by Antony Sher
De Jongh has the gall to show up for the press conference. So Terry begins, `For those of you who haven't read this morning's Guardian, let me outline our plans ...' He says this glancing in de Jongh's direction and smiling politely. Quite deadly. Also throws a few well chosen barbs in the direction of Michael Ratcliffe who has just taken over as the Observer critic and has been R S C-bashing in his first columns. Much turning of heads over in the thespian corner to identify this new critic. It's difficult getting to know what they look like since their natural habitat is nocturnal - the dark of the auditorium.
Terry is a magnificent speaker - a gift for fluency without referring to notes, never drying or stumbling. It's rumoured that politics was his second choice of career.
When it comes to question time, there's an embarrassed silence from the assembled journalists. Terry encourages them to ask the actors questions. Nothing. Over in our corner, the director John Caird whispers, `Mister Sher, will you be playing the part in a hump?' and Roger Rees adds, `And will it be a hump from stock or a spanking new one?'
Things are grinding to a halt. Terry politely requests that they all lay off jokes about how difficult the Barbican is to find, it's been done to death and now is a good time to stop. This topic seems to animate the journalists more than anything else.
One says supportively, `In a recent survey it was proved that eighty-four per cent now find it easy to find.'
`Eighty-four per cent of what?' asks the playwright David Edgar.
`Of people who find it.'
`How can they ask the people who don't find it?'
`They don't. The other sixteen per cent do eventually find it, but found it difficult to find.'
A moment later a very harassed Steve Grant (from Time Out) bursts in clutching briefcase and coat. Takes his place looking puffed and bewildered, and begins leafing through the publicity handout.
`Clearly one of the sixteen per cent,' whispers David Edgar.
Thursday 26January
My day always starts with scanning the TV listings and setting the video recorder. If you have long enough you can research any part without moving from your living-room.
`The World About Us' on matadors. When I go to Spain, I find the bullfight compulsive viewing. Dangerous theatre. Watching the fighting bulls today, I realise they have many of the qualities that I've been thinking about for Richard. Sketching them is a similar sensation to sketching Lion's Head; the folds are silky smooth but inside there is a rock-hard power. Like sharks, they have the appearance of a `nightmare creature' - something to do with their blackness even in bright sunshine; you can hardly make out their eyes or mouth; the head is a black stump; the white horns always defined against the black. Look at the head closely and it has a primeval, reptilian quality; heavily wrinkled, a stupid brutal face, slightly sad. Ronnie Kray.
When they first burst into the ring there is great agility, they spring, change direction, like they're dancing. The massive hump - this, of course, is most relevant to me - is full and hard, a pack of muscle. Later, pierced like a pin-cushion, it deflates. The blood is a crude orange splash bubbling down their flanks, like someone's thrown paint at them. When they charge, their muscles seem to dilate, their size doubles, their weight doubles - the nightmare creature thunders forwards.
The moment of dying. Kneeling. The struggle to get back on to its feet. Everything would still be all right if it could only stand up again. But its legs are turning to air. (Brando does this after he's shot in Last Tango.)
Dragged out at the end, so flat, so soft, that great body half its size, like a sack of water slipping along the sand, rippling, changing shape but nothing really there.
The Visit. Documentary about PC Olds, shot trying to arrest a criminal; spine severed, crippled from the waist down. Dead eyes in a handsome face. Athletic body going to seed in a wheelchair, which he calls `the pram' or `the prison'.
Interviewer: `Is it worse than death?'
Olds: `Oh yes. Oh, take it from me. Don't take it from people who've made some sort of life out of it, you know, who say that life in a wheelchair makes no difference to them and that they found themselves and they found God and they found all sorts of things. I found nothing. I've lost everything.' (His bitterness comes out as a tiredness, a dullness. A sneering dullness.)
Interviewer: `Will you ever come to terms with it?'
Olds: `No.'
Interviewer: `Shouldn't you try, for your own sake?'
