With his red sneakers, loose-fitting trousers and scruffy beard, Michael Pennington
looked rather like a vagrant as he walked through a gentrifying neighborhood here.
But perhaps that was just his way of getting into character; Mr Pennington, 70, is
playing a homeless man, an elderly imperious fellow down on his luck and down on
his daughters, in the Theatre for a New Audience’s production of ‘King Lear,’ directed
by Arin Arbus. Currently in previews, it opens March 27.
Mr Pennington isn’t exactly a household in the U.S., Except perhaps to those ‘Star
Wars’ obsessives who send fan mail hailing his performance as imperial officer Moff
Jerjerrod, commanding officer of the Death Star, in ‘Return of the Jedi.’ But in
his native England he’s an acclaimed classical actor whose many stage credits include
leading roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company - among them Angelo and the Duke
in ‘Measure for Measure,’ the title roles in ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Timon of Athens’, star
turns in ‘The Madness of George III,’ ‘The Master Builder’ and ‘The Dance of Death.’
He also frequently tours in his one-man show ‘Sweet William,’ a tribute to Stratford-upon-Avon’s
native son.
“Michael is brilliant - emotionally, technically and intellectually.” Patrick Stewart
said. Ian McKellen, meanwhile, described Mr. Pennington as “one of theatre’s matchless
treasures. His acting style is modest and detailed, supported by intelligence and
unrivalled experience.”
“Brooklyn audiences are lucky to be the first to see his long-awaited King Lear,”
Mr McKellen added. “I’ll be among them.”
Mr Pennington is also an impresario (from 1986 to 1994 he was co-head of the English
Shakespeare Company), a scholar of the Bard, and the author of books like Twelfth
Night: A User’s Guide; and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A User’s Guide.’ The pages
of ‘Hamlet: A User’s Guide’ was apparently well-thumbed by Simon Russell Beale and
Jude Law during their respective stints as the prince of Denmark. “They told me how
helpful it was, though maybe they were just being nice to me,” said Mr Pennington
over a cappuccino last week. “I made them swear on their swords that they actually
read it.”
The road to his current undertaking was lined with ambivalence. “If you do a lot
of Shakespeare, ‘Lear’ is something you’re supposed to want to do,” Mr Pennington
said in his flexible, silvery voice. “So you have to work out in your mind whether
you really want to do it and if you have anything particular to bring to it other
than what other people have brought to it, or if it’s just something that lies in
your path,”
He felt no particular yearning until half-a-dozen years ago, when he played Richard
Strauss in Ronald Harwood’s play ‘Collaboration.’ “Strauss isn’t a particularly Lear-like
character, but he is an old man who regrets much of what he’s done.” Mr Pennington
said. “I was having breakfast one morning, and I threw my towel down and said ’I
want to do “Lear” now, right now.’ It was a startling thing, so sort of thespy, but
I thought ‘I could do it now.’”
The wheels were set in motion when, in 2010, Mr Pennington came to New York with
the two-hander “Love is My Sin,” an adaptation of select Shakespeare sonnets assembled
and directed by Peter Brook and produced here by Theatre for a New Audience. At the
opening-night party Mr Pennington met Ms Arbus, TFANA’s associate artistic director,
and was immediately intrigued. “I’m not particularly interested in talking about
Shakespeare to too many people.” he said. “But we went to brunch and had a really
interesting time.”
Eighteen months ago, the two arranged a weeklong “Lear” exploration. “We sat around
the table and went at the play without prejudice so that at the end of the time we
could say ‘this isn’t going to work,’ Mr Pennington said. “Well, I had the time of
my life, and I said ‘I really want to do this.’”
The only child of a lawyer and a housewife, Mr Pennington was 11 when, unwillingly,
he saw his first Shakespeare play. “My parents said, ‘You have to come and see this.’
Not because they were particularly keen on it - they just thought it was part of
my education. They picked ‘Macbeth,’ which, as it happened, was a very good choice.
“The effect it had on mw was completely visceral,” he continued, “A lot of it had
to do with the Tarantino-like theatricality of that production: a lot of blood, a
lot of ghost effects. But there was something about the language.
“Afterwards I went home, pulled a volume of Shakespeare off the shelf and started
reading it out load.”
Thus his course was set. “I knew what I wanted to do and never thought about anything
else,” said Me Pennington, who acknowledges that he’s been less than canny about
the management of his career. It was down to Jeremy Irons and him for the leading
male role in ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman,’ Mr Pennington claimed, and “I backed
out of the race because I was offered ‘Hamlet’ at the RSC.”
“I didn’t stop doing Shakespeare and go to do something else like Patrick Stewart
and Ian McKellen,” he added. “The proper thing is to leave and come back with a
certain reputation and more power. Somehow I missed a beat in that.”
Mr Pennington began writing his Shakespeare guides as a way of recycling when he
terms his spare information. “I’ve done these plays so often, and yet there are things
I haven’t been able to use. I know stuff about how the plays seem to work best.
“I know that ‘Coriolanus’ is difficult because the battle scene is at the beginning,
rather at the end where it usually is - thus you’re exhausted after half an hour.
So how are you going to get yourself up when you have the whole play ahead of your?
I know that ‘Hamlet’ has various problems of logic from one scene to another that
you had better be aware of. I don’t have solutions, just guarded recommendations.”
Alas, there is yet no ‘King Lear: A User’s Guide,’ but Mr Pennington seems well versed
in the challenge of the role. “You have such a little window with Lear,” he said.
“You’ve got to be convincingly enough that age - Shakespeare gives the character’s
age as ‘four score and upward’ - but you also have to have the energy and the memory
for the part. And that’s always been the problem. There are actors, brilliant actors,
who have played him a bit too late when they didn’t have the physical stamina.”
Mr Pennington doesn’t have to have any such concerns. “I feel about 50,” he said.
“I get tired washing the dishes or walking to the corner shop, but I never get tired
off acting.”
