by Antony Sher
But what is Hal wearing when he gets out of bed? Nothing? When we were considering a modern-dress production, we talked about how the real, current Prince Harry was photographed nude, partying in a Las Vegas hotel room. But Greg doesn’t want to take this parallel too far – perhaps because the RSC’s President, Prince Charles, has already booked to see the show. So – Hal will be wearing something. I’m relieved. I wasn’t that crazy about my first appearance being upstaged by a naked young man.
It looks like Alex Hassell is going to play Hal. This is good news. Alex has always been Greg’s first choice. They worked together on Cardenio. I remember seeing the first preview, and being knocked out by Alex. He had the dark beauty of the young Oliver Reed, the charisma of a rock star, and a real talent for classical acting.
Wednesday 14 August
Shakespeare’s History Plays are still surprisingly controversial. The Henries upset scholars of the period – the portraits of both the King and Hal are inaccurate – and when I played Richard III, I was besieged by letters from the Richard III Society, chastising me for propagating Shakespeare’s warped image of their hero. In September 2012 they helped to fund the excavation of Richard’s skeleton from under a Leicester car park, and were disappointed to discover that he really was a hunchback. They’d always claimed that it was part of Shakespeare’s distortion.
The point all these people can’t grasp is this: history is history and drama is drama.
Hysteria shows Freud meeting Dalí. This did actually occur, but it was a brief, unremarkable encounter (apart from the fact that Dalí produced a few small sketches of Freud). In the play, however, the handshake between these two giants of the subconscious ignites a firework display of farce, drama and fantasy.
The role of Freud is a gift to a character actor, allowing him to play both the real man and a cartoon of him.
I read several of the biographies, but most useful was a documentary which the Freud Museum have in their shop: home movies of him in the last year of his life. You can see how powerful his brain is, even though his body is a shadow of its former self (because of the mouth cancer).
I love playing this combination: mental strength and physical frailty. But when we did the play last year, I remember a strange disparity developing. When I was in a scene, my body felt absolutely right: brittle-thin and wasted. But then I’d experience the constant disappointment of seeing myself in mirrors or production photos… no, my weight, my shape was all wrong! It didn’t matter – nobody said verisimilitude was the name of the game – but it was nevertheless odd: that the feeling didn’t correspond to the look. Acting plays mind games with you that are sometimes difficult to fathom.
On the other hand, a different side of Freud’s physicality has become easier this time round. The play has a section of pure farce, and this requires the actors to adopt the high-speed dexterity of the form. In Bath, I could not reconcile Freud’s age with the agility required, nor his gravitas with this new frivolity. But I was being too literal, I now realise. The whole piece is a dream, a death dream, a hallucination induced by the shot of morphine which the doctor gives him to aid his pain-free passing. Anything can happen, and does, and the actor simply has to go with it.
Easier said than done. But I’m more relaxed now, having experienced the play in performance. I know it works.
Friday 16 August
More news on the Henries casting. Jasper Britton is going to play King Henry. He’s such a tremendous actor that I’m already excited to see what he’s going to do with that tough, tough part. And Paola Dionisotti is interested in Mistress Quickly. Greg thinks she’ll do it.
Tuesday 20 August
This is difficult – these four weeks of re-rehearsing Hysteria. The newcomers (Lydia and Adrian) need every minute of it, while the old hands (David and I) are struggling to find ways to use the time. Our double act works splendidly, but what more can we do with it? And there are no laughs in rehearsals. Always a tricky thing with comedy, but worse this time, after playing it in Bath and on tour. Those gales of laughter. Now it’s as if there’s something missing.
