US customs always scare me. I feel I’m going to be marched off to a side room, and grilled. Maybe because this did actually happen a couple of years ago. Never knew why. Something about my fingerprints not registering properly on the pad.
But the official today, a young lady, was friendly. When she learned what I was here to do, she said:
‘Shakespeare! So – do you sing and dance too?’
I laughed. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘And how long are you here for?’
‘Six weeks.’
‘Six weeks. That’s long! Are you married?’
‘Yes – to that gentleman over there.’
She was cool as could be: ‘Oh good. Otherwise, I’d be worried for you.’
Our apartment is in Brooklyn, not far from BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), in an area called Dumbo (which stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). It’s one of those districts in big cities which are being converted from industrial to residential, with warehouses transformed into trendy apartment blocks. We’re in one of those, on the top floor, with our own roof terrace above. Big airy rooms, which delight me, and with views across the water to Manhattan. You can see the Empire State Building from one angle, and the new Freedom Tower (built on the footprint of the World Trade Center) from another.
We were about to settle down into our new home when we remembered, unhappily, that we’d agreed to do an interview with the New Yorker this evening – it had to be today, because of their deadline. So we caught a cab to a nearby restaurant, where the journalist was waiting. She was from England originally, and told me that she had once slept on a cold stretch of Barbican pavement overnight, queuing to see Richard III. Said it was worth it. Talking about Falstaff, she asked if I saw any resemblance to Donald Trump?
I laughed. ‘Well… Falstaff has vulnerability and therefore charm, Trump has neither… Falstaff has no status, or just an illusionary status, while Trump’s status is real, built on big money… what else?… they’re both bullies, both clownish…’
‘That’s a question we’re asking in America,’ she said; ‘Is Trump just a clown, or is he a serious threat?’
I turned to Greg: ‘Maybe we should ask Wigs to restyle my look while we’re here, and give me a big orange comb-over.’
Friday 25 March
BAM.
Beautiful, beloved, battered old BAM.
Well, that’s the auditorium.
Backstage, things were tougher.
Our set only just fits onstage, so there’s hardly any wing space, and no route round the back. You have to go understage to cross from one side to the other. Lots of stairs. Lots more up to my dressing room. Lots of panting by me.
They’ve given me a second dressing room on stage level. It’s tiny, with a loo, and has an interesting history. In 2008, Elaine Stritch did Endgame here, with John Turturro also in the cast. (Apparently in rehearsals, she would shout, in those famous rasping tones, ‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck this play is about? I’ll tell you one thing, Beckett sure must’ve hated actors.’) Anyway, she couldn’t handle all the stairs either, so asked if the toilet for the disabled could be converted into a dressing room. It’s now become known as the Elaine Stritch Suite.
I think I’ll probably spend most of the performance down here, and only use the other one before and after the show, and during the interval. Talked it through with my dresser, Ken Brown. Mid-fifties, tall, relaxed, a real Broadway pro: he’s Nathan Lane’s regular dresser.
They were running late onstage, so I settled into my main dressing room upstairs, spreading out my make-up on one of the tables, while Greg sat at the opposite one (which David Tennant uses when Richard II is on), opened his iPad and started work on RSC correspondence. Then I realised that my mirror only had light bulbs along the top, and not all round, which you need if you’re doing a complicated make-up. Ben Tyremen said he’d get Elecs to improvise something.
I went to the loo, and when I got back, I said to Ken, ‘Any news on those lights?’
‘Your assistant has gone to chase them up,’ he replied, pointing to where Greg had been sitting.
I said, ‘Ken, sorry, but I’d better explain something – that guy, Greg, is not my assistant. He is, in rising order of importance, the director of all these productions, the Artistic Director of the RSC, and my husband.’
Ken didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Oh. Well. Good thing you told me now.’
Saturday 26 March
The show – Part I – went very well. A packed house. (The whole run is already sold out.) The front row was startlingly close, while the people at the back seemed pretty far away. Yet the general feeling was of intimacy. Which was excellent for Falstaff’s chats to the audience. They took to him very warmly indeed, I’m happy to say.
