A Bright Ray of Darkness

The blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes a "witty, wise, and heartfelt novel" (Washington Post) about art and love, fame and heartbreak from the acclaimed actor/writer/director.

A bracing meditation on fame and celebrity, and the redemptive, healing power of art; a portrait of the ravages of disappointment and divorce; a poignant consideration of the rites of fatherhood and manhood; a novel soaked in rage and sex, longing and despair; and a passionate love letter to the world of theater, A Bright Ray of Darkness showcases Ethan Hawke's gifts as a novelist as never before.

Hawke's narrator is a young man in torment, disgusted with himself after the collapse of his marriage, still half hoping for a reconciliation that would allow him to forgive himself and move on as he clumsily, and sometimes hilariously, tries to manage the wreckage of his personal life with whiskey and sex. What saves him is theater: in particular, the challenge of performing the role of Hotspur in a production of Henry IV under the leadership of a brilliant director, helmed by one of the most electrifying and narcissistic Falstaff's of all time. Searing, raw, and utterly transfixing, A Bright Ray of Darkness is a novel about shame and beauty and faith, and the moral power of art.

Autorentext
A four-time Academy Award nominee, twice for writing and twice for acting, ETHAN HAWKE has starred in the films Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, Gattaca, and Training Day, as well as Richard Linklater's Before trilogy and Boyhood. He is the author of Rules for a Knight, The Hottest State, and Ash Wednesday. He lives in Brooklyn with his four children and his wife.

Leseprobe
Our director, J. C. Callahan, stood up in front of us. He was in his early sixties with a shaved, balding head, a bow tie, and a custom-made tweed suit. He was an elegant and powerful man with large, kind, teary blue eyes. His formidable confidence was a mystery. He stood before us, five feet, six inches tall, like an Irish Buddha. Underneath his feet and sprawling out beneath all our tables, chairs, and shoes were reams of tape, probably ten different colors laid out in odd geometric designs of the various floor plans of the set. Red for scene one; yellow for scene two; green marked the battle; et cetera. It looked like a map of our future. Times Square loomed silently, blinking its mad lights through the immaculately clean windows around us.

All right, here we are, J.C. began, taking an extraordinarily long and uncomfortable pause before he continued. I know what you all are expecting the generic Let s get started speech. He barely moved as he spoke. But I don t have time to tell you all to take it easy. I don t have time to say, Let s get to know each other ; Let s get more comfortable. I simply don t have time. He reminded me of a lion with its eyes fixed, body completely still, but its tail swishing back and forth behind him.

I have six weeks to prepare this play. I don t want you to take it easy. I don t want you to relax. Today we are going to read through the play . . . and I know what good directors say: Let s familiarize ourselves with the text ; If you stumble . . . just take it back. But I am not a good director. I say, Do not stumble. I say you should already be familiar with the text. Six weeks. That is nothing. I want us to begin today by grabbing this play by its very significant balls and squeezing them so tight that the world hears its cry. You understand me? His cadence was unadorned and clear.

There are only two kinds of Shakespeare productions: ones that change your life, and ones that suck shit. That s it. Because if it doesn t change the audience s life . . . the production has failed. He paused for effect, surveying the room. He was not scared, not overconfident, just tremendously alert. I had met him only once before, over coffee to discuss my playing Hotspur. I told him I was a film actor. I couldn t afford to do the play. I lacked the training. I gave him a bunch of excuses. Then he spoke for a half an hour about the value of scaling the great roles, pitching ourselves against the past, measuring our mettle against the generations that came before, inspiring ourselves to be our best, meeting the wall of our talent. Until abruptly I said, I m in. I shook his hand right then and there.

Shakespeare isn t beautiful, he continued. It isn t poetic. Shakespeare is the greatest mind of the theater, ever. Shakespeare is nature, like the Niagara Falls, or the aurora borealis. The Grand Canyon. Shakespeare is life, and life if it is to be a great life is not meek. Life is full of blood, piss, sweat, cum, vaginal fluid, tears, and I want to see that all onstage. Some people kind of half-chuckled. Don t laugh. We will do it. I want the audience to smell you. When your friend dies, I want to hear your tears smack the floor. When you fight, I want to feel adrenaline slip through my bloodstream. Violence electrifies a room. I want our fights to be so real that people think about leaving the theater and he stressed I want no one to get hurt. That is the razor s edge that we will walk. We can do it because we are serious craftsmen and artists and our life is dedicated