Why raise a tempest? – detour, about Simon Russell Beale …

(… and my birthday post! I have to take care to give myself a really good birthday present because I am the only person who can. So, this one will be more than a bit “self-indulgent”. But I am STILL so GRATEFUL!)

So, the common thing about what Simon Russell Beale did with Prospero and Lear is: He walked straight towards the most difficult human issue of the play and tackled it. Without any unnecessary “fuss” or detours. I might have done the same, after he showed me the way. In fact I did, kind of. If we have liked the play my friend and I always end up standing at the entrance of the underground for about twenty minutes, discussing it. And doing this, I already knew that I had understood “completely” what the play was about. I knew exactly what had happened, and why. And I could have called it a day there and then. But where is the fun in that? I love to take my time reading – and I love detours. In fact it is a genius and deadly efficient method of “reading” Simon Russell Beale exercised on that stage, but for me it never works like this. I’ll never get to the centre of anything without properly examining all the detours I actually took to get there.

The first detour I made was about Simon Russell Beale as an actor. I know this has become a favourite pastime of mine, and of course I love it when my celebratory issue about Shakespeare is celebrating an actor as well. (As did my very first post, by the way, a big part of which was about being impressed with John Cleese turning Petrucchio into a proper human being.) So much for reverence … But it is never really about acknowledging something (or someone) greater than myself, it is always about being extremely grateful to somebody for facilitating what I myself want to do. And sometimes it is an author, but more and more frequently it is an actor. And THIS is probably the most perfect example to date for how this works.

In fact, I was asking myself for a long time why I set such great store in Simon Russell Beale whom I have seen but four times – if I remember this correctly. The way I remember it, “Lear” (by the National Theatre) has been the first time, but in fact it would have been as Home Secretary in “The Spooks” that I saw him first – I just didn’t really get it that it was “him”. “The Spooks” are the only series without credits I know, and I remember how delighted I was when I finally discovered that it was him who played the (third, or fourth?) Home Secretary. But this was a long time after I saw him doing it for the first time. And Falstaff (in “The Hollow Crown”) must have been some time before “Lear” as well, but it was after I had seen “Lear” that I “revisited” Falstaff and became aware WHY I had been so pleased with it. And this was NOT AT ALL a coincidence.

On the whole, I didn’t even really like his Lear. Certainly not as much as I liked Ian McKellen’s whom I saw, I think, less than a year later on dvd. There was a time when you couldn’t avoid “Lear”, and I think there was another one just now with Anthony Sher – of course! Obviously there are all these famous actors who HAVE to play Lear before it is too late. There was Benedict Cumberbatch saying that he thought he should play Hamlet before he became a father and didn’t quite make it. As I was of the opinion that he ABSOLUTELY should play Hamlet it doesn’t matter in this case, but in general I distrust this kind of motivation, though I can understand it a bit better where Lear is concerned. Like the one big thing you might still want to do with your life …

At least that was what I remember thinking on the occasion of Simon Russell Beale’s Lear: that he, and probably other people, would have thought that it was time for him to do it. I even had the impression that his Lear didn’t really “work”, that he had “put on” the character like a coat that was too big for him and that was stitched together from bits of theories that he, or his director, had about this character. And I don’t think that theories are the least important part of acting. I like actors with a “big” brain on them. But somehow the part that fuses the theories and converts them into a character that appears like this singular human being we expect to see is completely beyond me. I just think that a central part of it is (still) the actor’s humanity somehow “reacting” with the human content he is getting out of the character. Kind as when “we” are reading, only not just in our imagination but actually “doing” it. At least this is the kind of acting I experience as relevant and successful, and this part, which is also the “fun” part of it, I suppose, didn’t seem to happen. It appeared more like really hard work.