Tuesday 29 March
I’ve got a few days off, while Henry V comes into the repertoire, and then Richard II restarts the cycle again.
We went to the Freedom Tower. Arriving at Ground Zero (do they still call it that?), one of the first things we saw was the famous Survivor Tree – the Callery pear tree, which, although badly damaged on 9/11, was taken away, healed, and then replanted here. This morning it was in full white blossom, while all the surrounding trees were still bare. I don’t know why the story of a tree should be so moving, but it is. Nature surviving Man’s madness.
We visited the Museum. What to say? It reminded me of the one at Hiroshima. The design is simple and unsensational, yet some of the exhibits – here today was a wrecked New York fire engine, and twisted lengths of metal – start to look like a kind of art installation, with a terrible beauty. Which makes you feel sick.
Then we went into the Freedom Tower, and up to the observation deck on the 102nd floor. Lots of touristy shops, and huge crowds thronging round the 360-degree platform, pressed to the windows, endlessly photographing themselves with New York behind.
When we finally jostled our way to the surface of one window, and looked down at the city below, where even the skyscrapers looked tiny, I remembered my first ever night in New York, in 1997. Greg brought Deborah Findlay and me here (we had just arrived to open Stanley on Broadway), to the Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. I had to creep slowly, step by step, to the window that evening, because the drop was so far down, so unnatural, so frightening. Today there were the added images of people having to dive into it, rather than burn alive.
We had little appetite for lunch, but we’d booked a table in the restaurant on this same level. As we sat there, Greg pointed to the view and became emotional: ‘I’d never really thought about it, but there must have been people working here that day, who watched the planes coming along the Hudson – there, right there – coming straight at them, and thought – what? – it was some kind of stunt?… until the last moment.’
Afterwards, back on street level, he said, ‘Well, I’m glad we came today, but I don’t think I ever want to be here again.’
In the cab back to Dumbo, the driver – a young black man – said, ‘If Trump wins, it’s gonna be the start of World War III.’
Friday 30 March
Greg has taken over the front room in our apartment, preparing for Shakespeare Live!, the huge gala which the BBC will broadcast from the RST in Stratford on 23 April. Greg conceived the whole show, wooed all the big stars, and is now writing the links between the acts, and even a Hamlet sketch. Meanwhile, I was consigned to the back room, for Lear-learning. Here I could see into the various apartments of the block opposite (New York is a city of voyeurs), very different from my other Lear-learning views, like of the big field in Stratford or the harbour in Hong Kong. As I paced around, saying Lear’s lines, I heard Falstaff’s voice – plummy and fleshy – coming out. The two were still up there, sharing digs in my head, except now the Fat Knight was trying to shove the Mad King out of the way. ‘Fuck off,’ I said aloud to Falstaff, in my position as referee.
At the theatre, during the breaks between my scenes, I sit in the Elaine Stritch Suite, reading John Lahr’s Joy Ride. A great collection of theatre essays, from when Lahr had a column in the New Yorker.
Surprised to find one on John Barton holding a Shakespeare workshop at BAM. Brought back memories of attending several of these classes in Stratford: the feeling of learning much wisdom, taught in very a simple way. It’s good to get a refresher course now.
Here’s John on Shakespeare’s dynamic, ever-changing games with the conflicts in his characters’ minds: ‘If you don’t think, communicate, play with the antitheses, a great deal of Shakespeare becomes difficult to follow… The trap is if you look for the emotional truth, you may not find the argument, but if you find the argument, you may find the character.’ Shakespeare’s dramaturgy is built on ‘jagged contradictions and the confounding of surprise’. John quotes Richard II: ‘Set the word itself / Against the word.’
‘Jagged contradictions’ – that’s one of the most important things to embrace when playing Shakespeare’s roles (Macbeth is a good example – he’s both ambitious and he’s not), because it’s one of the most important truths about ourselves: we don’t operate in straight lines.
Thursday 31 March
Lear-learning. Worked on Act Three, Scene Six, where, during the storm, Lear and the others have found refuge in some kind of barn or outhouse on Gloucester’s property. Lear imagines he’s putting his daughters on trial, and forces Poor Tom, Kent and the Fool to be his fellow judges.