Thursday 22 August
I need some Falstaff stimulation. Greg suggested I read Kenneth Tynan’s review of Ralph Richardson in the 1945 Old Vic production (with Olivier doing a spectacular double as Hotspur and Shallow). I hesitated at first. Because Richardson’s performance is often referred to as one of those definitive interpretations of a Shakespeare role. But there’s no such thing, I know that. It’s what has allowed the plays to be done again and again, over four centuries. The great roles are greater than any one actor. So I plunged into Tynan’s review, and his opening line immediately gave me hope:
‘Richardson’s Falstaff was not a comic performance: it was too rich and many-sided to be crammed into a single word.’ He goes on: ‘Here was a Falstaff whose principal attribute was not his fatness but his knighthood. He was Sir John first, and Falstaff second, and let every cock-a-hoop young dog beware.’ There was a particular dignity to his movement: ‘As the great belly moved, step followed step with great finesse lest it overtopple, the arms flapped fussily at the sides as if to paddle the body’s bulk along.’ And, interestingly, ‘None of the usual epithets for Falstaff applied to Richardson: he was not often jovial, laughed seldom, belched never. In disgrace, he affected the mask of sulky schoolboy…’ Tynan’s description of the big moment at the end, when Hal rejects Falstaff, was enticing – Richardson kept his back to the audience during Hal’s speech, then slowly turned – and it may be worth stealing.
I look at photos of him in the part. Bald wig, big white beard, rather bizarre flyaway moustache and eyebrows. Although only forty-three when he played it, the make-up turns him into the older Richardson whom I saw in the 1970s, still at the top of his game in those two superb double acts with Gielgud: Home and No Man’s Land. I rejoiced in him. That ‘Oh-h-h’ sound – not unlike the Churchill dog in the TV advert who goes, ‘Oh-h-h yes!’ Richardson’s voice didn’t seem to come from the normal place, but then neither did his acting. In fact, he didn’t act so much as show you his soul, and this was a most rare, most wonderful, and slightly batty thing. He said of Falstaff that he ‘proceeds at his own chosen pace, like a gorgeous ceremonial Indian elephant’. In a way that sums up Richardson’s own distinctive, unforgettable form of acting.
Monday 26 August
Greg’s fear this morning – about starting Richard II – was touching to behold. If only his company could see what I saw (his whole being was smaller, weaker, paler). Or maybe not. Actors want directors to be Daddy, if not God: all-powerful and invincible. Anyway, needless to say, when he returned this evening, it was in triumph. The day had been a success, and compliments flowed from his cast – hardened veterans like Michael Pennington, Oliver Ford Davies, Jane Lapotaire – as well as his star, David Tennant.
Wednesday 4 September
The back of Hampstead Theatre overlooks a big bowl of lawn, with a water feature, and on hot days like today – we’re having another heatwave – the grass is covered with sunbathers and picnickers. It’s rather idyllic, very un-English, quite sexy.
The front of the theatre, however, induces different sensations in me. It faces the Central School of Drama. There’s a flight of steps leading up to their entrance, and these same steps play a small but significant part in my history. A week after arriving from South Africa in July 1968, I auditioned at Central, and my mother filmed me with our home-movie camera as I went up the steps. She thought she was catching a moment of history – the start of a glorious career – but instead I came back into view disgraced. Central had turned me down smartly. It was a little baptism by fire, showing the reality of trying to become an actor in this country. At the time it shocked me badly. And it’s incredible, forty-five years later, that the sight of those steps still sends a shiver down my spine.
Anyway, over the last couple of days, we’ve tech’d Hysteria so quickly, that we were able to have a dress rehearsal this afternoon, and t
hen Terry gave us the evening off…! A precious thing when you’re about to embark on a sustained period of eight shows a week.
Back at home, I found Greg in a happy mood too. They’d done their first proper read-through this afternoon (after a week and a half of paraphrasing the text), and the cast were firing on all cylinders. Beforehand, this morning, they did a company research trip to Westminster Abbey, to see Richard II’s tomb.
‘What will we do as research for the Henries?’ I asked; ‘All go to a pub and get pissed?’
Thursday 5 September
First preview of Hysteria.
