Actor faces the question 'To be or not to be' with aplomb

Sometimes actors play parts that eerily echo things that are happening in their real lives. Think of Charlie Sheen's recent very public meltdown and the self-absorbed, nihilistic bachelor he played on "Two and a Half Men."

Twin Cities actor Phil Kilbourne wishes that his latest role didn't come at this time in his life, even though he is happy for the job. Kilbourne depicts the ghost of the title character's father in "Hamlet" at Minneapolis' Jungle Theater -- just four months after he had an aggressive form of melanoma diagnosed.

In his battle with cancer, Kilbourne, 59, has had to miss some performances of the Shakespearean tragedy; he is on an experimental treatment regimen. Still, the actor has made light of his illness. He has been circulating a picture he took in Shakespearean costume holding the skull of Yorick, a jester in "Hamlet." And he has taken to calling himself "Cancer Boy," even as he tells friends that he intends to be around for a while.

"If I have a strong will to live, consider the alternative," he said Sunday from Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he is receiving treatment. "I've had a setback, but I hope to return to the stage and my regular life soon."

Kilbourne has been acting in the Twin Cities for 14 years; he moved here to marry his Ridgewood (N.J.) High School sweetheart Marysue Moses, head of St. Paul-based training company Theater at Work. The two acted together in high school in "Hamlet," with Kilbourne playing Claudius and Moses playing Gertrude.

"Phil is an urbane, sophisticated actor who we like to consider a Jungle stalwart," said Bain Boehlke, who founded the Jungle and directed Kilbourne in "Hamlet" and several other plays. "He brings such intelligence and wit to his characters. We will have him back in the show whenever he sees sunlight."

Boehlke was fully aware of Kilbourne's diagnosis when he cast him, although "no one can know what turn it might take," he said.

Colleagues are rallying around Kilbourne, with a music and comedy benefit planned for Monday night at Illusion Theater in downtown Minneapolis. Singing actors Jevetta Steele, Dennis Spears and Regina Marie Williams will perform at the event, which will be emceed by veteran actor Allen Hamilton. Hamilton, Kilbourne and Stephen Yoakam, who will also speak at the Illusion, all were in the cast of a memorable production of "The Seafarer" at the Jungle.

A CaringBridge site has been set up for Kilbourne, whose illness has shaken the Twin Cities theater community.

"We're reeling from all this loss," said Cathy Fuller, who has performed with Kilbourne in industrial films. "We just lost [playwright] Tom Poole tragically not so long ago. And now Phil is fighting hard."

Kilbourne started acting at 6 in New Jersey, where he grew up the son of a pediatrician. He developed his craft at Boston University, where he completed his undergraduate work, and at Ohio State, where he earned a master's degree in directing. He has acted all over the East Coast, where he is known for playing comic roles. In the Twin Cities, he has played quirky, interesting characters, including physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in a Frank Theater production, as well as one of the hoarding Collyer brothers in Richard Greenberg's "The Dazzle" and the Satan-like title character of Conor McPherson's "The Seafarer," both for the Jungle.

Kilbourne also appeared as the title character's manager in August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," a Penumbra Theatre production that played the Guthrie and stages in Arizona. And he toured to the Kennedy Center and Hartford Stage with Penumbra's "I Wish You Love."

"He is a complex, very interestingly written character who gets to get drunk onstage," Kilbourne said. "If you can eat and drink onstage -- have two hands filled with props and can just spout for three pages describing the heat and coldness of hell -- that's the best thing in the world."

Kilbourne paused.