The scene exists in the Quarto, but is heavily cut in the Folio. God knows why. It’s one of the best, craziest bits in the play. For instance:
FOOL: Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?
LEAR: She cannot deny it.
FOOL: Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint stool.
Friday 1 April
‘Shove over, your most royal fucking majesty,’ Falstaff said to Lear this morning, as I changed scripts on my work table.
The press weekend for our King and Country season starts tonight with Richard II, and then tomorrow it’s the Henry IVs, matinee and evening – so I have to revise all my lines in both parts.
An immensely boring task.
Evening. Richard II got us off to a great start, completely fresh-minted, and David Tennant was as moving as ever. It struck me that the play tells the same story as Lear: a king, with a divine sense of omnipotence, becomes a man, learning awareness and humility. Afterwards, I had the pleasure of going to my dressing room – now David’s – as an audience member, and found Benedict Cumberbatch visiting too. So I eavesdropped on two famous Hamlets, comparing notes. David said, ‘That part was killing me’, and Benedict said, ‘I’m quite keen to do it again.’
Saturday 2 April
The Henries: Part I went terrifically well, as good as we’ve ever done it, and Part II was, as ever, a trickier, harder-going ride.
Sunday 3 April
BAM had chosen today, with Henry V playing this afternoon, as their big gala day. So it began with a lunch in BAM’s bigger building, the Opera House. Some of their major sponsors were hosting different tables, and we were on the Spielvogels’ (our friends who introduced us to Edward Albee). Barbaralee was as irrepressible as ever. She kept whispering to me things like: ‘Greg must talk to that woman – she’s J.P Morgan – and that one there, in the red scarf, he absolutely must talk to her – she’s Chase Manhattan!’ Carl was in more sober mood. He’d been Bill Clinton’s Ambassador to the Slovak Republic, and now they were major Hillary supporters. I asked him about the election. He said, ‘Look, Trump might win the Republican nomination, but never the Presidency.’ He had only one word for him: ‘Embarrassing.’ Overhearing us, a lady leaned over – a real Manhatten dowager – and said, ‘The hair is the giveaway. It proves that either he has no advisers, or they’re not allowed to do any advising. Like – “Excuse me, sir, but you look ridiculous!”’
Also talked to James Shapiro, the Shakespeare scholar who’s having a big success with his latest book, 1606: The Year of Lear. I told him how much I was enjoying it, so much so that I forgave him for borrowing my signature title (Year of the King, Year of the Fat Knight). I said, ‘It’s okay, I’m sure we can settle out of court.’ He just laughed.
Then we all walked over to the Harvey Theatre at BAM proper, to see Henry V. It was in splendid shape. At the curtain call, the cast invited the rest of the company, who were in the audience – like David Tennant, myself and others – to join them onstage. Greg said it was terrific to see us all together at last.
Then we went back to the Opera House, for the real party. A lot of the younger actors had taken it very seriously – a New York Opening! – and turned out in their best: fantastic hairstyles, suits tailor-made in Hong Kong, all sorts of dazzling outfits. Greg said, ‘I love it when the kids dress up for things like this, I love it!’
I knew what he meant – this was a night they’d remember all their lives – but all I wanted to do was go back to the apartment, and watch a bit of telly with a glass of wine. Which we did, as soon as was decently possible.
Monday 4 April
By mid-afternoon, tomorrow’s New York Times appeared online, including their review of our shows. Greg said, ‘I know you don’t read reviews, but I don’t care, you’re listening to this.’ He then read it out. ‘A sweeping, superlative presentation of four history plays… The overall achievement is nothing short of magnificent.’ Of Falstaff, the critic (Charles Isherwood) says it’s ‘one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen’. I just felt relief, like Greg did after seeing his Dimbleby Lecture on TV: It was okay then.
