Photo Credit: Ben Phillips
Sir Simon Russell Beale, LitFest Patron, Marlborough resident and, for many, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation, brought the LitFest weekend to a triumphant close when he spoke to a packed Memorial Hall last night. Sir Simon was in conversation with Professor Emma Smith (Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford) about his recently published book A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare and Other Stories.
Russell Beale commented that his book is “not a big reveal memoir but sort of what we do in the rehearsal room. I wanted to explain the series of decisions you make as an actor, the complicated deep searching of the part and the result that is not always what anyone else would end up with.” The book also includes details of his early life, of meeting Shakespeare for the first time and how he very nearly had to change his name to Beagle!
One of Russell Beale’s favourite plays is Much Ado About Nothing and he recalled Nick Hytner’s production at the National Theatre where he played Benedick against Zoë Wanamaker’s Beatrice. This production he described as ‘golden’ with a ‘late 16th century feel, lemon trees, sun’ and even a heated pool from which he had to deliver Benedick’s soliloquy. “Much Ado About Nothing is about falling in love with your next door neighbour. Benedick does something we can all imagine doing.”
In contrast, Russell Beale spoke about playing some of Shakespeare’s darker characters, in particular, Iago from Othello and how emotionally draining this is. As Iago, Russell Beale commented that he had to “try to find a darkness unsurpassed by anything else I’ve done. Iago doesn’t trust in anything good in the world and this is difficult to sustain.”
In the rehearsal process, comments Beale, actors have “to clarify a sequence of thoughts, every thought has to be defined, emotional life comes later. My Hamlet would be different to other people’s Hamlet due to a different sequence of thought. The rehearsal process is all about clarity of thought and negotiation with the director. Playing Hamlet changes your life and you find out why it’s become such an iconic role for actors.”
Most important is narrative clarity and Russell Beale is not averse to altering Shakespeare’s punctuation for dramatic effect. In some of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly his minor plays the script may have to be cut and rewritten for clarity’s sake. And in Hytner’s production of Timon of Athens major editing and rewriting took place, borrowing lines from other Shakespeare plays. This has led Russell Beale to have an interest in Shakespeare editing.
Russell Beale commented that he came late to film because he preferred theatre. There is always a reasonably long rehearsal period for plays and this doesn’t happen in film. However, more and more film producers are giving more time to rehearsal so things are changing.
Russell Beale will be performing in Titus Andronicus next year and there are still other Shakespearean characters that he would like to play. “Not Romeo but possibly Mercutio, Falstaff on stage as I’ve only played him on film and I’d like to revisit Macbeth.” His Marlborough fans will be looking out for these !
Nick Fogg writes:
A friend who was the archivist of the Royal Shakespeare Company once told me that when Simon Russell Beale was playing a part with the company, he would visit the archive to look into previous performances in the part. This accorded with his clear but unspoken view that Shakespeare’s roles (and not only the great ones) are like the baton in a relay race, passed on from actor to actor in each generation, but it’s not as simple as that. In a relay race, the baton remains the same, but each generation finds its own Shakespeare. Simon observes that it was once the fashion to discuss the characters as if they existed in a life of their own, typified by books like Mary Cowden Clarke’s The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines of 1887. He notes that there has been a tendency to negate that view in recent times, but I would hazard that it’s with some relief that he sees things swinging back the other way. The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines is still in print! Although Shakespeare’s lines may be confined to the printed page or regarded as another man’s words spoken on stage, it emerged from his conversation with Emma Smith that he sees it as his own role as an actor to breath life into whatever character he is playing. In this he has great accord with the Bard himself. Part of his undoubted genius is to give his characters a life beyond what we actually see: Othello’s travelogues enchant Desdemona. We learn that the nurse in Romeo and Juliet’s late husband was a fellow of wit. We learn the name of her dead daughter – Susan – and that in her grief, she has brought up Juliet as her own, There is even a character who never appears who is the catalyst for the action, Rosaline, Romeo’s first love. Thus an essential part of Simon’s greatness as an actor is his thoughtfulness. Like Shakespeare, he is intrigued by motivation. Why did Iago do what he did? That there is no clear answer leads him to the desperately serious (and unfashoionable) issue of whether some people arem’t, quite simply, unmitigatedly evil and playing the part was not easy to cast aside. ‘I once described the experience as like walking around with a dense ball of basalt in my stomach.’
Robert Stephens, another great actor, once told me that he never spoke a line unless he understood it. Nor does Simon, I can say with certainty. As a notable Hamlet, he confesses himself intrigued by Gertrude’s line about her normally svelte and dashing son. ‘He’s fat and scant of breath.’ His answer must be that Hamlets, like old soldiers never die. Sir Frank Benson was still playing the part at the age of 70 and Sir Ian McKellern’s just done it. Did Shakespeare, Simon ponders, write the line to accommodate a now middle-aged Richard Burbage who was still acting the Prince by popular demand.
When one hears an actor like Simon talk about his Shakespearean roles, he’s actually playing them on behalf. I remember Richard Johnson talking about the hazards of acting Romeo. Every male in the audience is playing the part and no actor can be up to his performance. Thus failure is an integral part of the profession and it’s not even as simple as that. ‘People hold strong opinions about Shakespeare’s life and work, says Simon, ‘love his plays intensely, and, in discussion, ideas can harden and tempers fray,’
Although Simon self-confessedly speaks of few of his fellows in ‘A Piece of Work’, he pays tribute to his fellow professionals collectively, as ‘supremely creative, clever, and, perhaps above all, fun to be with. One can’t wish for more than that,’
No-one could possibly have been annoyed that the dialogue between Simon and Emma overran its allotted time. There was clear disappointment that it had to end, but the consolation is that the talking was a precursor to the book, which is an intriguing read. It didn’t leave much time for questions, so I never got to ask mine.
“On The Green there’s a bench commemorating local lad, Jimmy Gardner, ‘Actor and War Hero’ who is credited with having played more small Shakespearean parts than other known actor. You’ve played some of the great parts. What would be your choice of a small one?” I’ve no idea what Simon might select from that vast and wonderful choice, but I know it would bring a part, however small, to life.
William Dalrymple at Marlborough LitFest
