Patty Gallagher, left, sits with Paige Lindsey White, right, at Santa Cruz Shakespeare in the Audrey Stanley Grove in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.
One, Patty Gallagher, has built a large following over the years with all kinds of roles, but her specialty is Shakespeare’s fools. She might, in fact, be the Bay Area’s foremost authority on fooling—thanks to not only to her acting, but her role as a professor of theater arts at UC Santa Cruz. Gallagher appreciates the freedom that the role gives her because, despite what many people may think, fooling and clowning isn’t about being wacky for wacky’s sake. It’s about being able to conjure up the right emotion for the right scene—and good lord, does Shakespeare have a lot of sad clowns. So a truly joyous fool like Touchstone is one that can be appreciated by both audience and actor.
“I mean, I just look at Patty’s performance,” says White. “It’s so full of life and joy and the ability to make sophisticated jokes out of just the most base things. That character is always finding the, the detail, the antithesis, and they’re fascinated by it because it’s what Jaques hasn’t been able to do before.”
Pasternak, who took over as SCS’ artistic director last year, is loving both of them. “Oh my god, neither of them will give themselves the credit of their achievements,” he says. “It’s ridiculous. They’re both fabulous. But maybe part of what makes them fabulous is that they’re hard on themselves.”