Thursday 7 April
I fear we should’ve stayed in a hotel rather than apartment. When something goes wrong, there’s no front desk to call down to. At the moment, the electricity keeps cutting out, the temperature gauge is broken in the shower, and as for the television… well, it’s not really a television at all. One of the apartment’s owners is a film-maker, so there’s a vast screen covering a whole wall, and a projector that lowers from the ceiling. To use this system as a television, you need three remote controls and a degree in Advanced Science. Calling ourselves ‘the dumbos from Dumbo’, we’re constantly asking for help from Mary Reilly, officially BAM’s Director of Artist Services, in reality, a marvellous mama-figure, looking after all us actors. Mary says she’s going to hire an ordinary TV for the apartment while we’re here. We’ll be very happy with that.
Saturday 9 April
A special guest in the audience for today’s matinee of Part I. Harvey Lichtenstein. Together with Peter Brook, he helped to create the beautifully distressed auditorium here: the Majestic. Then he ran the theatre for thirty-two years, then he was its president, and then its namesake – it’s now called the Harvey. It was his eighty-seventh birthday today. At the curtain call, I made a little speech, saying what an honour it was for us, and invited the audience to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. As I raised my arms to cue them in, I realised I was going to have to lead the singing – tone-deaf me – and the whole thing would’ve been out of tune. Just in time, I spun round, and got the company to start the song.
Tuesday 12 April
To Broadway itself, to see a kosher Broadway musical, and they don’t come more kosher than this – Fiddler on the Roof.
A couple of years ago, we met Topol (who starred in the movie of Fiddler) at Chichester Festival Theatre. We were all there to see Frank Langella do Lear, and Topol told us that he was also preparing to play the part, in Israel.
In the cab tonight, Greg asked, ‘I wonder what “Howl, howl, howl” is in Hebrew?’
‘Oy yoy yoy,’ I suggested.
‘Well, for that matter,’ he said; ‘The whole play is one big “oy yoy yoy”.’
We also recalled taking Louis van Niekerk, the renowned South African actor, to see the Globe Theatre while it was being built. He stood on the stage, and spoke some of Lear, which he’d played in Afrikaans. ‘Howl, howl, howl’ was ‘Skreeu, skreeu, skreeu’.
‘That’s not a nice vowel, “eeu”,’ I said to Greg; ‘It’s tight and closed. We’re lucky to have the big, open, English “ow” – OWWWW.’
Fiddler was a bit underwhelming – I kept wanting to turn up the temperature – but I always find it thrilling to watch an all-singin’, all-dancin’ Broadway chorus in action, and I’m always affected by Jewish tunes and rituals. I’ve found little room for these things in my life, but they touch off childhood sensations which are tender and sweet.
Wednesday 13 April
A new daily routine is establishing itself. In the mornings, I do Lear-learning in one room, while Greg works on the Shakespeare gala in the other, and then we join together for lunch.
To the theatre again tonight. With David Tennant, to see The Crucible, directed by Ivo van Hove, doing another Arthur Miller play after his hit version of A View from the Bridge. This production may be most remembered for the fact that the second half began with a wolf, a real wolf (I think), walking onto the empty stage – unaccompanied – turning to look at the audience, who tittered nervously, and then walking off. Greg whispered to me, ‘If this show comes to London, Health and Safety will never allow it!’ Both he and I were puzzled by the witchcraft in the play being played as real – aside from the wolf, there were floating bodies, strange winds, shattering of windows, and neon lights crashing down from the ceiling. Miller’s play is about how pretend-witchcraft, invented by a group of schoolgirls, ends up causing horrific trouble for the adults in the town. A metaphor for the McCarthy witch-hunts in fifties America (when the play was written). But if the play’s witchcraft is real, then it’s like saying that McCarthy’s witch-hunts were justifiable: the prosecution of evil people by a good and honest state official. Surely that’s not what this production is saying? Or is the McCarthy context no longer relevant? And anyway, isn’t the play about human frailty, rather than supernatural force? Anyway, I was confused…
Friday 15 April
Of all the superstars in New York, who would seem the least likely to come to Shakespeare’s History Plays?
Bette Midler.
But she saw Richard II last night, and came round backstage afterwards.
I assumed it was because she possibly knew David Tennant. But no, she was in again tonight, to see Part I, and again came round.
As Ben Tyreman knocked on my dressing-room door and half-opened it, I glimpsed her in the corridor, chatting to some of the other actors:
‘…Well, my daughter is educated,’ she said with a self-deprecating smile, leaving unsaid: even if you think I’m not.
