Talking Shakespeare Neljä (Four)

Dense, Juicy, Layered

David Oyelowo, speaking from Los Angeles, remembered a dusty (and intimidating) copy of Shakespeare’s plays in his family’s Islington council flat. He was later surprised to discover Kenneth Branagh’s film of Henry V was also written by Shakespeare, having watched it as a movie, not caring about the language. The real breakthrough for David, though, was seeing a live production at the National Theatre – the visceral production of Robert Lapage’s mudbath Midsummer Night’s Dream with Timothy Spall as Bottom. David started acting accidentally when he tried to impress a girl by joining a youth theatre and then standing in when another young actor couldn’t attend because of a tube strike. His Theatre Studies teacher, Jill Foster, encouraged him to consider acting as a profession and helped David audition (successfully) for LAMDA. His father fully expected him to “get it out of his system” when he was given small roles (seven lines in Antony and Cleopatra) at the Royal Shakespeare Company. But the bug had bitten and seeing someone like Mark Rylance in his fourth incarnation of Hamlet at The Globe deliver the language with “dexterity, musculariy and elasticity” further reinforced David’s conviction that Shakespeare is the “Everest of Acting… so dense, so juicy, so layered.” 

Greg Doran of the Royal Shakespeare Talking Shakespeare with David Oyelowo, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen

Vulnerability and Frailty

He gave a very funny account of getting the role of Henry VI and loved “the journey” of his time on Michael Boyd’s production but became weary of the “pioneer” emphasis placed on him by the media wanting to interview him about being the first black actor at the RSC to play an English king. He detected a similarity between Dr Martin Luther King in the movie Selma and Henry VI where the abiding motivation for both characters, as he played them, was religious faith, leading to vulnerability and frailty. David felt that both MLK and Henry VI fully expected everyone around them to be imbued with the same values and were both destabilised when the. His other major Shakespeare role was playing Othello with Daniel Craig and Rachel Brosnahan (as Iago and Desdemona) in an intimate production in New York in 2015. Like Greg Doran, I hope he can be tempted away from Hollywood for more UK stage work in the future.

Selection of David Oyelowo roles: as Henry VI, Othello, Orlando in As You Like It and the movie Selma

Queen Helen

Helen Mirren is a multiple award winner: she has carried home an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy and has famously played a line of queens: Queen Margaret in the Henry VI trilogy; and on TV and film: Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. She also has the distinction of playing Cleopatra three times, first at the National Youth Theatre in 1963 and then later playing opposite Michael Gambon (1982) and Alan Rickman (1998) as her Antonys. I was lucky to see the 1982 Adrian Noble production (in The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon) and for me it became a benchmark production of how epic plays can be staged in small spaces. Helen’s early memories of working at the RSC include watching the generous Ian Richardson from the wings in Coriolanus.  She reminisced about working (warily) with the mercurial Nicol Williamson (on both stage and in the film Excalibur) and played Lady Anne, Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona and Ophelia to Alan Howard’s Hamlet. She also vividly recounted the touring production of Troilus and Cressida which many argued brought the play back into favour in modern times and she described working with Peter Brook in the legendary project Conference of the Birds which toured the Saharan regions of Africa in 1979.

Helen Mirren as Cleopatra (three times), Cressida, Prospera in The Tempest and Rosalind in As You Like It

Sir Ian ("You shall not pass....")

Ian McKellen has had recent experience of remembering his distinguished acting career as part of his touring one-man show which raised considerable funds for small venues throughout the UK. (Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and You.) With Greg Doran he shared early memories of seeing and loving theatre and getting involved in amateur and school productions. He always thought Shakespeare seemed fun and enjoyed travelling down from Bolton for school Shakespeare camps in Stratford-upon-Avon. He saw Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft and Charles Laughton in their prime (but also confessed to sleeping through Olivier’s Corialanus – it was a school trip, after all.) At Cambridge he joined the Marlowe Society and came under the influence of George Rylands who has mentored many of today’s great theatre directors as well as John Barton who persuaded young McKellen he could play the ancient Justice Shallow in Henry IV Part Two. He gave a moving account of working at Nottingham Playhouse with Tyrone Guthrie who gave McKellen confidence about becoming an actor and credits Maggie Smith with recommending him to Olivier to join the Old Vic. He was waspish about Franco Zefirelli and had insights into the impact of Olivier and of touring Shakespeare in the provinces and abroad with Prospect Theatre. I’ve seen many of his stage performances and been lucky to meet him both backstage after Waiting for Godot and at a UK showing of the film Gods and Monsters at Bradford’s Pictureville Cinema. Always gracious and always energetic, with a significant place in popular film history with his portrayals of Magneto and Gandalf, Sir Ian continues to be an astonishing creative force for good in the UK.

Ian McKellen as Romeo, Macbeth, Toby Belch in Twelfth Night (which I saw in Doncaster!), Coriolanus, Richard III, King Lear (twice) and Prospero in The Tempest at Leeds Playhouse

Snowdrops and Pancakes

Raindrops on roses

If I were to rank order Maria von Trapp’s list from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s My Favourite Things I would place at the top:

Silver white Winters that melt into Springs

….which is why it has been lovely this past week to to see snowdrops on our walks – appearing, like magic, in the week when I also discovered a new way to make pancakes. Yes, Shrove Tuesday, it must be the start of Lent:

“And every man and maide doe take their turne,

And tosse their Pancakes up for feare they burne.”

