Q and A with Patrick Stewart, who plays Claudius and The Ghost in Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Courtyard Theatre.
You've worked with RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran before on Antony and Cleopatra. Are you enjoying working with him again on Hamlet?
I've been looking forward to doing something again with Greg since Antony and Cleopatra two years ago. I think we have a very open and lively, creative relationship and Greg is relaxed and encouraging about experimentation and putting a different, rather than conventional, spin on things. And his enthusiasm for the work is infectious and energising, and he's also so well prepared for each rehearsal. I was very hopeful we would work together again. I've wanted to play Claudius on stage for years and years. I've pitched myself to other directors but never had any success in getting myself cast but Greg, I'm delighted to say, was happy to take me onboard this production and I'm enjoying it immensely.
As well as Claudius, you are also playing the ghost. How are you approaching playing the two roles?
In my first season at Stratford in 1966, the third role I performed was The Player King in Peter Hall and David Warner's Hamlet and in that production Brewster Mason doubled as the Ghost and Claudius and it made absolute sense to me. Over the years, the more I've thought about it, the more it's seemed like the natural thing to do. They're not twins but they're brothers and there ought to be similarities, even though Hamlet makes a lot of fuss about how different they are. I have two brothers and we were very similar - our gestures, our inflections, the way we spoke and so forth - unmistakably brothers. I think it's invaluable when the doubling is possible. It doesn't create too many problems. It's ideal to have a similarity while at the same time exploring the contrasts.
What other memories do you have of performing in Peter Hall's Hamlet in 1966?
That is the only other time that I've been in Hamlet on stage. I played Claudius in the BBC's Hamlet with Derek Jacobi 28 years ago. The Peter Hall Hamlet was in its second revival. It had opened in Stratford and transferred to London where I saw it and was overwhelmed by it. I had never seen acting of that character before - so naturalistic, so spontaneous and intelligent, and I remember saying afterwards - I wanted to work for this company more than anything else in the world. Well some six months later I was indeed in a rehearsal room rehearsing two very small roles in Henry IV Parts I and II - Walter Blunt and Lord Mowbury - and then I took over the role of the Player King opposite John Normington as the Player Queen. I remember Peter Hall said I'm going to give you one rehearsal - I have no more time, and he brought me into the conference hall, (which is now the Swan) and gave me an hour's rehearsal on the Pyrrhus speech. I had my script with me and as he talked, I kept making notes in my script. When the hour was over I found that I'd underlined or marked practically every word in the speech. I remember thinking - this is impossible - How can I bring into this one speech all these thoughts and ideas? It was a challenge throughout that season to try and bring all those different elements that Peter had seen in the Pyrrhus speech into action.
And I enjoyed being on stage with David Warner who was my hero. I was only twenty five, and I think that David was a year younger. In every way his Hamlet spoke to me. I'd never before thought of Shakespeare as active and modern before I saw David's interpretation of Hamlet. In fact, even though we have both grown older, and David Warner and I used to see one other in Los Angeles because we were near neighbours when I lived there, and he did a very famous episode of Star Trek - always for me there will be a part of him that will be forever Hamlet. I was so excited to do the Pyhrrus speech to him.
My strongest recollection was how frightening and potent Brewster Mason was as Claudius. I remember Brewster coming down the steps of the throne - with me lying on the floor as the Player King - watching his fingers twitching with a suppressed violence inside him which was very impressive. We're doing it a little differently. Looking back I feel really proud to be even modestly connected to that production.
What does Shakespeare mean to you? Is there something special about performing it in Stratford-upon-Avon with the RSC?