Olds: `I've tried. It won't work.'
Interviewer: `Why not?'
Olds: `They didn't kill me did they? I was robbed.'
Interviewer: `Robbed of what?'
Olds: (little smile, daring) `Death.'
Because he's a man only recently disabled (in his own words, `I was a motorcycle-riding, fornicating, criminal-catching cross between Telly Savalas and Dennis Waterman'), he has no defence mechanism in operation. You can see his pain clearly; he is a man turned inside out, every breeze hurts.
This is what Monty was talking about: the opposite of the angelic cripple.
Round and round I go, mountains and sharks and bulls and PC Olds and Ronnie Kray. It starts to confuse. Must remember that it felt the same finding Lear's Fool. Different ingredients cooking together.
Gave up smoking today.
Saturday 28 January
Custom of the Country at The Pit. Very excited by Nicky Wright's writing. Terrific wit and surrealism. Towards the end he manages to get a fascinating collection of people on stage at the same time: two ghosts, a live man bound head to foot in bandages, and two Afrikaners playing host to an African chief.
Started smoking again.
Tuesday 31 January
MONTY Last session.
I confess I've been feeling not only rather bitter, now that all the theatre awards have been announced and the Fool didn't win anything, but also angry with myself for caring. An old record playing: be the best, bring home the prizes. He says I'm confusing issues. It's not the old record; an award for the Fool was a valid expectation, one that other people might have shared. `You've been right to feel cheated, angry. Now let it go.'
`But awards are stupid. I know that.'
`Agreed. But it is nice to receive them. Nice. No more than that. Nice to be validated in your profession.'
`The work should be enough.'
`Of course. It is. It makes me very happy when I cure a patient. But I get a very special pleasure if I hear a third party say, "God, that person has really changed." '
`But that's like reviews. Needing the pat on the back. I've been so liberated this past year by not reading reviews.'
`No. You'll be truly liberated when you can read reviews and not care what they say. When you are confident enough in your own work you'll be able to read a review, accept praise or criticism when it's deserved, reject the rest.'
`Impossible.'
He smiles. We've been here before.
But it's worked. I feel the bitterness of this last week, a small constant irritation, washed away. Invisible mending.
As we come to the end of the session I say, `Well, what do we do next., half hoping he'll suggest booking a few more sessions.
He says, `I want you to go away now. You might come back occasionally, to deal with a specific problem: But there's a danger in this work that every single particle gets opened up and dissected. You've made a lot of progress. And you've learned a skill. The old records will still play. But you can recognise them now and turn away. And occasionally you won't. But through choice, not compulsion.'
The end of a long - a year-long - journey we've travelled together. I feel the beginning of tears. How ironic it would be if the one thing I've never been able to do in these sessions - cry - should happen now. The actor in me notes how appropriate that would be, and with that thought the feeling goes.
The R S C have sent the Peter Barnes play. It might still be done at the end of this year in Stratford or next year at the Barbican. Directed by Adrian or Terry or b
oth together. Called Red Noses, Black Death, it's about a little monk called Flote forming a troupe of clowns to cheer up people as they die from the Plague in thirteenth-century France. Astonishing, original piece of writing! He fashions a new language, so over-ripe and wonderfully rancid that it reeks, it glows with colours you've never dreamed of. A stew of Fellini and Mervyn Peake. As a part Flote isn't as exciting as the whole piece, but that's a safer way round, and it will be a pleasure to play someone good for a change.
I'm sitting back, stunned from the experience of reading it, when the phone rings. Snoo Wilson. Another writer in touch with parts of the brain not yet known to science. `Novel number two gently easing its way out of the sphincter. A brightly coloured turd to drop on the populace.' He says that almost all the finance for his Shadey film has now been found, and that Otto Plaschkes thinks it might be possible to postpone the shooting until after Richard has opened and then work round my Stratford schedule.
At last 1984 is shaping up. At least one of these projects or the Nicky Wright play is bound to work out.