Must say I felt a sense of pride – a character actor’s pride – as I did the finishing touches to my Freud appearance in the dressing room. My weight might be wrong, but the rest was not bad at all. The wig, creating the balding, silver-haired dome of his head, the hour and a half of make-up, with my beard whitened, my features aged, and the ugly, cancerous mark on his right cheek. The round glasses, the grey-brown suit – very professorial – the shirt and tie carefully reproduced from photos of the actual man. One of these is stuck on my mirror. I touched it, made a little gesture in the direction of Maresfield Gardens, then went downstairs to the stage.
What a joy to have an audience again, and laughter again! It lifted the roof of Hampstead’s little auditorium. David and I weren’t really surprised, but Lydia and Adrian were amazed.
Lydia has an exceptional gift for emotional acting. In the course of the action, her character, Jessica, undergoes a session of analysis, which begins as play-acting, but then gradually overwhelms her. When Lydia did this breakdown for the first time in rehearsals, it was completely real, with real tears and real anguish. Afterwards, Terry and I said to one another how good it had been, and I remarked, ‘Now all she has to do is repeat that again and again.’ (The curse of theatre acting.) Well, she does. Every single time. Goes to that same raw place inside her. I don’t know how.
And Adrian’s Dalí is completely believable: comic and crazy, a genius and a pseud wrapped into one. There are very few actors who could walk that tightrope with such skill.
We’re lucky. Our new cast is as strong as the first one. We’re going to be okay…
Monday 9 September
Was planning to wait till Hysteria opened to the press before starting on my next big project: learning Falstaff. But suddenly there’s no need to wait. Will start tomorrow…
3. All Those Lines
Tuesday 10 September
‘How do you learn all those lines?’
This question is the one that the public most frequently ask of actors. We laugh about it, laugh at them for being so shallow – as though learning lines was the great mystery in acting.
Well, I’ve stopped laughing. It’s an age thing. In recent years, I’ve started doing something which I’d have disapproved of before: learning all the lines before rehearsals begin. It’s the only way now. How, as a younger actor – as one of the Dirty Duckers in Stratford in ’82, partying all night, rehearsing all day, performing in the evening – how I found time to learn lines as well, I’ve absolutely no idea.
When you’re young, it seems so straightforward: you learn the lines and that’s that. But when you’re older, you’re aware of a series of tests and obstacles ahead, each of which will put pressure on you, and the lines will often be the first casualty. So…
You have to know them alone in your room.
You have to know them when you speak them aloud with the other actors.
You have to know them when the ante is upped in the rehearsal room (such as a run-through).
You have to know them in front of the first audience at the first preview.
You have to know them in front of the critics.
You have to know them on a wet Wednesday matinee three months later, when the house is thin and you’re thinking about the shopping…
This morning, I carefully put out the things I’d need. This is in my painting studio in our London house, a rear basement room with a conservatory glass roof. I set my drawing board at an angle to the wall, and prop the script on it. I’ll learn from our A4 version, but on the shelf at my side are two published editions – the RSC and the Arden – for reference.
And it’s those published editions that are the most intimidating, those smart, scholarly paperbacks – two pairs for the two plays: I have to transfer rather a lot of the material from inside them to inside my brain.
How? Today, I’m like the most naive member of the public. How will you learn all those lines?
I begin with the first Falstaff/Hal scene (Act One, Scene Two). I say Falstaff’s first line: ‘Now Hal, what time of day is it, lad?’ I say it again, and again, pacing round. I move on to his next line – ‘Indeed, you come near me now, Hal…’ – and I practise that. Then I try the two lines together – but I’ve already forgotten the first. I start again. And so – the process is under way.
To an actor, dialogue is like food. You hold it in your mouth, you taste it. If it’s good dialogue the taste will be distinctive. If it’s Shakespeare dialogue, the taste will be Michelin-starred. Falstaff’s dialogue is immediately delicious: you’re munching on a very rich pudding indeed, savoury rather than sweet, probably not good for your health, but irresistible.
If you’re learning lines before rehearsals, you have to learn in neutral, in a way that won’t cut off the creative choices that will happen when the director and other actors are involved. So I’m speaking Falstaff in my own voice, I’m not attempting any characterisation.
