Ian McDiarmid, famed international and Broadway actor (Star Wars fans will remember him as the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and Chancellor Palpatine in Episodes 1-3) stars as Lord Timon, who enjoys the wealth of Athens in the play’s beginning, but like many in this modern world of lavish lifestyles and pay-for –tomorrow economies, Timon’s creditors are soon after him. Timon asks for help but is rejected by all others, until he is exiled from the city and is forced to retreat to an isolated coastline where he loses all hope in humankind and wishes his demise.

Inventive set designs by Kevin Depinet and Gaines imaginative staging takes this story originally set in 1500s into the present with flashy high rise boardrooms, with rear projection screens, fancy banquet sets and stock trading floors.

McDiarmid commands the stage with his diminutive figure and commanding vocal abilities and creates much sympathy for his character’s plight. Supporting cast standouts include the always terrific Kevin Gudahl’s writer/Poet, James Newcomb’s cynical Apemantus and Sean Fortunato’s Flavis.

Timon of Athens continues at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier on Chicago’s lakefront, 800 East Grand Avenue, through June 10. For ticket information contact the Chicago Shakespeare Ticket office at 312-595-5600 or go online at www.chicagoshakes.com.

This heartfelt patriotic tale begins with the christening of a new destroyer and within the first five minutes a full-fledged naval battle sequence. It quickly then concerns the dozen or so survivors of this famed destroyer, the HMS Torrin, and through a series of extended overlapping flashbacks each man’s past is revealed—their beloved families, how they fell in love, how they were commissioned to their ship, etc,–the life that motivates their call to duty. Various other triumphant battles, including the rescue mission at Dunkirk, are remembered through successive flashbacks revealing the courage, bravery and dedicated heroism of the Torrin’s crew.

Members of the crew include many actors who would become some of the most successful supporting players and leads in decades of British films: John Mills as Seaman Shorty Blake, Michael Wilding, Bernard Miles (James Bond’s original “M”), as Chief Petty Officer Walter Harvey, a very young Daniel Massey and Richard Attenborough, as a cowardly seaman who leaves his post in his first combat. Leslie Howard provides the film’s voice over narration.

In Which We Serve is shot in glorious black and white by cinematographer Ronald Neame, the man who would later direct the ‘70s sea disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure. Along with Lawrence Olivier’s patriotic rendition of Shakespeare’s Henry V, In Which We Serve became one of the most important and entertaining propaganda tools for the English home front in their long battle against the Axis Powers during World War II. In Which We Serve was nominated for two Academy Awards: best screenplay and best picture. It has been recently rereleased on dvd and Blu ray in a newly remastered print which is incredibly clear, because the film was previously only available in poor public domain copies.

buzz: How has recording been?

Evan Metz: In January and February, we were working on it a lot and doing school. Since then, we’ve still been working on it on our own, writing the last minute parts, you know, figuring stuff out. But it’s been a hiatus of sorts as far as recording and stuff goes. We hope to go back in [the studio] at the beginning of June for five or so days to finish up the recording part, then mix, master, and do everything this summer, so that hopefully we’ll have it out this fall. If we really worked our butts off, we could probably have it out sometime this summer, but we want to release it when school’s in session. Being a local band and students, a lot of our fan-base disperses for the summer, so it’d be nice to release it when everyone is in town.

buzz: Have you guys been playing the new tracks live?

EM: Well, we played a couple shows in mid-march, where we played four or so tracks that we hadn’t played live before we went in the studio. A couple of them we worked out in the studio, which is fun, because it’s a different writing process. But in March we went on a mini-tour around the Midwest, and we played one of those songs every night, so that one’s out there. Otherwise we’ve been keeping most other ones that are going to be on the album under wraps, partially because we want to keep them for fun, and partly because we wrote them in the studio and they still need to be worked out a little bit to be played live. Then there was a song we wrote a couple weekends ago, which is still in the very first stages of its incarnation. We tend to like to play songs as soon as we write them live, because we like to get feedback.

But for a short answer, most of the songs on the album are ones we’ve played and have been playing for a while. There are about four that we hadn’t played live before.

buzz: How would you describe your songwriting process? Is there a main lyricist, etc?

EM: Viv (Guitar/Lead Vocals) writes all the lyrics. Occasionally Adam will interject. I’m not super lyric-centric. If I sit down and look at them I might have something to say, but I listen to the music more so than the lyrics. Lately, with our most recent songs, Viv brought songs to us in pieces, and we all work together and flesh them out. It’s a lot different than how we started, but it works out pretty well.

buzz: Who or what would you say is the band’s biggest inspiration?