I have loved Shakespeare all my life. I started reading Shakespeare in my teens and listening to him on the radio. I didn't actually see any Shakespeare until I was sixteen. I went to London and saw Julius Caesar at the Old Vic. But it became, and I don't quite know how it happened, an important part of my life. And when I became a professional actor, all I wanted to do was classical theatre. And my ambition, from the day I left drama school was to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Or, as it was then, the Stratford Memorial Theatre Company. But when I started seeing the work that Peter Hall was doing here - The Wars of the Roses and Hamlet - I knew that this was the place I had to be. But it took nearly three years before I could get myself an audition. I was finally auditioned one Sunday night in November in the main house by Peter Hall, John Barton and Maurice Daniels, who was head of casting in those days, and they invited me to come for the season. It was thrilling for me. I had finally arrived in the place I always wanted to be. So we jump forward forty years and I've spent seventeen years living in Los Angeles largely doing film and television, whilst all that time knowing that there's only one place I really wanted to be which is where we are now. So when I returned to England four or five years ago my main objective was to get back into this company if they would have me. And luckily I got to know Greg (Doran) just socially first of all when he was directing Othello with Antony Sher and liked him very much. And it was through Greg's invitation that I came back to the company.
In your experience, what is the difference between acting on stage and on film?
It is very much the same in that you are trying to create a world of truth. Other than that it is a matter of scale and proportion. For years I've been convinced that the stage communicates action and film communicates thought. And the best film actors I know are those whose thinking is interesting. The camera can film thoughts. That's the main difference. I love both. I love film acting but it can never ever provide the personal satisfaction and the excitement of stepping out each night in front of a brand new audience to tell the story in real time when you're in charge of what you do.
Can you tell us something about your recent experience of performing the lead role in Rupert Goold's hugely successful production of Macbeth?
These past three years have been the best years of my life. It began with Antony and Cleopatra and The Tempest here in Stratford and London during the RSC's Complete Works Festival in 2006. I was then invited to Chichester to do Macbeth with Rupert Goold who I met when he directed The Tempest. This was followed by my playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night - a role I'd wanted to do all my life - and now I'm rehearsing Hamlet. The Macbeth, which we rehearsed in an upstairs room in Soho, London and played in the Minerva in Chichester was in every way quite a modest production in the beginning. But it quickly acquired an extraordinary fame as a radical version of the play with strong performances and a strong company and we were asked to transfer to London which was a huge satisfaction. We performed for ten sell out weeks at the Gielgud and while we were there, the invitation to come to the Brooklyn Academy of Music came through. We went to Brooklyn, and were sold out before the play opened and were fortunate to get extraordinary reviews from the New York critics. As a result of so many people wanting to see the production but not being able to get hold of a ticket - and it not being possible to extend at BAM - we transferred to Broadway for eight sell-out weeks which resulted in six Tony nominations for the production. So the journey from that rehearsal room in Soho to Broadway was unexpected and extraordinary. In the middle of such a grand period of my working life that production was a stand out.
Are you looking forward to working in the Courtyard Theatre for the first time?
I'm looking forward very much to the new experience of the Courtyard. It is of course similar to the Swan but because of its scale it's not really the same at all. I'm excited about it. I've done a couple of talk back sessions on that stage and I liked being there. I felt very comfortable and it's another adventure at the same time.
How have Hamlet rehearsals gone so far?
We've spent three weeks of table work with the whole company sitting around talking about the play, analysing it line by line, word by word, every line being put into our own words, nobody reading their own roles so that every member of the company gets to contribute. Very democratic. And now we're putting it on its feet. Everything I've seen and heard has been terrifically promising and quite exciting. I'm looking forward to spending my summer and half the winter with the words of this masterpiece in my mouth and in my ears. For the first time ever with the RSC I'm only doing one play which I'm looking forward to because the last year has been really intense, doing Macbeth every night. In the end we did about 230 performances which is a lot for that play. So I'm looking forward to not having to carry the play - this time it's David Tennant's responsibility - and yet to have two roles which I think will be interesting to play and some time off which I haven't had much of for the last few years. I've just moved into a house which I've been renovating for the past three years, and there's still a lot to be done. I'm looking forward to getting my home the way I want it. And, hopefully, Claudius and The Ghost the way I want them.
