Meet the Cast! - Bryan Kelly

Part four in a series of interviews with the cast of Dog in a Manger at Red Tape Theatre.

1. Where are you from?
It's hard to say where I'm from. I was born in Hawaii. Then when I was two, we moved to Rochester, NY. In second grade, I stayed briefly in New Jersey, then eventually Long Island until fourth grade when I found myself in Nashua, NH. Then another great opportunity and new job happened for my dad, and we moved to Walled Lake, Michigan for the last two years of high school. Went to Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, then moved to Chicago. After a brief two year stint in LA, I'm back in where I consider home - Chicago.

So the short answer is "I'm from Chicago"

2. What is the first stage play you remember seeing?
I actually wrote a show and performed in two before I saw a live show. In NH high school, I played Lacrosse, Football and Basketball mostly, and for a change, I joined Odyssey of the Mind. We ended up choosing the performance problem and wrote a show in which I was the MC. I did a few shows in high school and it wasn't until I went to college that I actually saw a live theatre performance I was not in. I actually did not realize that until I attempted to answer this question. Interestingly enough, my best friend was in the first show I watched and it was also the first time I met him.

3. When/why did you start acting?
I chose acting on a possible sign and a whim. I thought I was going to be a mechanical engineer, and I had applied to four schools I was kind of interested in. I applied to Western Michigan frankly because there was a small application fee, and no essay. I put Theatre as my major of choice, just to see what could happen. Then, one day, I got the acceptance letter from Western while my mom was driving me to rehearsal. It was an overcast day, and as I opened the letter the clouds parted and light broke through. It was weird to say the least.

Those moments are rare and odd and again, weird. I was mulling over the decision, every day after submitting the application I thought about what to do if it worked out, and although I had missed the first department audition, I was generally accepted to the University. When I read the letter in the sudden sunshine, I just felt confident in going forward in the direction of my dreams. It's funny how a small coincidence can suddenly alter the course of one's major life decisions, and we will mull over what cereal to buy for a good half hour and regret it for days after even when it is clearly delicious. I decided that entertaining is important to me and I want to entertain in all facets. I figured theatre training would be a way to get started. Since then, I've been involved in large and small production theatre, tons of improv, stand-up, sit-coms, movies, shorts, I was a tour manager for the Dollyrots travelling all over the US, I've MC'd several events and I've even presided over two weddings. I love entertaining. If given the choice, I would rather be Willy Wonka than one of the kids.

4. Tell us about your character in Dog in a Manger.
I play Ricardo, the inquisitor. He is an overbearing presence to say the least. As an inquisitor, he is used to being in absolute power in most any situation. Since the inquisition is being dismantled slowly, he finds himself basically waving a gun loaded with blanks. As a man of immense power, he has basically been able to say and do whatever he wants. Power does things to people who crave it, and it has definitely warped Ricardo. He has done so much wrong in the name of right that he believes that everything he does is right by default. This man can convince your mother that you have fosaken all that is good and get her to cast the first stone at your death all in the name of God. Personally, I am a gifted skeptic and devil's advocate and so it is interesting to play a true believer.

5. Do you have a favorite moment/scene in the play?
If I had to pick a scene I really like to do, it'd have to be the first speech to the audience. I've been a stand-up comic and in general a comedy guy for a while, and to be so blatantly evil and mean with a bit of charm is exquisite for me. I've tried to be mostly a gentle giant most of my life on and off stage, so to be able to bring out my inner asshole is really.... relieving.

As for a scene I like to watch, I like when Belflor hits Teo. It's sweet, vengeful, heartbreaking and ridiculous.

6. What's next for you?
What's next? I'm lucky I know what's happening this week. I'm in the pilot episode for A&E's The Beast, so hopefully we'll all see me and other fine Chicago actors in the winter.

Dog in a Manger runs October 2-26.
Visit www.redtapetheatre.com for details and to purchase tickets online!

Q and A - Can Ricardo Get Married?

Rehearsals for Dog in a Manger have begun and I've decided to use the blog as a spot for answering actor questions, like this one that came up in the workshop.

QUESTION – If you make Diana's suitor, Ricardo, an Inquisitor, is he still allowed to marry?


ANSWER – Yes. The Spanish Inquisition accepted laymen as well as clergy into their ranks. Ricardo need not be a priest to reach the rank of inquisitor.

Historian Henry Kamen writes:

"Contrary to the image – still widely current – of inquisitors as small-minded clerics and theologians fanatically dedicated to the extirpation of heresy, it must be stressed that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at least, the inquisitors were an elite bureaucracy. Because the Inquisition was a court, its administrators had to be trained lawyers…. By the same token, inquisitors did not have to be clergy and could be laymen. All this shows that the inquisitors were in principle a bureaucracy not of the Church but of the State: they received their training in the same institutions that contributed personnel to the councils of state, corregidorships and high courts…. [For many] service in the Inquisition was merely a stepping stone to a further career."

