation” unfolds in Shag’s Globe, underscoring that all the world’s a stage — a kingdom, Shag tells his actors, of “infinite possibility.”

Which part will we play? And what story will we tell?

“Equivocation” continues through Feb. 25 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, visit online at www.nextact.org. Read more about this production at TapMilwaukee.com.