Content Warning: This story contains mentions of gun violence.
With dozens of acting credits in theater, improv and on screen, Chicago native Richard Engling is writing about a realm he is quite familiar with. “The Very Last Production of King Lear: A Dwayne Finnegan Novel” is the third installment in the comedic Dwayne Finnegan series, released Sept. 19.
Pulling inspiration from his time running the Polarity Ensemble Theatre, Engling’s novel centers around a theater director putting on a production of William Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy “King Lear” at the Goodman Theatre. To promote the book, Engling participated in a panel led by author Mark Larson — who has also written about the city’s theater scene — and other Chicago theater creatives at the Bramble Arts Loft on Oct. 2.
The Daily spoke to Engling about his latest novel and how his experience as an actor and theater director in Chicago influenced “King Lear.”
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily: What inspired you to start writing this novel?
Engling: The original inspiration was for “Give My Regards to Nowhere,” which was the first of the series. The inspiration was the theater company that I ran for 12 years. Then I was acting for other companies, which was a lot of fun because it was a lot less work. And then the pandemic came out, so a show I was rehearsing got canceled, and I turned to these books, which are kind of like the reverse of playwriting, where you’re writing something for the actors to bring to life. In these books, it was the life of the actors that I’ve seen being turned back into fiction.
The Daily: The novel is packed with references to Chicago. What about the city inspires you to make it the setting for your work?
Engling: I’ve been in this part of the world my whole life, and it’s such a rich area for theater. The very cool thing is that in Chicago, all those people are very supportive of each other. You know, it’s not a competitive situation. The first time I directed Macbeth, the actor I cast in the title role was a guy who hadn’t worked in Chicago before. He’d been working in New York, and he had just come to Chicago, and he was amazed what it was like to be onstage with Chicago actors because of the way they support each other. When I was just starting as an artistic director, it was very easy to get great support and advice from people running other theater companies.
The Daily: As an actor yourself, were there any personal stories that you brought into the fictional world of “King Lear?”
Engling: People have commented about these books and reading them that they’re so grounded in the real world of theater. When you read it, there’s nothing fake about it. They are comedies, so there are plenty of things that are kind of zany in there and most of the things are not actually based on things I’ve experienced.
In the second book, Dwayne is forced to, at the last minute, be an understudy for one of his actors. His experience of the nerves that he gets and what it does to his stomach and his whole body is based on experiences of my own.
The Daily: This is the third book in the series. What were you hoping to achieve with this final installment that sets it apart from the others?
Engling: Directing at the Goodman is this huge opportunity for him, so how he handles that and what happens to it was what I wanted to hit.
It’s possible that there could be more Dwayne books. In fact, there will definitely be at least one more.
The Daily: Are you working on anything else right now?
Engling: I have a thriller I’m working on that is in reaction to the gun crisis in this country, where a father whose teenage daughter is caught in a crossfire of gang violence and killed. He decides to seek revenge on all of the people keeping guns so prevalent in this country. I’m not doing as much onstage these days and haven’t been doing as much since the pandemic, so I’ve been focused on these novels instead.
I’ve also done the narration for the first two audio books, and I’ll be doing the narration for “The Very Last Production of King Lear” as well. That’s kind of fun, because I get to act out all of the characters. There’s a lot of different voices.
The Daily: What has the reception for your novel been like thus far, and was it what you were expecting?
Engling: It’s been really kind of heartwarming, how much people are liking these books. It’s been really nice because the reception has been almost entirely very positive, and after running a theater all those years, you always get a mix of good and bad reviews when you put up a show.
Email: claramartinez2028@u.northwestern.edu
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