Then she came in, and poked my (fat suit’s) belly, before shaking hands. She was, as people always say of superstars, smaller than she seems in performance, and with a gentle, polite manner – addressing me as Mister Sher, and saying I was ‘marvellous’. She introduced me to her daughter, who is a Shakespeare fan, and had indeed organised their visit. They’re coming back next week to see the other plays. She checked that I would be playing Falstaff in Part II. ‘Oh yes,’ I said; ‘Nobody else gets their hands on this part!’
(Which made me wonder about how Barbra Streisand feels about Midler doing a revival of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway next year.)
We said goodbye, and she stepped back into the corridor. At that moment, Alex Hassell came out of the showers – wet and naked, except for a small towel round his waist. She didn’t bat an eyelid, just shook his hand and praised his performance.
Well, she did all those gigs in gay bathhouses during the 1980s…
Greg flew back home today, to do the gala, Shakespeare Live!
In the early evening, I was working at my desk when I heard several loud bangs outside, close by. In the UK, if you hear something like this, you think: a car backfiring. But this was New York, and that was no car. About five shots in rapid succession, then one more, to finish things off.
I stayed still, listening for something else to happen. But nothing did.
I’d almost forgotten about it until I set off to tonight’s company dinner. When I went downstairs to the cab, I saw that the next street was full of police cars and ambulances.
(Later, it was explained to me that the group of apartment houses here were known as the projects, which is a generic American term for council estates.)
I never found out what the gunshots were about.
The dinner was at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, hosted by one of BAM’s main sponsors.
I was seated opposite Oliver Ford Davies (Justice Shallow in Part II), and so we started talking about Lear. Oliver did it at the Almeida (when they were temporarily residing in King’s Cross), and wrote a fine book afterwards: Playing Lear.
He told me about an actor (who shall remain anonymous) stating he found the scene where Lear meets the blind Gloucester very difficult to do.
‘Well, really!’ Oliver said to me in his most professorial tones; ‘If any actor has difficulty in the second half of the play – the meeting with Gloucester, the reunion with Cordelia, etc. – they should tear up their Equity card and seek other employment. Those scenes are easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.’
‘I may quote you on that,’ I said; ‘But of course you mean the first half is the killer?’
‘Well, yes, or just the first scene. Everyone finds the first scene a killer. I remember John Barton saying to me, “All actors have a tough time with the first scene, but, really, a few scenes on, and the audience have forgotten the first scene.” And I thought, “Well, that may be so, John, but it still doesn’t help the actor who has to play the first scene.”’ He paused for a moment. ‘Actually, I found Act Two, Scene Two hardest, when he goes to Regan… “Reason not the need” and all that… Never quite got the hang of it.’
I launched in: ‘What I find hard are all those rages in the first half. Rage after rage, and then having to rage at the storm. I think I’ll have to create a Scale of Rage for myself. You can’t go to an eight in this scene, because you’ll need it for the next one, and the one after that, so keep it to a six for now.’
Oliver listened, nodding politely, but I felt like a novice mountaineer talking to a veteran who’d scaled the tallest peak, and lived to tell the tale.
Monday 18 April
Rang Greg at 9 a.m. (2 p.m. UK time). He was at home in Stratford, sitting in his favourite chair, in the big window overlooking the big field, and hard at work. I asked if he was jetlagged. He replied that he didn’t know – he was too excited about the gala.
Then I spent two hours Lear-learning. Tough going. My memory muscles are tired. The Fat Knight is still leaving little room for the Mad King.
Tuesday 19 April
On these warm, sunny days, there’s something vaguely inappropriate about learning Lear – that dark, dark part – while overlooking Manhattan’s swanky skyline. Just as it was in China, in those different hotel rooms. I want to be back in Stratford – that’s where Lear should be learned. (Well, there’s another reason too…)
I put aside my script and picked up James Shapiro’s book, 1606. It’s endlessly fascinating.
He goes into detail about how Shakespeare adapted an old Queen’s Men play, The True Chronicle History of King Leir – by an anonymous author – which he probably saw, or even acted in.