Sketch the bottled spider. Very pleased with this.
After Moliere, a late-night drinking session with Mal. As I was leaving South Africa, Joel slipped me some of their illegal firewater - their equivalent to poteen. He put it in a brandy bottle so I could get it through customs.
As you take your first mouthful you find yourself re-enacting a scene from those Westerns where the baddie forces Jimmy Stewart to drink alcohol for the first time: your hand clutches the glass; fearing you'll break it, you slam it down; at the same time a cat has landed on the inside wall of your throat, claws out; then the cat begins to descend. Your mouth is straining open, your eyes are watering; at last you give out a kind of inverted gasp, a sound somewhere between `ahhh', `no' and `help'. You smile foolishly at your drinking companion, wipe away the tears and try to say `Wow!'
The drink has none of these effects on Mal. But then he's about ten-foot tall, built like a mountain, and can trace his ancestry back to the Vikings.
He takes his first sip. `Mmm. Very nice. Tastes a bit like gun oil.'
`I think I'll dilute mine with a bit of water. Would you like some?'
`No thanks, I'll stick with it neat.'
`Righto.'
We go over the events of the last few months and compare notes. Everyone seems to have behaved honourably. Events happened exactly as they were reported back to each of us.
Buckingham and Sloman now officially on offer to Mal, but he's not sure whether to accept. Various reasons. He's up for a film. Also he's missing his wife and kids terribly. Their home is near Stratford and signing on for another two-year cycle will mean another long stint in London away from them. I point out that if he doesn't do the R S C season he'll get some other job which will inevitably entail London. Or he'll be unemployed. He says he'd be perfectly happy working on a farm so long as he was near his family.
I tell him how much I want him to play Buckingham. Our friendship goes back to Richard Eyre's 1976 Company at the Nottingham Playhouse. The rapport we'd bring to the Richard/Buckingham double-act would be invaluable. Mal says, `The same could be said for the Shawcross/Sloman relationship in The Party. It would be great for me to make that first entrance out of the pile of cushions and find you there. I'll make a deal - you play Shawcross, I'll play Buckingham.'
I gulp. Then hear myself saying, `All right.'
`You realise this could be the gun oil talking.'
`It isn't.'
`You'd do that?'
`Yup. If Shawcross is still available, that is.'
`Let's phone Howard now.'
`It's quarter past two.'
`He won't mind being woken with this news.'
We decide it might be better to leave it until the morning. Mal gets up to leave. He is in a state of strange euphoria - a mixture of the drink and our pact. He keeps on saying, `You'd do that? You are sure it isn't the gun oil talking?' Mal on his feet is a formidable height. I stand with my neck craned back, saving, `Yes I would. No it isn't.'
He says, 'I'll phone you in the morning before I tell Howard, just to check.'
`Wassamatter? You don't trust me?'
He hugs me. I disappear momentarily inside his vast anorak. He goes out in to the night saying, `You'd do that?'
I go to bed wondering how the day has taken such an unexpected turn. It seemed so perfectly sorted out this afternoon. Slipping in the Snoo Wilson film between Richard III and the Wright/Barnes slot.
Wonder what I'll feel like in the morning.
Wednesday i February
I wake. Someone is kneeling very gently on my forehead. From the inside. I sit up. I lie down again. Stay very still. A distant memory trudging through the slushy grey paddy-fields. Suddenly something much worse than the hangover. Sit bolt upright. What have I done? Struggle downstairs, head lolling, feet flopping.
Phone Mal nervously: `Mal?'
'Tony!'
`How are you this morning?'
'Fine. You?'
`Oh, a little shaky. Listen uhm . .
Long pause. I can hear him smiling. He says, 'Yes?'
`Uhm ... I think it was the gun oil talking.'
He takes it very well, says, `We're back to square one, then. I've got to do some serious thinking over the next few days.'