(proverb from 1619)

Well, this year, no Pancake Bell summoned me to be “shriven” (absolved of my sins through confession) but I still appreciated the symbols:

• Eggs (creation, fertility, eternity, the world itself)
• Salt (purification, seasoning and wholesomeness)
• Flour (the staff of life, domestic frugality and hard work)
• Milk (purity, abundance, the primal food)

and tried a new thing (actually a medieval trick) of gradually making a paste with everything except the egg whites and then folding the whisked egg whites gently into the paste…. Reader, I made them. Fluffy, or what? The collage above includes a picture of one of the more well-done ones (As I Like It) and includes a dollop of stewed rhubarb (cos I is from Yorkshire) and some coconut yoghurt (cos I is a bit tropical.) Oh, and look, there’s the latest completed puzzle. Oh, and there’s me having had my first Covid-19 vaccination…. And after all these months (the first recorded Covid cases in the UK were identified in York on January 31st 2020) I reflect that I have spent the greatest part of the year in the company of one person, so under the collage is one of My Favourite Poems in tribute….

A Marriage

by Michael Blumenthal 

You are holding up a ceiling

with both arms. It is very heavy,

but you must hold it up, or else

it will fall down on you. Your arms                                           are tired, terribly tired,

and, as the day goes on, it feels

as if either your arms or the ceiling

will soon collapse.

But then

unexpectedly,

something wonderful happens:

Someone,

a man or a woman,

walks into the room

and holds their arms up

to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get

to take down your arms.

You feel the relief of respite,

the blood flowing back

to your fingers and arms.

And when your partner’s arms tire,

you hold up your own

to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this

for many years

without the house falling.

Top left, Michael Blumenthal

Delifresh Valentine

Give and take, prod and pull

Anne McClain (astronaut) has given good tips on living in (quarantined) close quarters:

• Communication. Listen attentively, respond, identify non-verbal signals, question, reflect, repeat….
• Leadership/followership. Accept responsibility whether you’re leading or following and present solutions not problems (Anne points out that a follower is actually a subordinate leader, contributing to the leader’s direction – and on the international space station everyone both leads and follows, a good tip for relationships – give and take, prod and pull)
• Self Care. No-one knows how to take care of yourself better than your very own self (as long as you take time to check what works for you: check regularly hygiene, sleep, fuel, body, mind and mood – and change if necessary.) Optimise strengths. Be open about weaknesses and feelings.
• Team Care. Demonstrate patience and respect. Encourage. Monitor stress, fatigue, sickness, supplies, resources, workload. Volunteer. Share credit. Take blame.
• Group Living. Cooperate, don’t compete. Keep calm in conflict. Take accountability and give praise freely.

Walk. Love. Limit the News.

In my first post this year, I set myself the three resolutions in the subheading above. I will now add a fourth. For 34 years of marriage Sally and I have shared “KP” (as we call it, from White Christmas…. Kitchen patrol….) and had our own particular dishes but cooked independently for 99.9% of the time because we (me, to be honest) didn’t follow Anne McClain’s advice and I like total control when I am Chief Chef. But in honour of 2021’s Valentine’s Day we invested in a box of fresh local produce from Delifresh with recipe cards (and online video training) to cook a 3-course Valentine’s dinner together. Together! Cooperating, like Anne McClain recommends for astronauts on the international space station.... And it worked – restaurant-quality ingredients and techniques resulted in hearty portions, including leftovers for the next day. For the first time in 60 years I helped make fondant potatoes! So…. Walk. Love, Limit the News. And…. Cooperate in the kitchen. Never too old to learn new tricks.

Changing Landscapes

More and more people I know are being vaccinated against Covid-19. I’m hoping to be jabbed before the end of March at the latest. I wonder what will change when we are living with Covid in a vaccinated world? I don’t think walking will stop. I’d never have guessed that the same series of walks over and over again could remain interesting but the changing mist and low cloud, changing frost and icy conditions, changing skies and winter light seem endlessly fascinating. A perfect ingredient in our astronaut Self Care.

Then welcome, Winter

Hunkering down with Call My Agent and It's A Sin

Winter's costs and benefits

Although this year’s Winter has not included usual highlights like sitting by roaring fires in stately homes, getting a beer at a Christmas market, singing carols in the cloisters at Fountains Abbey or solving Murder Mysteries on New Year’s Eve, snow has still fallen appropriately, woolly clothes have been wrapped around, mulled wine has been glugged and boots have crunched on icy meadows. And I thank the Winter stars for the universe’s permission to savour stodgy pudding and custard at this time of year. I manage to stem the flow of inner tears when our weekly posh takeaway from La Rue restaurant in Saltaire doesn’t include a sponge pud as a dessert choice on their menu. But then I’m only human. Winter has costs but benefits too – hunkering down with movies and box sets, curtains shut, anticipating that Spring will come. Carpe diem.

Winter's Beauty
by W H Davies

Is it not fine to walk in Spring,
When leaves are born, and hear birds sing?
And when they lose their singing powers,
In Summer, watch the bees at flowers?
Is it not fine, when Summer's past,
To have the leaves, no longer fast,
Biting my heel where'er I go,
Or dancing lightly on my toe?
Now Winter's here and rivers freeze;
As I walk out I see the trees,
Wherein the pretty squirrels sleep,
All standing in the snow so deep:
And every twig, however small,
Is blossomed white and beautiful.
Then welcome, Winter, with thy power
To make this tree a big white flower;
To make this tree a lovely sight,
With fifty brown arms draped in white,
While thousands of small fingers show
In soft white gloves of purest snow.

One tree, Four Seasons.... (plus the real Frankie Valli and the movie-acting Four Seasons from Jersey Boys)