The story of Leir lacked counterpoint, so Shakespeare invented the Gloucester subplot. And nobody dies in Leir – everything lost is restored. The gods defend Cordella (Cordelia), and Leir regains his throne, cheerfully thanking the celestial powers and his son-in-law, France, for the victory.
So when Shakespeare’s Lear was first staged in 1606, it must’ve come as a shock to its audience, whose expectations – from seeing Leir – were completely upended.
Shapiro is terrific at explaining how Lear’s distinctive tone is achieved. The word ‘nothing’ becomes the motif of Shakespeare’s score. Cordelia uses it in the first scene, when asked what she can say in declaration of love for her father (‘Nothing’). The Fool and Lear use it in one of their exchanges (Fool: ‘Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?’; Lear: ‘Why no, boy, nothing can be made out of nothing.’) And even Edmund uses it, when Gloucester asks about the contents of the letter he’s tried to hide (‘Nothing, my lord’). The word ‘no’ recurs again and again too, and also the word ‘never’, culminating in ‘Never, never, never, never, never.’
Shapiro continues, brilliantly:
‘…This insistent and almost apocalyptic negativity becomes a recurring drumbeat, the bass line of the play.’
I’m also taken with Shapiro’s comments about the Fool. He states that the role was played by Robert Armin, thus putting paid to the idea that the Fool’s disappearance halfway through the action is because one of the boy actors was doubling the Fool and Cordelia. (Who on earth would want to see a youngster, whether male or female, capering around as the Fool? The part needs to be older, more tired, someone who’s seen it all.) Shapiro says: ‘The Fool would be a role unlike any Shakespeare wrote before or after – witty, pathetic, lonely, angry and prophetic in turn… in the past, Shakespeare had tended to keep clowns and kings apart; this time he would force them together, creating an unusually intimate and endearing bond.’
And the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605 – Shapiro believes this had enormous impact on Shakespeare’s writing of the play. Not only in certain details (the Gunpowder Plot was foiled by a secret letter, while Edmund’s plot kicks off with a similar item), and in the cruelty it unleashed (Shapiro gives a horribly graphic account of how the plotters were executed), but also in a more general and profound way. It prompted everyone in England to confront questions they had never done before: how could ordinary people attempt such unspeakable crimes?
I glance up from Shapiro’s book to the view right in front of me – the Freedom Tower.
The 5th of November traumatised Shakespeare’s England, yet nothing actually happened.
9/11 traumatised America, when something certainly did happen.
I mean, you can’t watch a low-flying plane here, disappear behind the skyscrapers, and not hold your breath for a millisecond, until it reappears.
Maybe this is not such a bad place to be studying Shakespeare’s play, after all.
Wednesday 20 April
The new, hot weather is causing discomfort backstage. I’ll never understand why the (artificially controlled) temperature inside a theatre need be affected by the (real) temperature outside. What with all the stair-climbing as well, the fat suit is making me melt again. In the wings, there’s a big step onto the side of the stage itself. Ken, my dresser, has to stand there and offer his arm, in order for me to hoist myself up. It’s humiliating.
Thursday 21 April
The big moment came this morning – I would try doing all of Lear’s lines.
The first half took fifty-five minutes, the second twenty minutes.
But I did it.
And was about eighty per cent word-perfect.
Another massive Shakespeare role inside my head.
Well, I’ll say it myself – quite an achievement, pal, quite a bloody achievement!
Saturday 23 April
In Stratford, this is the Big Day.
When I spoke to Greg this morning, he said the whole of Stratford had gone gleefully mad. As well as the traditional birthday parade and celebrations in town, there were huge crowds at the stage door, hoping to catch glimpses of all the stars arriving for the dress rehearsal of tonight’s gala. And the massive BBC pantechnicons were parked round the theatre; these become the control rooms, the nerve centre, when they do an outside broadcast (of, for instance, a football match).
Meanwhile, I had a matinee day to get through. Greg said he’d try to ring before our evening show (7 p.m. here, midnight there) to report on how the gala went, but he didn’t. Maybe they were still celebrating at The Dirty Duck.