Thursday 2 February
G A R R I C K CLUB A literary lunch. I've been approached by Antony Harwood of Chatto & Windus to write and illustrate a book on the next part I play. I've told him about Richard III and he thinks this might be ideal. Also present at lunch is Giles Gordon, who is to be my literary agent.
I agree to the book in principle, but say I won't go ahead with it unless the production is a success. They agree to wait until after it opens. A man comes*into the dining-room to tell us that the head of Chatto is by chance lunching here today as well, and would like to say hello. Carmen Callil. Her name is spoken with fear and respect in the literary world. Australian, feminist, friend to Germaine Greer. In the Garrick, women are still barred from some of the rooms at lunchtime, including this dining-room. I am warned she could therefore be at her most fearsome today. We hurry to her call.
She turns out to be small, dark, attractive, not much older than me, not at all frightening-looking. But nevertheless Giles and Antony both stand with their hands behind their backs like schoolboys. This makes me nervous, so I stand to attention.
They discuss a possible schedule for the book: Giles wants it brought out within two months of delivery to catch some of the Stratford trade. This does make Carmen quite aggressive. `Two months! You know perfectly well that's impossible, Giles. I wouldn't insult the author by rushing it through like that. D'you think any of the others would? Faber, Methuen?'
`Here is Methuen,' said Giles, `let's ask him.'
We all turn round to find a man with a large beard sitting behind us reading. He looks up and smiles as if to say, `It's all right, I wasn't listening.'
Friday 3 February
Jim brings me back an R S C leaflet from Merchant rehearsals. Strange to see Richard III in print and to see my life mapped out until September. The first preview is on my birthday, 14 June, which must be a good sign.
Sunday 5 February
`The World at War' on telly; an episode called `Inside the Third Reich'. A lot of footage I hadn't seen before. Goebbels seen doing some spectacular rabble-rousing. He is crippled and would have been a good model for Richard III if I was going for a rodent. Wish I'd kept a closer watch on this series. I've missed the one on Mussolini, who's a better, bull-like model. Hitler himself seems too obvious, but there are interesting shots of him looking old and tired towards the end. A secretary describes him after the defeat in Russia - sitting still, staring at the floor. This could be useful for the last movement of the play. I've been wondering what new note I could hit as Richard starts to lose his grip. The answer could be a stillness, a manic-depressive slump. Could pay off well for the final oration to the soldiers. He begins slo
wly, quietly, halting. It looks like he's forgotten his words, he's not going to make it. Then gradually we see the old power and charisma flooding back and the speech becomes awesome - Hitlerian.
From Mein Kampf: `If we cannot conquer we will drag the world into destruction.'
From Richard III: `March on! Join bravely. Let us to it pell-mell - If not to Heaven, then hand in hand to hell!'
After the failed assassination attempt they filmed the executions of the conspirators (particularly gruesome - they were hung with piano wire from meat hooks) for Hitler to watch on his own. Richard must do something equally kinky with Hastings' head.
Also footage of the mentally ill whom the Reich tried to eliminate as part of their programme to purify the race. Richard's appearance should make you gasp like these faces. Perhaps ears are the answer to the make-up. Can make the face look very odd and lopsided, and would hardly interfere with the acting.
Mal rings to say he's decided to do the season. Great relief.
Monday 6 February
Charlotte has arranged two research trips for the next two days: today to a spastics' work centre, tomorrow to a disabled games group.
Driving to pick her up in Chiswick, a strange coincidence: I round the corner to see a badly disabled man struggling along the pavement, his walk a weaving dance. I screech to a halt, whip out my sketch pad and, from my rear-view mirror, begin drawing furiously. A woman standing at a bus stop bends down and peers into my car suspiciously. I fumble for my A-Z and disguise my sketch within it, while pretending to be lost. The disabled man passes. I sketch him from behind as he struggles on. Looks rather like the crippled man in Satyricon. The effort of walking is so extreme that it's as if the body is all disconnected. He has to sit on a low wall to rest. An attractive blonde woman passes him. He says something and reaches for her. She breaks into a little run.