mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com (10/04/90)
The following is a summary of an article which appeared in the 1 October edition of the San Jose Mercury News. The byline was By J. Wynn Rousuck, Baltimore Sun, so it looks like it was syndicated. If you want to read the article in full, look for it in your local paper (`Personality' section) or find a copy of the Baltimore Sun at your local library. The article was entitled ` `Star Trek' star Stewart finds mision in the Bard.' The article first states that Patrick Stewart is not a science fiction fan. It quotes him saying, ``Gosh, no! Not at all. I have no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.'' A mention is made of a fan club called the International Audience Alliance for Patrick Stewart, and claims that it has over 400 members and a quarterly magazine devoted to him. Stewart has recently been performing in a production called ``Uneasy Lies the Head.'' It is a two hour program which is ``about power and leadership,'' he says. ``The conclusion is that for the most part, power is something which, once achieved, often proves to be very much less attractive than it appeared to be when it was being pursued.'' The play includes scenes from Shakespeare (``Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2,'' ``Henry V'' and ``Antony and Cleopatra'') as well as portrayals of Winston Churchill, Lenin, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Stewart has been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain for more than 20 years and has contributed many articles to publications concerning the Bard. He left school at the age of 15 because he was ``not interested.'' Since the 1970s, he has been an associate director of the Alliance for Creative Theatre, Education & Research, based in Santa Barbara California. Stewart was giving a lecture and dramatic readings at UCLA when ST:TNG was being cast and Robert Justman happened to be in the audience at the time. It has been nothing more than coincidence that Stewart has appeared in several Science Fiction movies in the past, including ``Dune,'' ``Lifeforce'' and ``Excalibur.'' Whenever he happens to appear at a Star Trek convention, Stewart likes to perform some Shakespeare and he is gratified whenever Star Trek fans tell him that they have gotten into Shakespeare again or for the first time because of him. He claims, ``So that might be said to be a sort of missionary work,'' that he does. David B. Mears Hewlett-Packard Cupertino CA hplabs!hpda!mears mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edited by Jim "The Big Dweeb" Griffith - the official scapegoat for r.a.s.i. Email submissions to trek-info@dweeb.fx.com, and questions to trek-info-request@dweeb.fx.com