(Inquisition and society in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1985)

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

For more information on Dog in a Manger visit here: www.redtapetheatre.org

The Inquisition Unmasked by Antonio Puigblanch

In recent drafts of Red Tape's adaptation of The Dog in the Manger the Countess Diana is persecuted for writing inflammatory pamphlets about the Spanish Inquisition. I've been exploring Historian Henry Kamen's wonderful books on the Inquisition and thought I'd share his citation from the pamphlets of Antonio Puigblanch, published in 1811.

1. The Inquisition being an ecclesiastical tribunal, its rigour is incompatible with the spirit of meekness which ought to distinguish the ministers of the Gospel.
2. The system of rigour adopted by this tribunal is opposed to the doctrine of the Holy Fathers and the discipline of the Church in its most happy times.
3. The Inquisition, far from contributing to the preservation of the true belief, is only suited to encourage hypocrisy and excite the people to rebellion.
4. The form of trial used in this tribunal tramples on all the rights of the citizen.
5. The Inquisition has not only obstructed the progress of science in the countries wherein it has been established, but has also propagated pernicious errors.
6. The tribunal has supported the despotism of kings, and has itself exercised it.
7. As the Inquisition owes its origin to the decline of the discipline and remissness of the clergy, it opposes obstacles to their reform, which is indispensably necessary if the nation is to prosper.

(Kamen, Henry, The Spanish Inquisition, New American Library, 1965).

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge
For more information on The Dog in the Manger click here: www.redtapetheatre.org.

The Rise and Fall of the Inquisition

In Red Tape’s adaptation of The Dog in the Manger the Countess Diana’s chief suitor has been re-imagined as a member of the Spanish Inquisition whose influence in society is waning. The Inquisitors included laymen as well as clergy among their ranks so the scenario is not unthinkable. Though the Inquisition was still in power in Lope de Vega’s lifetime it grew unpopular when Spain’s economy began to sink.

In 15th Century Spain the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, sought to unite the regions of Portugal, Castille and Aragon, by declaring Christianity the dominant religion. Thousands of citizens “voluntarily” converted to keep their place in society. In 1478 the Monarchs established the Inquisition to investigate these conversos. By 1492 the Jews were officially expelled from all regions of Spain. The elimination of the Jewish middle class and the opening of American territories allowed the fortunes of the nobility to climb as Spain entered a Golden Age.

The Arts thrived in the economy of 16th Century Spain. Meanwhile the Inquisition proceeded to cut Spain off from all foreigners. Historian Henry Kamen writes that “Thereafter the closed society found that it had exhausted its own resources… The disappearance of the Jews and the persecution of the conversos created a void in the world of capital which was never satisfactorily filled by Spaniards. ” (The Spanish Inquisition, New American Library, 1965).

By the 19th Century the Golden Age had long since ended and the Inquisition had fallen out of favor. Spain’s military losses to France and England, and a failed attempt at a republic, had injured the economy. Spain’s parliament, the Cortes, saw the Inquisition as an obstacle to the countries reformation and began to cut off authority and finances. Personnel shrunk as inquisitors complained of unpaid wages. Their last official execution for heresy was recorded in 1825. Kamen writes “a formal decree was eventually issued on 15 July 1834 by which the Inquisition was definitively suppressed, all its properties and canonries applied to the extinction of public debt, and just payment of salaries made to all its formal officials.” By this point the Inquisition’s influence was so small that the decree was considered “little more than a formality.”


Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

For more information on The Dog in the Manger click here: http://www.redtapetheatre.org/.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

The chief villain in The Dog in the Manger is probably social prejudice. The secondary villains are a pair of bumbling counts who court Diana and plot against Teodoro. Artistic Director James Palmer has given me an interesting assignment. I’m to research the feasibility of making the counts members of the Spanish Inquisition.

I was intrigued. Lope de Vega frequently introduced local politics into his tragedies and honor plays. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand appeared themselves as a deux ex machine to rescue the wronged peasants in Fuente Ovejuna and Peribanez. However as I read about the gruesome instruments of torture and the ugly politics behind the movement I wondered if the Inquisition would be too much for the comedy to bear. It seemed that if the Inquisition accused Teodoro of heresy he wouldn’t survive till Act III. It didn’t take long to convince me the Inquisition could be funny. Mel Brooks had them perform a musical number and Monty Python simply made them ninnies. I was further encouraged to read that the people of Naples, where Dog in a Manger is set, did not take the inquisition seriously.

According to The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision by Henry Kamen (1998) the “Italians felt that Spanish hypocrisy in religion, together with the existence of the Inquisition, proved that the tribunal was created not for religious purity, but simply to rob the Jews…. Moreover, the racialism of the Spanish authorities was scorned in Italy, where the Jewish community led a comparatively tranquil existence. As the Spanish ambassador at Rome reported in 1652: ‘In Spain it is held in great horror to be descended from a heretic or a Jew, but here they laugh at these matters, and at us, because we concern ourselves with them.’” (p.309).

This opens up some possibilities! Teodoro’s parentage is already at question in the play and if his rivals were members of the Inquisition they could certainly try to spread scandal against him without necessarily leading to execution by the Italian authorities. I’ll be interested to see where this path could lead us.

Paul G. Miller
Season Dramaturge

For more information on our production of The Dog in the Manger please visit http://www.redtapetheatre.org/.