| Shakespeare's
Richard II, Live at The Globe Theatre, BBC 4, 7th September 2003 |
For the BBC's first live theatrical programme in over 30 years BBC
4 broadcast Shakespeare's Richard II from The
Globe Theatre, London. Guest commentators,
historian Michael Wood and actor Corin Redgrave, whose father,
Sir Michael Redgrave, gave one of the great performances in the
title role, spoke about the staging of Richard II at The
Globe. Zoë
was also invited to represent her late father, Sam Wanamaker,
whose dream it was to rebuild Shakespeare's theatre. Zoe
spoke about her father's work and gave her thoughts on the
production during the interval. |
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Explaining how Sam Wanamaker's quest to rebuild The Globe in
London had begun, she recalled, 'He was making a film here
called Christ in Concrete [...] and he was looking to see if he
could find Shakespeare's Globe, and all he found was a plaque on
a brewery wall.' In
Andrew Marr's words, this discovery prompted 'a kind of lifelong
obsession, an exercise in tenacity'. Asked why she thought
this had come about, Zoe admitted, 'I have no idea, I just think
he loved Shakespeare [...] When he was young, as a student at
University, when he was studying - he first studied Law -
he did a Shakespeare season at one of these festivals in
America, and they did a Shakespeare play every two to four
hours!'
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It was, however, a long struggle for her father to fulfil his
dream. 'It took 26 to 27 years of energy and time to try
and convince people that this was a good idea,' Zoe noted.
Although Sam Wanamaker died before the building was completed,
Zoe believes that the work would have earned her father's
approval. The Theatre certainly poses an interesting
challenge for modern actors: 'I think the thing is, about the
space, is that it's experimental; nobody has worked on it in
this century before and so it's a fresh, young thing,' she
remarked. As Andrew
Marr observed, 'There's nothing like it anywhere else -
certainly not in London, probably the world - and it took an
American to bring it here!' |
Alongside the other guests,
Zoë spoke about the significance of this production and the
rest of Shakespeare's works, observing 'One of the extraordinary
things about Shakespeare is the accessibility of it - sometimes,
when speeches and language suddenly come to you, as if you're
hearing it now. And the kind of imagery he has - I hate to
say that word again - but it's accessible, it's easy to
understand and it's wonderfully rich and full of imagery and
passion and beauty. I mean, it's beautiful...' |
'It's [i.e. the beauty of
Shakespeare's work] also [in] the concentration of an audience,
which is wonderfully exciting to see. It's the silence
that you have, and also the appreciation, because people are
really listening. People leaning over, which is wonderful,
and people standing; it's exhausting to stand for this length of
time.' |
Zoë also discussed what
had originally prompted her father's journey to London:
"McCarthyism in the United States brought him. The
film that I mentioned when we first started was a film that
could only be made in this country, because of the Right-wing
backlash against Socialism and Communism. And because of
McCarthyism, he was in danger of being - well he was -
blacklisted, and that's why he came to this country in the first
place. And ironically enough - interestingly enough - [he]
worked with Corin's father, [he] directed him...' |
Corin Redgrave remarked
that Sam Wanamaker brought an 'immensely vigorous theatre from
the work he'd done in America'. For, as Zoe explained, her
father 'brought the Method to this country [...] the Method way
of acting, the Lee Strasberg Method.' |
Now, with this production
of Richard II, Andrew Marr suggested to Zoë that 'this is the
"living" Globe, this is what your father would have
wanted.' Zoe agreed. 'I think so, very much so, very
much so. He was a visionary.' |
Screen
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