The desire to express
January 12, 2012
Two blogs in as many days? I'd actually like to settle down with a book, but can't suppress the desire to express.
I've just read an interview with Emily Watson in Sunday's Observer. I knew Emily when I was on the faculty of her drama school before I flounced out over some minor disagreement. Actually I couldn't take the stress of combining it and several other things with a full time career as an actor so I took a cue to exit, but they probably saw it as a bit of a tantrum.
I took with me a 10x8 of Emily and commended her to my (then) agent as an actress with terrific potential. The first and only time I've ever done that. My agent declined, and fate conspired with Emily's star quality talent to build her an amazing career. And now this, Emily! You are quoted as saying that when you moved from theatre (at the RSC, no less) to film you went from 'messing about' to 'actual acting'. Emily! How could you! Now I am having a tantrum.
I can say with some conviction that the last season and this one at the RSC have presented me some of the most demanding acting challenges of a career across all media.
Funnily enough I've just watched a cable repeat (alerted by a txt from my daughter) of an episode in a hit series I made some years ago. It was good. I was very comfortable with how good it was, actually. Everything looked well judged and quite amusing. But I do remember after one day's filming... having been driven home in a limousine after putting a few minutes of an episode in the can... I do remember saying to my wife I thought I was doing some of my best work that - worryingly - felt like a total breeze. That couldn't be right. 'For God's sake don't tell anybody,' I said. I remember wondering if good work could really come out that easy.
But this work doesn't come easy. The rehearsal and performance schedule is quite demanding. Towards the end of last season we did nine weeks of twelve-and-a- half hour days, six days a week. I seem to be forever wondering if I am ass or artist; questioning everything in a permanent state of wonder.
The challenges have to be made enjoyable, but they're certainly not 'messing about'. In Cardenio, for instance there was the essential task of working out, clarifying and realising for the audience my own character's journey while unselfishly progressing the story. In City Madam, the challenge to be very funny while at the same time properly serving the unfolding plot. Then Marat/Sade was utterly testing and felt like punishment for all the satisfaction I'd had in my career to date. Now the disconcerting challenge of having to (all at once) come up with three freshly defining interpretations of roles familiar to many of my audience. This job is, of course, what I most want to do in the world, but it is - for sure - demanding of both skill and stamina.
At my age, though, I don't really want things to be easy - I need this testing environment to keep me alive!
Photo: Stressful times on Marat/Sade!
(The What Country Friends is This? plays are; The Tempest, Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors, and are part of the RSC's World Shakespeare Festival)
by Nick Day
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