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Post by oxfordsimon on Jan 4, 2022 17:40:45 GMT
Robert Lindsay has rather become the sort of actor who just does his usual turn rather than creating unique characters. Which is a shame.
You know what you are going to get but it isn't anything original. Entertaining but predictable.
Henry Goodman was ok as R3 but again nothing spectacular.
Only very occasionally do we get something truly special which how it is always going to be.
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Post by Jan on Jan 4, 2022 17:53:53 GMT
Robert Lindsay has rather become the sort of actor who just does his usual turn rather than creating unique characters. Which is a shame. You know what you are going to get but it isn't anything original. Entertaining but predictable. Henry Goodman was ok as R3 but again nothing spectacular. Only very occasionally do we get something truly special which how it is always going to be. Henry Goodman a definitive Shylock though. That’s a good point about Lindsay. Musical enthusiasts here loved him in Anything Goes but for me he was phoning it in a bit - lots of acting tricks from the non-musical stage, all very calculated. Still entertaining though. |
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Post by peggs on Jan 4, 2022 21:30:57 GMT
Had no idea about Robert Lindsay, I've only ever seen him in lighter, comic stuff and can't imagine him at all today Shakespeare, just goes to show.
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Post by peggs on Jan 4, 2022 21:39:35 GMT
It is probably harder for female actors as their Shakespeare roles are rarely as dominant in the plays. It is really tough to make a role such as Viola truly unique. This probably comes down to the original boy actor casting pool. In a conversation a few days before this popped up I was talking about rather the reverse, just how good some at least of the boy actors must have been otherwise why would you write complex female characters if no one could pull them off. But yes I take your point regarding roles for female actors and I think it's you who later says these roles don't tend to get reviewed/judged in the same way by critics etc. With more cross casting female actors may have more opportunity although playing traditionally/male written roles I'm not sure female actors would be judged in the same way as a male actor as currently a lot of the evaluation is around it's a female playing a male role rather than it's an actor playing this part. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jan 4, 2022 22:30:37 GMT
Cross casting is going to be the subject of comment for some time to come. It will probably be more about the director than the actors and focus on whether the concept behind the decision worked or not.
For instance I really disliked the Tamsin G Malvolia. Not because of the quality of the performance but rather that the vision of the character was so far removed from the text as to disrupt the balance of the play. So that it is a criticism of the director not the actor.
The most successful single sex modern productions have arguably the work of Propeller and the Donmar trilogy. Those have created a coherent world for each play and the casting was integral to that vision. And under those circumstances the actors can emerge more easily from the concept and receive the recognition they clearly deserve.
Critics will inevitably compare new Shakespeare productions with those they have seen in the past. The more cross cast productions that are created, the more critics will have experienced that varieties of approach taken by directors. And so the cultural reference points will change and the appreciation of the actors return over and above the critique of the concept
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Post by Jan on Jan 5, 2022 8:01:18 GMT
I saw the Propeller Winters Tale and it was ridiculous. Paulina was a bloke in a dress in the manner of a pantomime dame and so the audience laughed. No apparent reason for the casting at all beyond some spurious claim of authenticity.
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Post by lynette on Jan 5, 2022 22:42:43 GMT
On boy actors. A long time ago..at a boys’ school I saw Othello. The boys playing the women’s parts were totally convincing and made me realise how serious the acting of boys in women’s roles would have been in Shakespeare’s time. But I always think that Shakespeare must have seen women act, his roles or other people’s because they are so on the money. I’m thinking private house parties. It wasn’t that long after his day that actresses arrived in England from France with CII’s court who would have been v familiar with the idea as would their pals who stayed at home but in contact with France. Just musing as ever.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jan 5, 2022 23:58:36 GMT
I have no doubt that the best boy actors were great but Shakespeare rarely centred a play around a female character preferring to give the lion share of the lines and action to adult actors.
Twelfth Night has two strong central female characters but Sir Toby is by far the biggest role.
Rosalind, Cleopatra, Juliet and Imogen in Cymbeline all have very large numbers of speeches. But I think it is only in As You Like It and Cymbeline that a female character has the largest number of lines.
It is almost certain that Shakespeare was writing for the talent available at any given time. This may well explain why certain plays have more prominent female roles.
It is certainly not fair that it has been historically harder for female actors to really make their mark as Shakespeareans. There are many notable exceptions to this over the centuries but the number and size of roles has made it more challenging.
Part of this is down to inherent bias in the cadre of theatre critics but the nature of theatre in the late Tudor/early Stuart period meant that opportunities just didn't exist and those that did were more limited in scope in a lot of cases.
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 6, 2022 7:54:05 GMT
I don't know about each female number of lines, I certainly more than happy to take your word on that.
I would say that Portia in Merchant and Lady Macbeth have 2 of Shakespeare's greatest monologues The Quality of Mercy/The Milk of Human Kindness. With also being 2 very strong empowered females.