EM: As far as the whole band is concerned, I know we all like Neil Young a lot. Otherwise we all have pretty diverse musical backgrounds. Adam is a Cello/Performance major and Phil’s a jazz minor, so we all come from different areas. But I think we all have pretty open minds; that’s one of the most fun things about it: the fact that we can all share music with each other. I know me Phil and Viv are all super into Fleet Foxes, and Adam wasn’t at first, but we got him into them. But as far as definitive influences go, classic rock isn’t too broad a term, because that encompasses Boston too (Well, I like Boston a-lot, I don’t think everyone else does). We all listen to a lot of our parent’s music, older stuff like Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, that kind of folk rock from the 60s. But we all bring something unique to the table, and we’re all pretty open to letting the style go wherever.

buzz: So let’s hear about your student-side. What’s your major if I may ask?

EM: I’m English and business. Adam’s a cello performance. Phil’s an English major, Jazz Minor. I don’t know if Viv ever declared a major, but I think she’s a Spanish major and also wants to do Creative Writing.

buzz: Favorite book?

EM: You know, I love [Kurt] Vonnegut. But I also read Infinite Jest last summer, and I don’t like to say it’s my favorite book (Because that sounds pretentious, and it’s probably not my favorite book) but it’s really awesome, and I loved it. But then I read a Vonnegut novel afterward. After reading something intense, or a semester of intense reading is over, I always read a Vonnegut novel, just because I think he’s a nice and easy read and I know I’ll love it. Recently, my roommates and I have all been reading a lot of comics. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison is the coolest Superman story ever. I didn’t even know I liked Superman before reading it and now I love him. So as of right now, that’s my favorite book.

buzz: Any other exciting projects in the works?

EM: Phil messaged me on Facebook last night and asked if I wanted to form a garage-rock duo with him. I said yes. I don’t know if it’s just going to be for fun, but it feels timely. The big focus right now though is to get the album done. It’s been on my bucket list since I was like, nine years old.

buzz: Last question: where do you see Grandkids in, say, 5 years?

EM: Living in a city somewhere, probably. Hopefully we’ll be signed to a label. Not saying we’re going to get signed to Sony, I don’t really want to anyway. But we’ll probably have some kind of label support, and I’ll probably still be working in a coffee shop. I don’t have any huge goals; I just want to be able to keep doing it. Optimistically, I just hope that we’re still a band, and that we’re still playing and still releasing music. Hopefully on a bigger scale, doing what were doing but for a wider audience of some sort. Other than that, I don’t care where we’re at or how successful we are– as long as we’re still playing, I’ll be happy.

Spontaneous trips to Walgreens: Admit it. You’ve all done this at some point. You’ve taken a trip to Walgreens for some weirdo hankering you were having. Recently, I went for ice cream. And not just any ice cream. I wanted cake-flavored ice cream. Do you know how hard it is to actually find cake-flavored ice cream? You’d think Ice Cream Makers United would have realized that the only thing better than cake is cake mixed with ice cream. Duh. But Walgreens, you did have cake ice cream and it was glorious.
Nick Martin
Managing Editor
GRIPES
Chelsea Handler: I don’t enjoy girl bashing, but these three people are awful. Did you know Chelsea Handler is the writer of that stupid book about drinking, and the star of that stupid show that glorifies every stupid person in Hollywood? I listened to Chelsea’s WTF podcast interview, and I hated her. She was shrill, image-obsessed and just vapid. Why is this person so popular? Oh, because most of her viewers are shrill, image-obsessed and vapid. At least she’s the only talent-less lady parading around Hollywood.

Whitney Cummings: Oh wait. Whitney was a model for a while, but then she stopped with full intentions of making the country dumber. Six months after she started standup, an agent realized she was a) pretty, b) risque, but still primetime inoffensive and c) easy to mold with plastic surgery (look at those strange, alien lips). So, Whitney is responsible for her own godforsaken abortion of a show, Whitney (never once funny in 21 episodes!) and 2 Broke Girls (allowing Kat Dennings a way to eat her favorite food, canned Fancy Feast). My biggest problem with Whitney is she acts like she’s this you-go-girl feminist who’s down for free sex and female empowerment (she wrote a lame blog defending Lana Del Ray), but actually, she’s just a slave to conventional standards of beauty and hack jokes. She sucks worse than anyone.

