BRUNSWICK

This year marks 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare, and what better way to mark the anniversary than with an old school production of “King Lear?”

Morse drama teacher Kevin O’Leary has assembled an all-male cast to present the the tragic tale of a king’s descent into madness — but it’s the tragedies that took place in the lives of the cast and crew while putting the play together that makes this production so interesting.

“If you include the Genesis of the idea, it began in December of 2013 when Michael Howard, who is playing Lear, and I went to New York City to see the Mark Rylance’s double turn of Richard III and Twelfth Night on the same day,” O’Leary said of the all-male cast from London.

O’Leary and Howard were blown away by the performances, and particularly by the men playing female roles. That’s when they floated the question: could they pull off an original Shakespearian play in Portland?

O’Leary wasn’t from Maine and had no gauge. Howard knew the Portland performing arts scene well but could only recall it being done perhaps once before, about 25 years ago.

After some discussion, they decided to get some friends together and sit down for a read through in January of 2015.

“We decided, let’s give it a go. This was last January 15,” O’Leary said. “Then (Howard’s) beloved wife passed away. They were married 40 years.”

The project was postponed. O’Leary said the cast took it in stride, figuring they had gone as far as they could with the play. Still, O’Leary said he didn’t think he’d seen the end of the project.

“To be honest with you, (Howard) didn’t want it to end but he just couldn’t think of anything else but his beloved wife,” O’Leary said.

Six months prior, O’Leary said actor Tony Reilly lost his wife in a car crash.

“It was Christmas of 2014 and they were stuck in traffic and they got plowed into by an 18 wheeler,” O’Leary said. “She was killed instantly, he was thrown out of the car. They thought he was going to die.”

O’Leary said Reilly was in a coma for three months and last summer he had his left leg amputated. Following his experience, Reilly did a one-man show about it.

“He was back. So, we have these two pillars of the Portland theater scene, Michael Howard and Tony Reilly who both, within six months to the day of each other, lost their beloved wives and here is this play about suffering,” O’Leary said.

Following the death of his wife, Howard approached O’Leary and told him he was ready to consider moving on with ‘Lear’ — but tragedy was not quite done with this production.

Howard himself was involved in a major car accident — breaking his leg badly enough to have an eight-inch rod placed in the almost 70-year-old’s left femur. O’Leary stepped in to assist with taking care of Howard, taking him to appointments and building a ramp for him.

“There are lines from ‘King Lear’ where we go — ‘As flies to the wanton boys, they kill us for their sport,’” O’Leary said.

Still, Howard wanted to press on and finish the play. O’Leary began putting the cast back together.

“And then — I wish I were making this up — our dear friend, Keith Powell Beyland, who is the artistic director of Dramatic Repertory Company, last September, suffered a stroke,” O’Leary said.

It was a tragedy that freed up some of the original actors slated to perform ‘Lear’ who had since taken work with Beyland.

Now O’Leary started to see the pieces fall into place. They had the people they wanted, the director they wanted and the space they wanted for the project.

“The other thing that was either happenstance or surreptitious — because we delayed a year, because we had to — we were now going to open this show in the year of first folio coming to Portland, which we didn’t know at the time. They hadn’t announced it yet that the first folio was coming — and the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare,” O’Leary said.

Through the suffering that took place in putting this production of ‘Lear’ together, O’Leary felt all the more connected with a play about the universality of suffering.

“Be it the loss of your house burning down to the worst thing for a parent — losing your child — or your spouse or whatever. There’s no getting around suffering,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary poignantly remembers a night in rehearsal where the suffering of bringing ‘Lear’ to life hit home during the scene, “I know thee well enough.”

“Here are these two men, good friends, pillars of the theater in Portland, who have both lost their wives horribly. Neither of them have children of their own and they’re holding each other, bawling their eyes out — they weren’t acting,” O’Leary said.

“They were looking at each other being to being, saying I got you, you got me, we’re still here. While we’re still here, let’s do this. And I just went — this is why I do this and I have this front row, 50-yard-line seat to my friends, watching them suffer and celebrating and embracing this suffering.”

O’Leary said it’s been an emotional experience for him and that he cannot believe he managed to get “this menagerie of talent” together.

“Every moment I’m just sitting there saying soak it up, soak it up, because we may never pass this way again,” O’Leary said.

Portland Ballet Studio Theater will be hosting the play May 19 through May 22 and again May 25 through May 27 at 7:30 p.m.

dmcintire@timesrecord.com