- Click on Image to View WhatsonStage.com Slideshow
WhatsOnStage.com has posted a slideshow of photographs showing rehearsals for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s sold-out production of “Hamlet” starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. The photographs show the actors in their street clothes working in an undecorated rehearsal space. Although they don’t show any of the stage or costume designs for the production, the pictures do give a tantalizing preview of one of the most widely anticipated Shakespeare productions of the year. Click on the image to the left to view the slideshow. (Image shows the RSC poster for “Hamlet,” inspired by The Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog by Casper David Friedrich)
Previews of “Hamlet” begin this Thursday, 24 July. Below are interviews, provided by the RSC, with Tennant and Stewart. The two actors discuss returning to Stratford-upon-Avon, approaching their roles in “Hamlet” and the differences between acting on stage and film.
Scroll down to read the interviews.
Q and A with David Tennant
How do you feel about coming back to the RSC to play the title role in Hamlet and Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost?
It feels very familiar. Theatre is what I’ve done more of than anything else. Admittedly I’ve been on sabbatical to ‘television-land’ for the past few years which I’ve probably ended up better known for. But this feels like the day job. It’s what I do. So it’s great to be back and working with Greg. It’s an incredibly friendly company which is a great relief. Most of the company have already done A Midsummer Night’s Dream so they would have been perfectly within their rights to be a little bit sniffy about a new boy coming in to do the next show, but they’ve been very welcoming and enthusiastic. There’s a great feeling about the company and a real sense of something new and exciting about the RSC at the moment.
Does the Company feel very different now then?
It’s different but the same. The principle that we’re out to achieve hasn’t changed but there’s a new sense of ensemble which is very exciting to be part of. There’s an enthusiasm from everyone and a willingness to muck in, and the different disciplines and departments seem to be more integrated than I remember last time I was here. There’s definitely a sense of a company that’s got an idea of what it is and what it’s for, and how it can best achieve that, and it’s very exciting to be part of that.
Are these two roles you particularly wanted to play?
Yes – they are two of the greatest roles around. Hamlet is often regarded as the acme of acting to test yourself against, which isn’t a particularly helpful thought to be honest. Of course it is very flattering to be asked to do that role because of everything that is attached to it. But once you get into rehearsal you have to relinquish thoughts like that and just try and tell the story. It’s still just a play and you can’t start approaching it in a different way than you would approach any other role.
Although it’s very early in the rehearsal process, is there anything you can share about your approach to your role in Hamlet?
We’ve just got going really and are only now on our feet. We’ve done a lot of text work, which has been invaluable, and we are now finally trying to put the play together in a more traditional sense.
How have you found working with the director, Gregory Doran?
It’s been terrific. I worked with him once before, years ago. It was a really fun job – a double bill of one act comedies. That was fantastic, and a big success but I was aware that Shakespeare was his real passion and seeing him talking about the play and investigating the play – he’s clearly born to do it. It’s a real pleasure to be in his rehearsal room.
What does Shakespeare mean to you, particularly performing his work here in Stratford-upon-Avon?
Of course you’re aware that if you do these plays here in Stratford you’re instantly joining a line that goes through some extraordinary individuals, actors and directors, and it’s very exciting and humbling and terrifying and thrilling to be part of that line. Obviously there’s something about Stratford – because it’s Shakespeare’s home town and because of everything that’s been invested here in terms of theatrical history that makes it a very special place to work in.
Do you have any significant memories of your previous time working with the RSC?
This is the third season I’ve done and I’ve always had fantastic experiences here. I’ve got some fond memories of the six plays I’ve done before and I made some great friends. Being part of the Royal Shakespeare Company is something I’ve always been proud to associate myself with and to be publicly aligned to.
Are you looking forward to working on The Courtyard stage for the first time?
Yes. I’ve seen the current productions there. It’s immediately very reminiscent of the Swan in which I’ve always enjoyed working. Considering how many people it seats, it feels nice and intimate – particularly for something like Hamlet which has those long soliloquies. I’m looking forward to using the space, and using that connection with the audience. I imagine that’s how those speeches were written to work. On a thrust stage, you can’t help but have a connection with the audience. It will be fascinating to see how that will influence the playing of those scenes.
What do you think is the basic difference between acting on film and on stage?