Back at the apartment, I discovered there was a message from him on my mobile phone – a temporary one which Ben has supplied, just for use while we’re here. I couldn’t work out how to access messages. As I tried different things, I accidentally rang and woke Greg – by now it was 5 a.m. there. I said, ‘Sorry, but just tell me in a word, and then go back to sleep.’
He said blearily, ‘Wonderful!’
Sunday 24 April
After this afternoon’s matinee of Henry V, there was a screening of last night’s Stratford gala in BAM’s Fisher Studio.
(One of the few times that I could rejoice in the speed and miracle of technology, rather than feel intimidated by it.)
The whole thing was indeed, as Greg had described – wonderful. As well as the RSC performing scenes from the plays, Greg had recruited the ENO, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and others to help illustrate how Shakespeare influenced all the performing arts, whether opera (Berlioz’s Beatrice and Benedict, Verdi’s Falstaff), ballet (Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet), or Broadway musicals (Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, Bernstein’s West Side Story). And there were solo turns by stars including Rufus Wainwright and Alison Moyet. But the highlight of the show was the Hamlet sketch. Paapa Essiedu began ‘To be or not to be’. Then Tim Minchin (the Australian comedian who wrote the music and lyrics for Matilda) rushed onstage, to insist that the emphasis should be ‘To be or not to be.’ Then some famous Hamlets entered – including Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Ian McKellen – each with a different emphasis, and then Judi Dench appeared, in doublet and hose: ‘’Tis I, Hamlet the Dame.’ And then, to the audience’s amazement and delight, Prince Charles strolled on, with the definitive line-reading: ‘…that is the question.’
Later, Greg told me that the sketch had caused a sensation on social media – it trended on Twitter!
I was proud of my boy again tonight…
Monday 25 April
…And he returned today. The plane landed early, and he was back in the apartment at 1.30 p.m. He told me that one of the newspapers said of the gala that the RSC was the Vatican of Shakespeare worship. Laughing, I said, ‘I suppose that makes you the Pope!’
Tuesday 26 April
We went to the Players Club in Gramercy Park on Manhattan, and were shown round by one of the governors, Christian Campbell, brother of the film actress Neve Campbell (with whom I worked on Churchill: The Hollywood Years: she was Princess Elizabeth and I was Hitler). The Players Club was created by the great American actor Edwin Booth in 1888. At that time, actors were still considered too lowly to belong to an established gentlemen’s club, and their charisma and popularity was suspected of being supernatural. A big, dark, dusty old house, the club now looks like a museum: the walls are hung with paintings of American stars, one or two Brits (Gielgud, O’Toole), and there are drawers full of death masks – Garrick, Kean, Schiller, Goethe.
Booth played Lear several times. On the first occasion – in San Francisco in 1856 – he was only twenty-three. Hard for us to imagine. Though he openly revealed the fact to his audience – whipping off his white wig and beard at the curtain call.
His most famous Shakespeare role was Hamlet. And when Christian led us upstairs, and unlocked a door to Booth’s private quarters (for he lived here too), he showed us the skull used in the Gravedigger scene. It was a real skull, but with a curious adornment. On the forehead was a star and crescent – the emblem of the Ottoman Empire. ‘I wonder if that was put there to reassure people?’ Greg said; ‘To declare: “This is a non-Christian skull, so it’s okay to use it as a stage prop.”’
We also saw Booth’s bed, which was surprisingly small. Pointing to an old, framed photograph next to it, Christian said, ‘That’s the only image of John Wilkes Booth you’ll find here.’ (Edwin’s younger brother, who assassinated Lincoln.)
Thursday 28 April
Getting up for a pee in the night, I only half-switched on the light in the loo, and there in the mirror, there he was – Lear. My beard still white from last night’s show, my features heavy and lined with tiredness: all this top-lit, dimly, and scored by reflections in the glass. Decided I’d try and recapture the image for a sketch in the morning…
Saturday 30 April
In a last, big, almighty effort – a two-show day – we finally finished the Henry IVs forever.
What a journey – creatively, emotionally, physically, geographically – what a journey! With one of the greatest acting jobs I’ve ever had. Though I’ve never stopped moaning about it, not for a moment have I stopped.