At the same time, I can’t help noticing things about the man, and becoming drawn to certain ones. He’s well-educated, I see (he knows about Phoebus, Diana, similes and iteration), and he’s a thief, a highwayman. A gentleman rogue then? That breed of privileged, public-school Englishmen, who can be both monstrous and charming, both powerful and self-destructive. The kind that believe the world belongs to them. They can break the law – it’s only a bit of fun. They can drink themselves senseless – it’s what we chaps do. And they’d be totally at ease hanging out with the future King – I’ll teach him a thing or two. This country is full of men like that. Maybe that’s why Falstaff is so loved – he’s so familiar.
When I finish the session, I realise I’ve been at it for three hours. God. Time flying like when I’m writing or painting. But this is acting. Which I love less. It’s too much like hard and boring graft: doing a run of eight shows a week is a conveyor-belt job. Anyway, today’s work was pure pleasure.
Wednesday 11 September
Came downstairs this morning, to find that Greg had left the new RSC brochure on the kitchen table for me to see. The cover has a picture of me from that photo shoot we did – sitting in front of the distorting mirror, ballooning into Falstaff. It has worked well – an excellent image.
I suddenly had a real sense of optimism. Which isn’t like me at all. Anyway, there’s Hysteria’s press night tomorrow: that’ll bring some dread and danger back into my life…
Thursday 12 September
Press night. It went well. The audience was good, not great, just good, but, more importantly, the show was strong. Nice compliments afterwards from a trio of Michaels: Frayn, Attenborough, and Leigh. The latter had seen our Bath production as well.
He was very enthusiastic about me playing Falstaff, and asked how I was going to put on all the weight.
I replied, ‘Luckily, all Falstaffs have to wear a fat suit.’
He said, twinkling, ‘No, that’s not good enough.’
I laughed: ‘No of course – the Mike Leigh way would be to do it for real.’
‘You did for Goose-Pimples.’
‘Mike! I wore padding.’
‘You put on weight as well.’
There’s no arguing with him. As I looked round the party in the foyer, I had a sense of things coming full circle. The old Hampstead Theatre was where we first did Goose-Pimples, before it transferred to the Garrick. Marion Bailey was in that show, and now she is Mik
e’s partner. Her former partner was Terry Johnson. (They have a daughter, an actress.) And just to add to the mix, Mike’s ex, Alison Steadman, was here tonight too…!
Friday 13 September
Felt strangely tired and low this morning. Nothing to do with it being Friday the 13th, and Yom Kippur, and a miserable drizzly day. No, more to do with the pressure of yesterday’s opening.
Wondered if I’d have the energy for line-learning. But, as always, creativity acted as a tonic, and as soon as I started my tiredness fell away. I looked at Falstaff’s big soliloquy at the beginning of the Gad’s Hill robbery (Act Two, Scene Two). What joy again – him complaining about the dishonesty of his fellow thieves. I suppose this is an example of the role’s comic reputation. But I still refuse to be intimidated by it. He’s not trying to be funny – he’s genuinely outraged that the others have hidden his horse, and left him, an old, fat man, to walk.
Then I went over all the lines I’ve done this week. One of the main difficulties of line-learning is that you have to constantly revise, while also trying to move forward. Or rather, inch forward. Real progress is painfully slow, and, given my naturally impatient temperament, it’s frustrating.
Also, Falstaff is written entirely in prose – apart from some rhyming couplets to end scenes – and this is, surprisingly, harder to learn than verse (there’s music in iambic pentameter, which sticks in the brain like a tune).
At first, a big part seems impossibly big. And this is effectively two big parts.
Tuesday 17 September
Our Hysteria reviews have been excellent – one five star, the rest fours.
But you still can’t please everyone.
During Jessica’s breakdown tonight – with Lydia doing it for real, as always – an old lady got up from the front row, huffed and puffed her way up the stairs to the exit, and in that uncensored way which the elderly (and children) have, said loudly to the usher, ‘I’m feeling sick, and this play is making me sicker!’