The new lion
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Stratford-upon-Avon is an enclosed community
like a monastery (not entirely like a monastery) in which actors and
actresses get obsessed with their own performances, their own productions and
think a lot about Shakespeare. The peace of the town, apart from the quacking
ducks on the Avon, does aid the concentration wonderfully.
Next Tuesday will be Stratford's biggest night
of the year. It can also be said in passing it will be the most important night
of the British theatre year. Peter Brook, returning to the RSC theatre after an
absence of seven years, unveils his new production of Antony and
Cleopatra, with Alan Howard as Antony and Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra.
There seems to be a world interest in the
event. At the dress rehearsal this week to which photographers had been bidden
(and told they could not publish until next Wednesday morning) there were
nearly 50 cameramen laden with hardware occupying the first two rows of the
stalls. Lord Snowden was crowded into a corner.
After dying in the arms of Glenda Jackson, Alan
Howard arrived for a gin-and-tonic at the end of an extra rehearsal. Miss
Jackson arrived and I gave her a kiss and then wondered seriously whether I
should have. You never know with Miss Jackson.
Howard is, as someone said the other day, the
new lion of the English stage. In 1976 and 1977 he won awards as best actor of
the year for his performances as Prince Hal, Henry V and Henry VI and
Coriolanus. There is astonishing fire and strength in his acting. Irving Wardle
in The Times called his voice "that trumpet which is the most thrilling sound
at present to be heard on the English stage." |
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In conversation it is sometimes difficult to hear
that voice. He is quiet and diffident and at times hesitant. Physically the
most striking features are the burning brown eyes which are even more
noticeable when he takes off his spectacles to be photographed. He was wearing
blue denims and white leather boots. He smoked carefully through a cigarette
holder.
He last worked with Brook seven years ago in the
celebrated Midsummer Night's Dream (Oberon/Theseus). Working with Brook?
I said he seemed fairly gentle. "Yes, he does have a gentle, sensitive side but
there is plenty of the opposite in him as well. Basically, sensitivity
increases the number of colours on the palette and this often creates a very
complicated personality.
"He is a many-faceted creature."
Howard admitted he had never seen Antony and
Cleopatra on the stage. "I saw Charlton Heston in that picture
once.
"It is an amazing play and interesting to do
alongside Coriolanus. They were the last two tragedies Shakespeare wrote
and some say the hardest to pull off.
"T.S. Eliot said Hamlet might be the most
'interesting' of the tragedies but Coriolanus and Antony and
Cleopatra were probably his highest artistic success."
The RSC is fielding very much an 'A' team in support
of Jackson and Howard. Patrick Stewart is Enobarbus, Jonathan Pryce is Octavius
Caesar, Paul Brooke Lepidus, Paola Dionisotti is Charmian, Marjorie Bland
Octavia.
Miss Bland, currently having a highly successful
Stratford season, is a shade acerbic about Mr Brook: "He encourages you to
express your ideas and this gives you confidence but he's in control. He
encourages the group but there's no doubt who the leader of the group
is."
Sydney Edwards and Michael Owen
London Evening Standard, 6.10.78.