Zooey Douchenelle: First she ruined Death Cab for Cutie, and now she’s ruining Fox. I hate how disinterested Zooey looks in EVERY ROLE SHE’S EVER PLAYED. You can tell she’s thinking, “I wish I was making music with M. Ward instead of this crap.” Guess what, Zooey? Your 500 Days of Summer are coming to an end! You weren’t cast in Elf 2 (a fan-fiction screenplay I wrote myself in a spiral notepad); Ben Gibbard doesn’t like you anymore (he only likes licensing his music to crappy foreign car commercials); and nobody even cares about Garden State anymore! True, that movie stars Natalie Portman, but it’s Zooey’s favorite movie, which is just another reason she’s obnoxious.

buzz: You were on (ABC Family TV series) Huge, and I noticed when it got cancelled there were a lot of online outlets that said, “We need to get this show back on air.” How do you feel about having such a passionate following?
Jacob Wysocki: Well, you know the thing about it is that I’m retrospectively happy the show got cancelled and didn’t get picked up, but, I mean, of course it’s so cool to having people fight for you and stuff like that. In the long run, very rarely does something positive come out of that. When the “big wigs” … when the head people decide it’s time to stop, it’s time to stop. I went from filming my last episode of Huge; I had a Saturday and Sunday off, and I started filming Terri. So I was kind of thrown into this new world, and then I got the news that it had gotten cancelled, and I was like, “At least I have this movie.” It was more of … I feel like I could have been possibly trapped if I had to keep doing it because when you do a series that’s all you can do. It allowed me to continue to search for cooler films to do and stuff like that. Of course I love the support, but retrospectively I see that it happened for a reason. It was the first thing I did; it taught me a little bit; it opened these doors and then that door closed, and I walked into another hallway and there is plenty of other doors to be opened up.

buzz: You touched on a little bit on the physical aspects of your performance (in Terri). Could you talk a little more about that?
JW: I do improv — that’s I guess the only training I’ve had in acting. One of the big things that I have learned is that in order to make a character, there are a few ways that you can do it — through intelligence, through stylistic choices or through body language. Body language is something that I really connected with … and I realize if I did something with my shoulders or hands in a certain way then it could kind of transform me into this character. Your body is your vessel, so as soon as you start changing your vessel, it’s going to travel in a certain way. I just felt that it was important to have these. I don’t know if they’re bizarre, but I guess they’re sort of these bizarre movements and stuff like that. It gave me more to work with. It’s more for me than anything because that’s just as an actor how I find what works and how I get more involved with the character. This last film I did, Fat Kid Rules the World, I play the character as a very heavy mouth breather. Every time I wanted to get into character that is what I started doing. I just started breathing really heavily out of my mouth and the rest of my body would follow and my mind would follow. It’s more a tool than anything.

buzz: What advice do you have for young aspiring comedians and young aspiring actors?
JW: I think most importantly, aside from whomever is supporting you, it’s all on your shoulders ­— especially today. You can get a camera; you can put stuff on YouTube. That is how I got started with my sketch group. It was just like getting together with a group of people that were dedicated, passionate and working. It’s about putting in the work. You are not just going to walk in somewhere and get handed a job offer. You need a resume; you need experience. I would more than anything just encourage people to do anything, something, whatever it is. If you like to draw, draw every day. If you like to act, try to think of a character and make an internet blog. There are so many ways to do stuff nowadays that there is no excuse to not do something. The only way you are going to reach a point where you are quote unquote successful is by putting in the work. I would encourage people to not be afraid to fail, and that as long as you are working even if you are working and failing you’re learning and you’re doing what you like to do, whether it’s in front of 1500 people or just you and your mom and dad. As long as you are doing something, you will be happy to some capacity.

buzz: Eberfest is a film festival for the fans and that kind of separates it from Sundance or Tribeca. The business aspect (of a film festival) is taken out. How important is it to support these types of events?
JW: I think it’s super important. Sundance is what it is. It has a name; it’s important — Tribeca, Cannes, Toronto film festival, all these big names, but all these things are about selling your movie, networking your movie. This I love because it is real people coming to see something that they know is backed up by a reputable person. Even if it is just a festival showing movies there are people that think, “I know this is a good movie, people will enjoy it, so why don’t I host a venue to watch it?” That is brilliant — we need more of that, honestly. There are so many people with great content not being shown that it’s disappointing. This stuff makes me very happy. I would do this if I wasn’t an actor. I would love to have a local film festival where I could just go and see the best movies of the year for a couple of days and just kind of get away and watch these films because that is what I enjoy. It is important for people to see what is out there and enjoy what is out there.