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Post by Jan on Jan 6, 2022 8:00:31 GMT
Rosalind, Cleopatra, Juliet and Imogen in Cymbeline all have very large numbers of speeches. But I think it is only in As You Like It and Cymbeline that a female character has the largest number of lines. It is surprising that Antony has significantly more lines than Cleopatra given his early departure from the play. It shows that a simple word count doesn't necessarily correlate with impact, as with Shylock. |
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Post by cavocado on Jan 6, 2022 10:02:19 GMT
Just had a look at Robert Lindsay and he has done more Shakespeare on film/television, but certainly has performed the bard. Now Alum Armstrong I would think would make an excellent Lear, saying that Armstrong hasn’t performed on stage in years, there maybe other reasons for that, I hope not. I have never seen Alun perform on stage. Robert Lindsay I always think he is more comedic and couldn’t play Lear, he would play an excellent Shylock or Lord Frederick. I saw Robert Lindsay as Hamlet on a school trip. It was performed in a tent outside at the Barbican, I think it may have been on tour from the Royal Exchange. My memory of it was a scene where Hamlet left the tent and must have been hanging around outside waiting to come back in. From inside the tent we heard someone outside yell "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" (catchphrase from Lindsay's sitcom Citizen Smith - presumably a passing member of the public spotted him). Obviously this was a highlight for a bunch of teenagers - audience laughing at a serious part of the play and the dramatic tension collapsing. I have seen many very good performances from Armstrong, in Shakespeare and other plays. He's one of the actors who really got me into regular theatregoing, and one of the few I'd book to see regardless of the play. I think it's a shame he hasn't had the stage career of some of the other actors mentioned. He would have been good as Macbeth, Richard III, etc, but he's done a lot of TV, so perhaps that's his preference. I hope he does get back on stage at some point. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 6, 2022 12:26:28 GMT
Alum Armstrong who was phenomenal in the tv series new tricks, think was due to appear in a play in the Pinter Season at the Harold Pinter, but sadly pulled out.
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Post by peggs on Jan 6, 2022 17:21:11 GMT
I'm really enjoying this thread, some interesting info and musings.
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Post by Jan on Jan 6, 2022 17:23:57 GMT
Alum Armstrong who was phenomenal in the tv series new tricks, think was due to appear in a play in the Pinter Season at the Harold Pinter, but sadly pulled out. I've seen him on stage quite a lot, including in Shakespeare (Leontes, Petruchio, Caliban (I think), Thersites and others) but not recently, in 2006 he was in Royal Hunt of the Sun at NT but when I saw it he was off for some unexplained reason - not a bad decision on his part. |
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Post by Jan on Jan 6, 2022 17:25:22 GMT
I saw Robert Lindsay as Hamlet on a school trip. It was performed in a tent outside at the Barbican, I think it may have been on tour from the Royal Exchange. My memory of it was a scene where Hamlet left the tent and must have been hanging around outside waiting to come back in. From inside the tent we heard someone outside yell "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" (catchphrase from Lindsay's sitcom Citizen Smith - presumably a passing member of the public spotted him). We must have been at the same performance. Or someone outside yelled every night. |
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 6, 2022 20:03:13 GMT
Alum Armstrong who was phenomenal in the tv series new tricks, think was due to appear in a play in the Pinter Season at the Harold Pinter, but sadly pulled out. I loved New Tricks! It was best with the original cast, the last couple of series when James Bolam & Alun Armstrong had left weren't as good. The only time I've seen Alun Armstrong live was as Alfred Doolittle when the Proms did My Fair Lady about a decade ago. (Coincidentally, I've also only seen his fellow New Tricks star Dennis Waterman once live & that too was in a musical, a concert performance of Guys & Dolls at Cadogan Hall.) I'm afraid I'm more likely to see Shakespearean actors when they appear in musicals than in Shakespeare! I've only seen Robert Lindsey live when he was in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2022 14:51:13 GMT
A lot of those guys you mention Dawn get so much TV work and also other stage dramas and musicals that the time and desire to do the Bard can be limited.
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Post by kathryn on Jan 11, 2022 7:47:09 GMT
I guess the short answer is no, but times are changing. Our best Shakespearean actors come from a time in place where they were trained as stage actors, before screen acting was seen as a viable career path, and the closest thing to a franchise was working your way through the Shakespeare canon. That isn’t the reality for the generations that came next, but we still have a decent crop of actors wanting to perform Shakespeare. David Tennant, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jude Law, Andrew Scott, James McAvoy, Tom Hiddleston, Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear all in the 40 - 50 age bracket and all have performed Shakespeare on stage and/or screen in recent times. Incidentally, all opted to perform Shakespeare after finding success as part of a large screen franchise - Marvel, X-Men, Doctor Who, Bond etc. So whilst I guess being a great Shakespearean actor isn’t the backbone of acting it might once have been, there is still an attraction to performing Shakespeare after Hollywood comes knocking. In the 30 - 40 bracket, I guess we have Kit Harrington and Richard Madden doing the same, both known primarily for Game of Thrones and opting to perform Shakespeare afterwards (though Kit’s is upcoming). Ben Whishaw was actually nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in Hamlet in 2004, which was long before he joined Bond so not always Shakespeare after a film franchise 😊 Hiddleston did Shakespeare with Cheek By Jowl and at the Donmar before his big film break. And he’d be keen to return and do more, from what he has said. But it’ll be every five years or so between film and TV work, judging by his track record. |
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jan 11, 2022 8:51:01 GMT
Ben Whishaw was actually nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in Hamlet in 2004, which was long before he joined Bond so not always Shakespeare after a film franchise 😊 Hiddleston did Shakespeare with Cheek By Jowl and at the Donmar before his big film break. And he’d be keen to return and do more, from what he has said. But it’ll be every five years or so between film and TV work, judging by his track record. He was outstanding as Cassio at the Donmar. I remember checking the programme to see who was the fine actor playing Cassio. I had never heard of him before. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2022 12:21:06 GMT
TH is such a big star now he could effectively pick any stage role he felt like playing and producers would be falling over themselves to stage it.
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 11, 2022 19:43:08 GMT
He is a big star and no doubt his agent is doing very well too. But despite the offers there is also doing Shakespeare on stage.
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