Meet the Director of Rabbit Hole

Brian Tyrrell, Director

Brian has been a member of the Centralia College faculty since 1991. During that span he has directed and/or produced more than 70 plays. A graduate of Purdue University (MA, 1980, MFA, 1997) in Theatre, his directing credits include The Rainmaker for Harlequin Productions, The Grapes of Wrath (Longview Center for the Performing Arts), Scapino! and Our Town (AmericaNorthwest Repertory Theatre), Northwest Passage and In the Sawtooths (Northwest Playwrights Alliance) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the 5th Avenue Theatre with Allison Narver. A member of Actors Equity Association, his professional acting credits include three seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, single seasons with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and The National Shakespeare Company in New York as well as regional credits with the Intiman and The Empty Space Theatres in Seattle, Oak Park Theatre Festival in Chicago and numerous credits with Harlequin Productions including ART, The Real Thing, Sylvia, Long Days Journey Into Night, Hamlet and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Brian is the co-founder of the Northwest Playwrights Alliance at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. He’s also the former Associate Artistic/Casting Director for the Tacoma Actors Guild.

Director's Note

It may seem odd to quote Shakespeare on the subject of grief but then again, given the fact that we quote him on a daily basis, knowingly or unknowingly, why not now? Years ago at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I had the good fortune to play Lewis, the Dauphin, in a production of Shakespeare’s King John. Twice a week for four months I would stand next to a grieving Constance, played by Joan Stuart Morris, as she lamented the loss of her son, Arthur. To King Philip’s attempt to console her, Constance replied, “Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, remembers me all his gracious parts, stuffs out his vacant garments with his form: then have I reason to be fond of grief!”

After Constance departed, my character concluded, “There’s nothing in this world can make me joy. Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”

Mr. Shakespeare knew of what he spoke. The year that King John was first produced, Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died. Grief, it seems, was all too tangible when he penned Constance’s words.

That summer I played Lewis, now 25 years behind us, was also special for my wife Jana and I. Our first born son, Jacob, was born. As I watched my friend Joan become inconsolable as Constance, I often thought to myself, what would I do if I were dealt a similar hand? Is there a manual for How to Grieve? What coping mechanism(s) would I seek to assist me in my time of need?

One of the things that I love about well written plays is that they allow us to ask and answer similarly difficult questions within the safe confines of a darkened theatre. Catharsis, I believe the Greeks called it. The ability “to purge” oneself of emotional problems bringing about, in the final analysis, a renewal of the spirit. If we were in Becca and Howie Corbett’s shoes, what would we do?

There’s a reason why the subject of grief has, on occasion, permeated the fabric of plays from the Greeks to Shakespeare and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole. Pathos. Empathy. Call it what you will, we wouldn’t wish the Corbett’s fate on anyone yet every parent in this room would be lying if they didn’t admit that such a loss is our collective unspoken fear. To quote Becca and Howie, “What can you do?”

As Lindsay-Abaire suggests in his poignant Author’s Notes, “Rabbit Hole is not a tidy play. (We should) resist smoothing out its edges.” If Rabbit Hole had been conceived as yet another bad movie-of-the-week, its conclusion would be neatly sentimental and we’d all sigh and say, “Oh, isn’t that nice. They’re going to be okay.” But we all know that life is rarely that way. Becca and Howie have to find their own way out of their parallel universes, their "rabbit holes". As daunting as that task may seem, I think you’ll agree that given our own individual devices, to once again quote the Corbetts, “We’ll figure it out.”

Brian Tyrrell, Director