In fact, yesterday I put in an official request to the Wardrobe Department – that I be allowed to burn the fat suit. As revenge for two years of torture.
My dresser Ken was sceptical: ‘It’s all foam and plastic, Tony, I’m not sure it’ll catch light.’
‘It’s not that, Ken,’ I said; ‘If it doesn’t catch light it’s because it’s drenched through with my blood, sweat and tears.’
An official answer came back today, not from the wardrobe department, but the highest possible authority, the Artistic Director himself:
‘NO! The RSC may want to put it on exhibition one day.’
Huh!
So all I could do as I left the dressing room was give the big thing a little kick.
Sunday 1 May
Early evening. (After the last Henry V.) Farewell party. Held at The River Café in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The setting of the restaurant is impressive. Right on the water, with, on one side, the colossus of the bridge itself, and, on the other, an uninterrupted view of Lower Manhattan’s skyline. And, in the far distance, the lone, brave figure of the Statue of Liberty, pale green in the late sunlight.
As we arrived, Joe Melillo (who runs BAM) took us aside, and asked if we’d like to bring Lear here. We were dumbstruck. BAM has had two Lears in recent years: Derek Jacobi’s from the Donmar, and Frank Langella’s from Chichester. What if ours doesn’t work out? Anyway, it was very flattering, a great compliment, that he was inviting us before we’d even started.
During the party, I got chatting to Oliver Ford Davies about Lear again. Told him about the impact that Michael Williams’ Fool made on me in that 1968 production. He said, ‘Yes well, John Barton has always said that Michael Williams was absolutely the best F–’ He hesitated, glanced at me, then turned on a sixpence: ‘…Always said that he was very, very good.’ A gentleman to the end, is Oliver.
As is our way, Greg and I left the party early. And, as is the way with all shows, you never get to say goodbye to everyone individually. So shows always finish with an unfinished feeling…
Monday 2 May
Our flight home wasn’t till tonight, so we asked Mary Reilly (big mama to BAM’s visiting actors) to work just one last magic trick for us: book us lunch at the best steakhouse in New York. She found the restaurant effortlessly. It was here, in Brooklyn, called Peter Luger. A former haunt of Frank Sinatra and cronies, now Michelin-starred. Only problem was it’s one of those places which become so popular and grand, they stop answering the phone. She couldn’t make a booking, but felt sure that if we got there early – ‘on a Monday, for goodness’ sake’ – we’d be okay.
Not so, alas. Peter Luger opens at 11.45 a.m. We arrived at noon. It was already completely packed, with a long queue of Japanese tourists waiting for tables. Greg asked to see the manager, and tried his best: ‘We’re the Royal Shakespeare Company from the UK, I’m the Artistic Director, this is our leading actor Sir Antony Sher, and we’ve just been playing at…’ The man wasn’t remotely impressed: he had Japanese tourists in their hundreds, he didn’t need two people from something called the Royal Shakespeare Company. But he said we might be able to get a table in an hour or so.
We went to the bar. Noticed a couple at our side, with menus, and a waiter taking their orders. Realised we could eat here, and immediately. Problem solved.
I’m forever in search of The Great Steak. Countries which should be natural contenders – Australia, New Zealand, my native South Africa – don’t always come up to the mark. So far, the absolute winner has been Japan, with its Kobe beef (the cows are massaged and fed beer), but today’s dry-cured sirloins in Brooklyn were pretty damn good.
Over the meal, we discussed Lear (it’s hard to believe, but we actually start rehearsals next month), and inevitably the Fool came up again. As I began my familiar patter, Greg’s eyes began to glaze over. Then he said, ‘Well, it’s all down to Graham Turner now.’
(Graham, an RSC veteran, is already in the company, playing Belarius in Cymbeline, and agreed to the Fool some time ago.)
‘He’s going to be perfect,’ I said; ‘He’ll be able to do the comedy, and also the pathos. As Olly Ford Davies said to me last night, “The Fool has to love Lear, despite all the…”’
Greg interrupted: ‘I know.’
‘Good,’ I said.
‘Good,’ said Greg, smiling kindly, as someone indulging a bore, then changed the subject.
