Plays and Players:
Model Roles
The Daily Telegraph, 3rd June 1985, John Barber
People don’t realise what anxieties an actor suffers in preparing a big classical role – the weeks of study, the problems of liasing with directors and colleagues, and then what Michael Pennington calls “the seemingly haphazard process of planning and rehearsal, with its chance discoveries, its missed opportunities, its dry calculations and intuitive hunches … and jumps in the dark.”
Since Sarah Siddons set out her thoughts about Lady Macbeth there has been nothing quite like ‘Players of Shakespeare’ to be published by the Cambridge University Press this month, edited by Philip Brockbank, who invited a dozen actors to analyse their experience with some formidable part.
Once the p lay was on the stage, their fretting often relaxed – thought Sinead Cusack never stopped worrying about her Portia in ‘The Merchant of Venice’: she declares roundly she failed in it – not quite witty enough, she feels, nor light enough in touch in the last scenes. But most of the actors concentrate on the agonies of preparation.
As Brockbank says, an actor feels exposed and vulnerable, both in preparation and performance, knowing his personality and human resources are always on the line. “I have to endow her with me and my complexities,” Gemma Jones told herself at first, tackling the role of Hermione in ‘The Winter’s Tale’ – falsely accused of adultery by her husband, and restored to him, after years when he thought her dead, in the form of a statue which comes to life. Then the actress found herself contending with her egotistical desire to impress – to act devious, clever, complicated and interesting.
But Hermione is simply innocent, and knows it, like Joan of Arc. To convey simple virtue in that sepulchral rehearsal room off Leicester Square is agony (“Will my fellow actors think I’m good? Will I get a bigger part next season? Will I ever act again?). And when it comes to standing frozen like a statue, and think herself marble and keep “very very still and look very very lovely in a very very soft light,” she is musing “Have I enough money to pay the babysitter? And “I must remember to fill up the car with petrol.”
Approaching Hamlet, Mr Pennington realised that to pull it off takes an actor further down into his psyche, memory and imagination, and further outwards to the limits of his technical knowledge and equipment, than he has probably been before. For this performance (which I greatly admired) he tamed the hero’s sharp sarcasm in the first scene so as to present a Prince admired for all his courtesy and grace.
To achieve in the character “a kind of sweet optimism, bitterly disappointed,” he thought it truer to struggle to overcome the maelstrom inside him rather than make a continual public display of his demons – though he had his eruptions of violence, and seized on these to make the audience question the hero’s morality and so rouse some antipathy towards him as well as sympathy.
At times the part shook him like a rat. On some nights, it seemed to play him, effortlessly, while on others he felt he was labouring with an out-of-tune violin. Off-stage, it had the effect of separating him from his colleagues and friends, while the whole issue of private references underpinning his performances quietly changed with the patterns of his own life and even the world news. This deeply considered essay is worth setting beside the usual superficial tape-recorded interview, when an actor talks off the top of his head and conveys few of the struggles, the humiliations and rewards of his calling.
Return to Hamlet
Archives Jan/June 2012 |
Archives July/December 2011 |
Archives Jan/June 2011 |
Archives July/December 2010 |
Archives Jan/June 2010 |
Archives July/Dec 2009 |
Archives Jan/June 2009 |
Stage |
Audio |
Television |
Radio |
Film |
Books |
Plays |
Anton Chekhov |
Sweet William |
English Shakespeare Company |
Readings |
Direction |
An interview wiith Antony himself |
Reviews |
Michael Pennington on Ibsen |
Exeunt.com |
Ibsen's Judgement at The Print Room |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Interview |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Shakespearean actor learns from 'Love' |
Reviews |
Collaboration & Taking Sides |
San Francisco Sentinel |
The News |
Reviews Chichester |
Reviews London |
On ... Doing a West End Double |
When Bobby Met Terry |
Reviews |
Nellie Ternan |
Reviews |
A curious character |
Reviews |
The Short Answer |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
The Knives Are Out |
Reviews |
They call it puppet love |
Reviews |
Interview |
A performance fit for a King |
A World of Schemers |
Reviews |
Peter's friends |
From Russia With Love |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Coping with the Apocalypse |
Pennington back in fold |
Labours of love |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Changing of the Guard |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Old Vic's Master of Disguise |
Studies in misogyny |
Reviews |
The Entertainer finds new life ... |
Reviews |
Ugly Americans, British Style |
In Defence of the Playwright |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
The thing with this play |
There's something nice ... |
Reviews |
Reviews |
How to be in two plays at one time |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Rigorous romantic |
If this is Venice |
Reviews |
Bring on the Russian Horses |
Man with a lean and hungry look |
Reviews |
Reviews |
In the shadows .... |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
A state of mind and body |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
The Travels of Michael |
First Wicket Down |
Reviews |
Way of the Actor |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Former Spear Carrier |
One man's week |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Limelight 1967 |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Chekhov's Vaudevilles |
The cherries on Chekhov's birthday cake |
A Jubilee |
Reviews |
Cottesloe 1984 |
Dublin 1990 |
Old Vic 1997 |
Winchester Festival 2003 |
ETT 2003 |
Hampstead Theatre 2008 |
Little Angel Theatre |
Arcola Theatre |
Guthrie Theater |
Hampstead Theatre London |
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre |
Oxford Playhouse |
Salisbury Playhouse |
Theatre Royal Northampton |
reviews |
Talks about book |
From Macbeth to Lear |
Performance |
Direction - Twelfth Night |
Books |
Videos |
Theatre company head quits |
The Henry Trilogy |
The Wars of the Roses |
Coriolanus |
The Winter's Tale |
Macbeth |
Henry IV Part I |
Henry IV Part II |
Henry V |
Reviews |
Articles |
Heady Challenge |
Hurray for the new Henry |
The Bard takes to the Road |
A bubble for the Bard |
Marathon Man |
Bard Boy |
Richard II |
Henry IV Part I |
Henry IV Part II |
Henry V |
Henry VI Lancaster |
Henry VI York |
Richard III |
Reviews |
Articles |
A Magnificent Seven |
Star Wars, Rose Wars |
An ambitious programme |
Tough company |
The Battle of the Bards |
Cycling Shakespeare |
Histories for our time |
A garment all of blood |
Coriolanus & WT Reviews |
Articles |
Roman Hero for our day |
Sun rises on Coriolanus |
A theatrical tour de force |
Son of Shakespeare-Wallah |
Bard on the Run |
Reviews |
Articles |
Now and thane |
Bard stripped bare |
Reviews |
The Story of the Wars of the Roses |
Operation Shakespeare |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
Twelfth Night (Chicago) |
Twelfth Night (Tokyo) |
Kafka - A Report to the Academy |
Alone Together |
Twelfth Night Across the Continents |
On Acting and Directing Shakespeare |
Reviews |
Reviews |
By Gloucester Docks |
The Name of the Rose |
Felix in the Underworld |
Antony and Cleopatra |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Classics for Pleasure |
Reviews |
Sentimental journey |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Lucky Stryk |
Reviews |
From Russia ... with love |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
Reviews |
The book the Bishop burnt |
Reviews |
Reviews |
The Return of Sherlock Holmes |
Fragile |
Britain isn't Working |
The Iron Lady |
Elementary, my dear Miss Watson |
Review |
Hamlet. A User's Guide |
Twelfth Night. A User's Guide |
Are You There Crocodile? |
A Pocket Guide |
A Midsummer Night's Dream. A User's Guide |
Players of Shakespeare |
Audio |
Books |
Direction |
English Shakespeare Company |
Film |
Theatre |
Radio |
Readings |
Television |