For the sake of his art, the muscular, 6-foot-4-inch 4 Keith Hamilton Cobb is willingto cut the soft dreadlocks that hang past his shoulders. Fortunately, hewon't have to for his role as Aufidius, battlefield rival of the titlecharacter in "Coriolanus," opening Sunday at the Shakespeare Theatre.
Relaxing in an apartment near the theater last week, Cobb sipped a proteindrink (orange juice, protein powder, strawberries, bananas) and talked ofhis life, his acting and his hair. This is an actor who has set up a Website for hisfans. They can see pictures tracing his career and the evolution of his do.They can read his New Age musings on acting and life. Cobb is alsofeatured, he told Backstage, in the coffee-table book "Dreads," whichspotlights dreadlocked people from around the world.
The actor, who is in his early thirties and was raised in Tarrytown, N.Y.,played Tybalt in "Romeo and Juliet" and Octavius in "Julius Caesar" at theShakespeare Theatre during the 1993-94 season. Then he muted his classicalchops in favor of fluttering hearts as Noah Keefer on daytime TV's "All MyChildren."
"Making the choice to do daytime was really a necessity. They offered me alot of money. This may launch me into a Hollywood career, which may allowme to do the roles I want to do," he said.
"Coriolanus" is his first big-stage production since that short season atthe Shakespeare Theatre. Of Volscian general Aufidius and his rival, Romangeneral Coriolanus, Cobb quoted a line from the film "The Talented Mr.Ripley": "Why is it when men play, they always play at killing each other?"He sees the two generals as macho playmates whose competition and mutualadmiration smolders into homoerotic lust. In fact, their climacticconfrontation "becomes this very close, hand-to-hand, animal sort ofparoxysm; hugely martial."
After Washington, Cobb will go to Vancouver, B.C., to play a lead role in anew syndicated sci-fi series, "Andromeda," starring Kevin Sorbo oftelevision's "Hercules." Cobb's genetically engineered character is "afuture superhuman being who looks like me," he said, expressing pleasure atthe progress implicit in casting an African American as the perfect human.
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