Old feud retold: ‘Verona’ dives into tragic love story’s intriguing prehistory

A debut novel that dives headfirst into the territory of a storyteller whose works are canonical texts centuries later is a formidable undertaking. But Shakespeare doesn’t scare David Blixt.

He’s been acting it since high school in theaters from Greenhills School to the Goodman Theatre of Chicago, including a stint in "Macbeth” at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival in Jackson that runs through Aug. 4.

His novel, "The Master of Verona,” doesn’t stop with speculation on how the Capulets and Montagues got so mad at each other, though: Woven in are two more stories, that of the great Veronese leader Cangrande and of Pietro, son of the poet Dante.

He recently shared some thoughts on the book.

On how this story was born:

It got started at the old Ann Arbor Civic Theatre. I was directing "Romeo and Juliet,” and I came across a line that didn’t make sense to me. At the end of the show everybody’s dead, and all the parents show up to see the bodies of their kids. The prince says, "Come Montague, you are early up to see your son and heir more early down,” and Montague’s response is, "My liege, my wife is dead. Grief from our son’s exile has stopped her breath.” And I thought, why do we care? Lady Montague has three lines in Act 1 scene I and we haven’t seen her since! Why does she get the last death of the show? A death offstage is supposed to be symbolic … of an ending. The only thing that ends at the end of that show is the feud. And the only way that made sense is if (Lady Montague) was the cause of the feud a generation earlier.

On its journey from script puzzle to epic novel:

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I went to Verona, and I learned that at the time "Romeo and Juliet” was supposed to happen, Dante was in Verona. The original idea for the book was short and sweet: two friends fighting over a girl, we’re done. And then it blossomed into something else. It was the chance to weave (the stories) together, it really was.

On his history with Shakespeare:

I hated Shakespeare in school. I had to read "Julius Caesar,” and it was so incredibly boring back then. Then I had to read "Romeo and Juliet,” hated it but we got to watch a movie. They told me to read "Henry IV” part I, and I said you’ve got to be kidding. I got by on class discussion. My senior year, I took an acting Shakespeare class and suddenly it was like the sun came out. Shakespeare is meant to be performed, and not read. He was writing for living, breathing actors to speak his words.

On his expertise concerning the wildly-fun battle scenes throughout the book:

Right now my reputation in Chicago is that if you need somebody beaten, murdered or stabbed onstage, I’m your guy. I was trained at the Society of American Fight Directors, I’ve gone to the British Academy of Dramatic Combat, and the International Order of the Sword and the Pen workshops all around the world to train.

On his future as a writer and an actor:

(This book is) the first in a series. St. Martin’s Press has bought the second (of three), which is written and will be out a year from now. I’m probably more of a writer at this point. I’ll probably keep acting maybe one or two shows a year … I’ve got to keep a hand in theater. I discover too much about Shakespeare. The whole second book changed when I did a production of "The Merchant of Venice.”

You can hear Blixt read from "The Master of Verona” at the downtown Borders on Wednesday at 7 p.m.