Shakespeare William - Kevin Spacey on Richard II: 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

Richard II (15956)

Opened at the Old Vic Theatre, London on 4 October 2005

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Designed by Hildegard Bechtler

With Oliver Cotton as the Earl of Northumberland, Peter Eyre as the Duke of York, Julian Glover as John of Gaunt, Ben Miles as Henry Bolingbroke, and Genevieve OReilly as Queen Isabella

Richard II is the first in Shakespeares great cycle of English history plays revolving around the Wars of the Roses. The play has the symmetry of a see-saw, with Richard falling as his cousin Henry Bolingbroke rises. Richard starts as King of England, halfway through he is deposed, and at the end he is assassinated. Conversely, Bolingbroke is banished at the start. He returns to lead a rebellion, deposes Richard, and by the end he has been crowned King Henry IV.

The fundamental differences between the two men provide much of the plays tension. Richard has a medieval belief in the divine right of kings. He considers that he is chosen and guided by God. He is sensitive and poetic, but arrogant and incompetent as a ruler. Bolingbroke represents a more modern view of the throne. He is a pragmatic man of action who is popular with the people and acquires de facto power. Richard expresses himself with dazzling eloquence, using flowery, metaphorical language. Bolingbroke employs more plain, direct speech.

This production, directed by Trevor Nunn, opened at the Old Vic Theatre in 2005. It was revived the following summer for a festival in Germany. Several parts were recast, and I took over the Duke of York. I was thus able to enjoy Kevin Spaceys performance at close quarters. Its not always a happy experience to take over from another actor, but on this occasion it was fine. The production was so clear and strong that I felt as if I was riding in a Rolls Royce. The show was a tremendous success. Every performance was packed and the entire week was a joy, except for the Saturday matinee. It was the last match of the football season. Spurs needed to win at West Ham to clinch fourth place in the premiership, and qualification for the European Championship. However, news reached us before the curtain went up that no fewer that fifteen members of Spurs squad had, most mysteriously, gone down with food poisoning. We lost the match 21 and the dastardly red shirts of Arsenal usurped fourth spot from the valiant white shirts of Tottenham.

They say If you want something done, ask a busy person. I wasnt sure whether Kevin Spacey would fancy fitting me into his tightly packed schedule of administrating, acting and directing at the Old Vic Theatre, on top of his career as an international film star. But as it turned out he was entirely amenable. We met in his dressing room at the theatre in 2008 and talked for an hour before he had to go down onstage for the pre-show warm-up, prior to his performance that evening in David Mamets Speed-the-Plow.

Julian Curry: I believe your first Shakespeare role was a messenger.

Kevin Spacey: In Henry IV, Part 1. I played the guy who comes on and says I think its something like four lines These letters come from your father He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick [4.1].

Good heavens! [Kevin did that with remarkable, highly authentic-sounding, olde Englishe pronunciation: lord became larrd and grievous sick was more like greyvus sack.] You later played Buckingham opposite Al Pacino in Looking for Richard, his film about Richard III. But this was your first Shakespearean lead on stage on either side of the Atlantic, is that right?

If you dont count monologues and performances with Shakespeare in shopping malls as a young lad.

Why choose Richard II?

Well, Trevor Nunn and I chose it together almost by accident. We began talking right away when I knew I was going to come and run the company at the Old Vic. I wanted to tackle Shakespeare but I didnt know what or when. Ive always been encouraged to play Iago or Richard III. But I was a bit reluctant to do what might be the obvious, or perhaps perceived as the thing that would come easy. And I remember we were sitting at dinner one night, I think it was just as he was in rehearsal for Hamlet with Ben Whishaw. Richard II was always in the mix, but sort of down the list, and he said You know, Ive never directed it. And I replied Well, thats the one we should do! For Gods sake, lets have an experience where we both discover a play for the first time, rather than Im your fourth Henry V or your second Richard III. Lets do something youve never done. So in a way it just fell to us that in all his seventeen years at the RSC and his time at the National hed never directed it.

I dont imagine the accent was a problem, because I know youre a famous mimic. You can take off Judi Dench and Katharine Hepburn, among others.

I was nervous about it though. The truth is that with imitation in a form like high comedy, or sitting on a chat show and doing Clint Eastwood, its very easy to make it work and get a laugh. But to sustain the Kings English through a three-hour production standing onstage with twenty-six actors whove been trained in the craft and who have much more experience at it than I do was daunting. It was incredibly important to me to achieve it, and it was a deal-breaker for Trevor. You have to be an English king, he said. You must speak the Kings English. Normally, when I go into rehearsal I dont learn the lines beforehand. I like to discover the play with the company, because I think theres always a danger of not only learning the lines but getting a fixed idea of how to say them, if youre on your own. But in this case I was off doing a film before we started rehearsal. I was away for six weeks, and in that time I learned the first three acts, then I learned the rest of it while we were in rehearsal. I felt that since the language would be so new for me, I didnt want to be thinking about what word came next, I wanted to be working on what the word meant, and what was behind meaning and double meaning. So I came more prepared in the sense that I knew more of the play on the first day of rehearsal than I normally would have, because of the fact that I had this other thing to achieve, which was the sound.

Did you have an accent coach?

I did. Yes. A very good one.

You won the 2005 Critics Circle Award for the Best Shakespeare Performance. And you received it with: This is from the critics, right?, which got a nice laugh, as you had been quite savaged for some of the earlier shows at the Vic. Can you describe the production and the set?

Trevor wanted to modernise the production. And he felt that although its perceived as a history play, it really is a tragedy. He wanted to set it in the Houses of Parliament, in the sense of them being the centre of power, to update it in fleshy ways and scenic ways, and to introduce the media as an important element in the piece. Therefore you had cameras and television screens and you had boom microphones. And John of Gaunts speech, for example, instead of being a soliloquy in a room with twelve people, was done on television. And sections of it were repeated again and again throughout the play. So in that way, Trevor was carving out how politicians and those in power use the media to influence the public. And we can see how easy it is to manipulate, to put across your point of view. You can have half the country for something or half the country against, depending on how you use the media.