Street Roots • Feb. 19-25, 2016
News
Page 11
"I suspect when people say, 'Oh, I don't understand Shakespeare/ it's because they've been
exposed to an actor who wasn't very good. Or they tried to read it themselves. I don't think
a child should any more read Shakespeare than they should read a Mozart opera. leave it up to
the professional musicians and professional actors."
McKELLEN, from page 10
and “know” are sort of opposites, aren’t
they? And it sums up exactly what he’s
feeling. Macbeth knows he’s got a false
heart, but he knows being human he can
disguise it All in one little line! Ten syllables!
read a Mozart opera. Leave it up to the
professional musicians and professional
actors.
ACT 2 SCENE 1
ACT 4 SCENE 1
W.S.: “All the world’s a stage, and all the
men and women merely players. ”
W.S.: The next quote that I have here is:
“All that is gold does not glitter. ”
I.M.: Oh yes.
I.M.: Indeed. That’s true. But I think it’s
“glisters”: “All that glisters is not gold.”
Don’t trust anybody by appearances. Delve
down and discover the truth. I think that’s a
good motto.
L W.S.: “They have their exits and their
entrances; And one man in his time plays
many parts. ” As you go through life, does your
attitude toward the plays and characters
change?
W.S.: I was trying to trick you with a line
from “The Lord of the Rings.”
|| I.M.: It’s true. The plays remain, the
words remain, and your reaction to them
may well change. But the idea that all the
world’s a stage - that we’re all just acting -
is an idea that goes right through
Shakespeare. In “Macbeth,” when his world
is collapsing around him and his wife has
died, he says: “Life’s but a walking shadow,
a poor player that struts and frets his hour
upon the stage.” That is Macbeth speaking,
but it’s also Shakespeare. If you want to
understand human beings, what you have to
understand is that we all act, we all play
parts. Like ... when you got up this morning,
you decided what you would wear; you
decided not to put a suit on. But if you’d
been going to an important reception, you
would have changed your costume.
W.S.:7 was going to an important
reception, but these are the best clothes I own.
I.M.: OK, well all right. But if you were
going to the gym, you would wear something
different. We are used to the idea of
changing our clothes according to what we
are doing. And we change our language. You
might swear in one situation but never in
another. You’re constantly presenting
yourself in a way animals don’t do. A dog is
always a dog. That’s why he’s so funny when
you put him in different situations; he’s
always himself. Human beings adapt, and I
think that’s at the heart of that speech, all
the world’s a stage. But he was making
another point, that there are various stages
in one’s life and yes, I think your attitude to
the stories will change. I played King Lear
not that long ago, and being close to his age
is quite helpful. It makes it very personal....
Next quote!
ACT 1 SCENE 2
W.S.: Is the play the thing wherein we
“catch the conscience of the king”?
I.M.: It’s always very touching to me as
an actor that Hamlet, a young man, so
believe in theater that it’s going to help him
solve his problem, did my uncle kill my
father? It’s an extreme example of what I
believe to be true. Human beings need
stories to illuminate their own lives. And
stories told in the theater have a particular
impact.
I.M.: That’s Macbeth, isn’t it? Whose tie
I’m wearing. I put it on specially. Only the
most observant will have worked that out.
W.S.: Does that quote describe the acting
process?
W.S.: Can art influence people in power?
I.M.: I wish people in power would go and
see Shakespeare perhaps more often than
they do, and they might be a bit more
humble about what they’re up to.
W.S.: Do you have any recommendations
for British Prime Minister David Cameron?
I.M.: Any of the plays would be
illuminating. Shakespeare often writes about
people in power. He’s fascinated about what
makes a good leader, a good monarch, and
he finds most of them wanting. One of his
messages is that they shouldn’t let power go
to their heads.
ACT 3 SCENE 1
W.S.: “False face must hide what the false
heart doth know. ”
I.M.: The actor has to identify with the
part he’s playing and discover it within
himself by using his imagination. There’s
nothing special about an actor’s imagination
except he uses it. We’ve all got it, kids in
particular. It’s one of the exciting things
about acting that I’m required to imagine
what it would be like to be a mass murderer.
It’s fun and it’s instructive too. You can get
to the stage where you think, I can imagine
myself doing that And if you can imagine
yourself doing terrible things to people,
then you begin to understand the motives
and the feelings of those who actually do
terrible things to each other. Human beings
are capable of anything - anything - good
and bad, trivial and important. There’s a
choice. You can decide what you want to do,
what you’re going to do.
“False face must hide what the false heart
doth know.” Wonderful line, isn’t it? False
face is sort of opposite to false heart. “Hide”
I.M.: Ah! Tolkien was borrowing phrasing
from “The Merchant of Venice,” but he was
not a devoted fan of Shakespeare, especially
his fantasies. He wrote, “Drama is hostile to
fantasy,” since he believed supernatural
beings cannot be portrayed realistically
except in the imagination. Do you think
that’s true? I took quite a lot of comfort
from the fact that Tolkien had not only sold
the film rights for “The Lord of the Rings”
and “The Hobbit” but that he had recorded
a little bit of “The Hobbit” - and his
performance is very much a performance.
It’s rather theatricalized. I think he had
imagined what it would be like if his
characters were brought to life by actors so
he was not a purist about his own work. I
never thought of those Middle Earth movies
as being fantasy. It just seemed to me to be
far distant history. It had happened. And I
think that’s right because whatever Tolkien
said, or whatever the critics say, the weight
and pall of the war hangs over the story of
the young man and his friend who go off to
save the world and one of them never
comes back. Not to say that Mordor is the
Third Reich, but he’s writing a story in
which you should rightly take sides. There is
good and there is evil, and that’s what it felt
like in the world wars. On we go.
ACT 5 SCENE 1
W.S.: I’ll finish with the most obvious
question: “To be or not to be?”
I.M.: Ha ha ha! It seems to me that line -
or it did when I was playing the part - is
this question: is it better to be, not just to
exist but totally be, or not? The choice is
between being absolutely fulfilled and being
so unfulfilled that you might as well be dead.
He’s a bit of a philosopher. Well, he’s a
student He’s an intellectual, that’s his
problem. £top thinking. Do! Act! Be!
W.S.: Are you a “Be”-er?
I.M.: Try to be, try to be. Not easy.
Courtesy of INSP.ngo / The Big Issue UK
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