They are two completely different jobs. They are, of course, both about pretending to be other people. But rehearsing a play is about finding an emotional journey so that you can repeat it, whereas television is about getting that moment once when all the technical elements are in alignment and it’s locked down for evermore. From an actors’ point of view you have more control of the event in theatre. When it’s in film it’s created in post production essentially from a bunch of cuts, whereas here that moment happens in the auditorium and whether it works or not can be unique to each individual performance. It’s just a very different experience both from the acting point of view and the audience point of view.
Can you tell us anything more about the cast you are working with?
The fact that they are such a welcoming, enthusiastic and motivated bunch of people is great because that motivates you. You want to be part of that. There’s a real sense of company and ensemble which is oft talked about in theatre and very rarely achieved. The very set up of the Royal Shakespeare Company at its best can really exploit that. I certainly feel like I’m part of an ensemble here which is great.
Can you tell me something about how you were cast for these roles?
There was a slight meeting of the moons. I was talking to Tara Hull, one of the producers here, about the possibility of doing something for the company. And I think that Greg had a similar idea around the same time and there was a sort of conflagration of events and suddenly we’re here. It’s one of those conversations you have, and eighteen months later – here you are.
I’ve been looking forward to doing something again with Greg since Antony and Cleopatra two years ago. I think we have a very open and lively, creative relationship and Greg is relaxed and encouraging about experimentation and putting a different, rather than conventional, spin on things. And his enthusiasm for the work is infectious and energising, and he’s also so well prepared for each rehearsal. I was very hopeful we would work together again. I’ve wanted to play Claudius on stage for years and years. I’ve pitched myself to other directors but never had any success in getting myself cast but Greg, I’m delighted to say, was happy to take me onboard this production and I’m enjoying it immensely.
As well as Claudius, you are also playing the ghost. How are you approaching playing the two roles?
In my first season at Stratford in 1966, the third role I performed was The Player King in Peter Hall and David Warner’s Hamlet and in that production Brewster Mason doubled as the Ghost and Claudius and it made absolute sense to me. Over the years, the more I’ve thought about it, the more it’s seemed like the natural thing to do. They’re not twins but they’re brothers and there ought to be similarities, even though Hamlet makes a lot of fuss about how different they are. I have two brothers and we were very similar - our gestures, our inflections, the way we spoke and so forth - unmistakably brothers. I think it’s invaluable when the doubling is possible. It doesn’t create too many problems. It’s ideal to have a similarity while at the same time exploring the contrasts.
What other memories do you have of performing in Peter Hall’s Hamlet in 1966?
That is the only other time that I’ve been in Hamlet on stage. I played Claudius in the BBC’s Hamlet with Derek Jacobi 28 years ago. The Peter Hall Hamlet was in its second revival. It had opened in Stratford and transferred to London where I saw it and was overwhelmed by it. I had never seen acting of that character before - so naturalistic, so spontaneous and intelligent, and I remember saying afterwards - I wanted to work for this company more than anything else in the world. Well some six months later I was indeed in a rehearsal room rehearsing two very small roles in Henry IV Parts I and II - Walter Blunt and Lord Mowbury - and then I took over the role of the Player King opposite John Normington as the Player Queen. I remember Peter Hall said I’m going to give you one rehearsal - I have no more time, and he brought me into the conference hall, (which is now the Swan) and gave me an hour’s rehearsal on the Pyrrhus speech. I had my script with me and as he talked, I kept making notes in my script. When the hour was over I found that I’d underlined or marked practically every word in the speech. I remember thinking - this is impossible - How can I bring into this one speech all these thoughts and ideas? It was a challenge throughout that season to try and bring all those different elements that Peter had seen in the Pyrrhus speech into action.
And I enjoyed being on stage with David Warner who was my hero. I was only twenty five, and I think that David was a year younger. In every way his Hamlet spoke to me. I’d never before thought of Shakespeare as active and modern before I saw David’s interpretation of Hamlet. In fact, even though we have both grown older, and David Warner and I used to see one other in Los Angeles because we were near neighbours when I lived there, and he did a very famous episode of Star Trek - always for me there will be a part of him that will be forever Hamlet. I was so excited to do the Pyhrrus speech to him.
My strongest recollection was how frightening and potent Brewster Mason was as Claudius. I remember Brewster coming down the steps of the throne - with me lying on the floor as the Player King - watching his fingers twitching with a suppressed violence inside him which was very impressive. We’re doing it a little differently. Looking back I feel really proud to be even modestly connected to that production.
What does Shakespeare mean to you? Is there something special about performing it in Stratford-upon-Avon with the RSC?
