Shakespeare William - Judi Dench on Juliet: taken from Shakespeare on stage: thirteen leading actors on thirteen key roles

Taken from

Thirteen Leading Actors on Thirteen Key Roles

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Romeo and Juliet (15956)

Opened at the Old Vic Theatre, London on 4 October 1960

Directed and Designed by Franco Zeffirelli

With Thomas Kempinski as Tybalt,

Alec McCowen as Mercutio,

Peggy Mount as the Nurse,

and John Stride as Romeo

Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeares early tragedy of star-crossd lovers, whose youthful deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. Since its first performance in the mid-1590s it has remained one of his most popular plays. The lovers are united by their passion yet doomed to separation, and the fact that they have so little time together lends intensity to their relationship. They fall instantly in love, are married almost immediately, and enjoy just one single night together before their enforced separation. Romeo and Juliet brilliantly evokes the ardour of youth. A testament to the immortal power of what is frequently billed as The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, is the fact that each year thousands of letters are sent to Juliet in Verona from young lovers, seeking her blessing or advice. The volume of mail is such that a local organisation, Il Club di Giulietta, devotes itself to replying on her behalf.

Romeo and Juliet has been revived, revised and adapted countless times on stage and film, and in musical, opera and ballet. The play draws much of its power from discord, and powerful versions have been made in areas of genuine conflict. It was famously transposed to 1950s New York for the musical West Side Story, depicting the rivalry between teenage street gangs, the Puerto Rican immigrant Sharks, and the True American Jets. In 1994 it was set in Bosnia with a Christian Romeo and a Muslim Juliet. Romeo and Juliet has been filmed some sixty times, starting in 1900. Franco Zeffirellis 1968 movie recreated much of the atmosphere of his stage production.

I was delighted when Judi Dench agreed to talk about playing Juliet, not least because my first job was as a limping, hunchbacked citizen of Verona in the same production, when it was recast for a long tour. By then the newspapers with their mixed notices were turning yellow, Judi was quite sensational, the show was eight months into its run and well on the way to becoming legendary. It was thrilling to be involved. I was a walk-on without a word to say but felt part of a rich onstage community. I knew what my characters job was, who I was married to, where we lived. I can still remember the fabric of noises, the whistling and shouting, grunting and groaning, dogs barking, birdsong, the tolling of bells and general din, street cries, distant offstage snatches of song and vendors bawling their wares.

I went to meet Judi for this interview in 2006 at her beautiful Elizabethan home in Surrey. Having played Juliet forty-six years earlier, some details had necessarily become hazy. But others were still razor-sharp, and the longer we talked, the more memories came flooding back. It made perfect sense that, for all her later triumphs in Shakespeare, this was the part she chose to discuss.

Julian Curry: Youve played most of the great parts for actresses in Shakespeare. But Juliet holds extra-special memories for you. Whys that?

Judi Dench: Well, it was at the end of my second year at the Old Vic, I think. Id been there since 57. And Id played lovely things Maria in Twelfth Night, the First Fairy in the Dream and Ophelia. But it came very much from left field when Michael Benthall [the Artistic Director] said he wanted me to do this. He was casting for Franco Zeffirelli, whod never directed a Shakespeare play before, and so he was casting in the dark. I remember being absolutely thrilled John Stride as Romeo and Alec McCowen as Mercutio. And then worrying that Zeffirelli would arrive and I might not be what he would want.

So you didnt audition for Zeffirelli?

No. Michael cast us, and Ive never known whether Franco had been over and seen us all in something else beforehand.

Sent a spy, maybe. So it wasnt quite your first Shakespeare, but it was very early days.

We were in everything at that time, we werent out of a play. Merry Wives, Twelfth Night and Hamlet, Lear. If you werent actually in them, you were walking on and understudying.

Or playing a soldier.

Or playing a soldier. We played a lot of soldiers in the Henry VIs. I remember when we got Asian flu, all of us, they said Go, one of you, and pull down The Savoy. And I ran off carrying a ninety-foot pole with a toffee apple on top of it, to tumultuous applause. And then they said: Let four captains / Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage and during the Asian flu, there were only four girls! So wed been through quite a lot, yes. Learnt a lot.

Did you know the play well, did you have preconceptions?

What I knew is the Prokofiev music very, very well, and the Tchaikovsky music very well. I knew the play, but I had no preconceptions. The way Franco worked was very much on instinct, tremendously on instinct. You would be rehearsing and, out of the corner of your eye, youd see him doing it beside you much, much better than you were doing it!

So he was a demonstrator-director?

Well, he didnt want you to actually watch him, but he kind of wanted to share the emotion with you. And of course, it did make you share the emotion. I remember him saying I dont want anything stately about these two. Theyre children, theyre little, young children, and theyre entirely imbued with the passion of Italy and the passion of the feud between their families, and the passion between the two of them. Theres nothing bridled about them. Theyre fast and impulsive. Theyre not contained in any way. Theyre completely free emotional spirits, passionate spirits.

What do you remember about the production in general?

I remember there was a gasp on the first night. Because the Vic, I dont think, had ever seen anything quite like it.

Zeffirelli not only directed, but also designed the sets himself, isnt that so?

He did. He designed the sets. It opened with people putting their bedding over verandahs, and a marvellous sense of heat, and a fountain in the middle. It was spectacular to look at. And there was an incredible gasp when the lights went up. He taught us all. Franco didnt really have a regard for the verse, which is a great pity because we didnt know enough, and we were much criticised for that. But instead of the verse, he got the youth, because everybody looked and was very, very young.

The costume designer was called Peter Hall, wasnt he.

Yes. Not Peter Hall the director, another Peter Hall was the costume designer.

I read that he brought from Verona a collection of coloured pebbles picked up from the tessellated squares of that city, to act as a guide to the tones of the costumes.

Absolutely. Im sure thats exactly right. I had a wonderful old dresser who couldnt carry one of my dresses upstairs because of the weight. It was all soft browns and ochres and gold and cream. It looked like a painting.