I have loved Shakespeare all my life. I started reading Shakespeare in my teens and listening to him on the radio. I didn’t actually see any Shakespeare until I was sixteen. I went to London and saw Julius Caesar at the Old Vic. But it became, and I don’t quite know how it happened, an important part of my life. And when I became a professional actor, all I wanted to do was classical theatre. And my ambition, from the day I left drama school was to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Or, as it was then, the Stratford Memorial Theatre Company. But when I started seeing the work that Peter Hall was doing here - The Wars of the Roses and Hamlet - I knew that this was the place I had to be. But it took nearly three years before I could get myself an audition. I was finally auditioned one Sunday night in November in the main house by Peter Hall, John Barton and Maurice Daniels, who was head of casting in those days, and they invited me to come for the season. It was thrilling for me. I had finally arrived in the place I always wanted to be. So we jump forward forty years and I’ve spent seventeen years living in Los Angeles largely doing film and television, whilst all that time knowing that there’s only one place I really wanted to be which is where we are now. So when I returned to England four or five years ago my main objective was to get back into this company if they would have me. And luckily I got to know Greg (Doran) just socially first of all when he was directing Othello with Antony Sher and liked him very much. And it was through Greg’s invitation that I came back to the company.
In your experience, what is the difference between acting on stage and on film?
It is very much the same in that you are trying to create a world of truth. Other than that it is a matter of scale and proportion. For years I’ve been convinced that the stage communicates action and film communicates thought. And the best film actors I know are those whose thinking is interesting. The camera can film thoughts. That’s the main difference. I love both. I love film acting but it can never ever provide the personal satisfaction and the excitement of stepping out each night in front of a brand new audience to tell the story in real time when you’re in charge of what you do.
Can you tell us something about your recent experience of performing the lead role in Rupert Goold’s hugely successful production of Macbeth?
These past three years have been the best years of my life. It began with Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest here in Stratford and London during the RSC’s Complete Works Festival in 2006. I was then invited to Chichester to do Macbeth with Rupert Goold who I met when he directed The Tempest. This was followed by my playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night - a role I’d wanted to do all my life - and now I’m rehearsing Hamlet. The Macbeth, which we rehearsed in an upstairs room in Soho, London and played in the Minerva in Chichester was in every way quite a modest production in the beginning. But it quickly acquired an extraordinary fame as a radical version of the play with strong performances and a strong company and we were asked to transfer to London which was a huge satisfaction. We performed for ten sell out weeks at the Gielgud and while we were there, the invitation to come to the Brooklyn Academy of Music came through. We went to Brooklyn, and were sold out before the play opened and were fortunate to get extraordinary reviews from the New York critics. As a result of so many people wanting to see the production but not being able to get hold of a ticket - and it not being possible to extend at BAM - we transferred to Broadway for eight sell-out weeks which resulted in six Tony nominations for the production. So the journey from that rehearsal room in Soho to Broadway was unexpected and extraordinary. In the middle of such a grand period of my working life that production was a stand out.
Are you looking forward to working in the Courtyard Theatre for the first time?
I’m looking forward very much to the new experience of the Courtyard. It is of course similar to the Swan but because of its scale it’s not really the same at all. I’m excited about it. I’ve done a couple of talk back sessions on that stage and I liked being there. I felt very comfortable and it’s another adventure at the same time.
How have Hamlet rehearsals gone so far?
We’ve spent three weeks of table work with the whole company sitting around talking about the play, analysing it line by line, word by word, every line being put into our own words, nobody reading their own roles so that every member of the company gets to contribute. Very democratic. And now we’re putting it on its feet. Everything I’ve seen and heard has been terrifically promising and quite exciting. I’m looking forward to spending my summer and half the winter with the words of this masterpiece in my mouth and in my ears. For the first time ever with the RSC I’m only doing one play which I’m looking forward to because the last year has been really intense, doing Macbeth every night. In the end we did about 230 performances which is a lot for that play. So I’m looking forward to not having to carry the play - this time it’s David Tennant’s responsibility - and yet to have two roles which I think will be interesting to play and some time off which I haven’t had much of for the last few years. I’ve just moved into a house which I’ve been renovating for the past three years, and there’s still a lot to be done. I’m looking forward to getting my home the way I want it. And, hopefully, Claudius and The Ghost the way I want them.
Hamlet runs at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, 24 July – 15 November. It will move to will London’s Novello Theatre, 3 December - 10 January.
Love’s Labour’s Lost plays in repertoire at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 2 October - 15 November 2008.