It is very likely that Simon Russell Beale himself didn’t see it at all like this, and there is certainly some measure of misunderstanding on my part because, as I wrote already, his acting is so little “Shakespearian”. It might just not have been what I expected from Lear. But I suppose, in general, it is the famous monologues in “Hamlet” or “Lear” that every actor has studied and analyzed and is desperate to perform on a real stage. And it is a bit inconsequential on my part to look for yet another “showy” performance of this because it is not what I value about “Shakespeare acting”. I even kind of dislike “Shakespeare acting” and only came to fully acknowledge its value when I “hit on it” outside of “Shakespeare”. Ian McKellen is probably my best example for this because I knew and loved him first as Gandalf even though he is this exemplary Shakespeare actor. Nonetheless, with the exception of his Lear, I never really liked him in “Shakespeare” as much as I liked him as Gandalf - or as a genuinely creepy Mr. Creakles in “Oliver Twist”. But in Lear it was not the “Shakespearean” grandeur but the genuine humanity he gave to that character which did the trick for me. But, honestly, what would Gandalf (on screen!) have been without Shakespeare? Nothing! - And I am so incredibly pleased that I now understand COMPLETELY what Richard Armitage was talking about going on and on about Shakespeare when he was talking about playing Thorin Oakenshield. Especially because I know that this was what brought me back to “Shakespeare” in the end because it nagged me that I didn’t understand. And THIS made me remember and “pick up” Shakespeare when I felt that I needed something “strong” to jump-start my imagination. And it is SO GREAT that I find a place here to remember this as well – because now, after four years and a lot of reading Shakespeare, I definitely have the answer.

I’ll never know, though, about Simon Russell Beale’s Lear, if it was more of a failure or of a misunderstanding. And maybe it doesn’t really matter. There might even be another, more important, misunderstanding about the fact that he didn’t seem that “pleased” with playing Lear. Because he might have been RIGHT about this. It might be a weird thing to say about an actor – but when I remember how little I liked “Lear”, or “Othello”, or “Hamlet”, before I undertook the WORK of trying to understand what these plays are about, there was a reason for it. And of course there was a reason for not liking “The Tempest” as well. And I think that the common reason is simply that these plays are about the kind of difficult and dirty human matter which, TAKEN SERIOUSLY, we don’t really WANT to deal with.

There is another detour within the detour I have to take concerning the common thing about all the four characters I have seen Simon Russell Beale play. And I really shouldn’t do this because what I have seen of his work isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. But the interesting thing, which I have never seen anybody do to this extent, is that he used a DIFFERENT METHOD of acting on each of the four characters I saw him play. I think what he did on Lear is what every actor of his generation would have learned: analyzing the character thoroughly, as to his psychological set-up, and “putting on” these features (like walking in a certain way, using certain quirks to show that a person is old and has this certain kind of dementia …) “from the outside”. I know, it sounds disrespectful but it isn’t meant that way. I think that being able to do this expertly and with imagination is probably what gets every good actor through dire straits most of the time. It is probably kind of like the groundwork of every thorough feat of acting, but if it doesn’t somehow go “further” than that the audience won’t be “drawn in” and begin to care about the character.

There was certainly a measure of this in playing the Home Secretary in “The Spooks”. There is this textbook British politician which “we” RECOGNIZE instantly from all these series and films about spies and the like, and whom he must have played dozens of times. And he probably wasn’t very interested in this character anymore and was looking for a way to make him interesting for himself. And what I think he did is that he “put” a human being inside this “character-frame” that, in a way, is so much “bigger” than the frame, that is bursting with energy, intelligence, humour and human flaws. (And I didn’t check this again but I think it is him who tries to “woo away” Ruth Evershed from MI 5 because she gives him the impression of “stifled potential”.) Of course I have asked myself why I couldn’t let go of “The Spooks” for some time, and I think it is because of these very precise “vignettes” of contemporary people that held my interest. And Simon Russell Beale made his own, possibly very personal, contribution playing the Home Secretary. I know I am making this a bit long but I am more and more amazed how much he could make this character stay with me whom I have only seen in a few short scenes spread out over two seasons of the series. It might be because it is a memorable contribution to what REALLY intrigued me about “The Spooks” and which is asking the question about what is human in unexpected ways, often in a context which we read as “inhuman”. It certainly wasn’t the most spectacular contribution of this kind, but obviously a very convincing one, to make “us” READ the question anew which we have set aside a long time ago. But it remains one of the most important questions. And it is this method of “filling” a character with human content “from the inside” that makes the character so much bigger than his short existence on screen because there is always more than we can see. If it is human there is ALWAYS more than we can see.

His Falstaff I liked even more though he “grew on me” very slowly. There is a history of reading Falstaff that I must skip completely. He was my fourth Falstaff but in fact must have been the second one I saw, (actually more like the first one because in “Henry V” by Kenneth Branagh there isn’t a lot about Falstaff). And I liked him right away, I think, but I didn’t “get” Falstaff back then. I probably just put him “on hold” somewhere. It was definitely after having seen his Lear that I went back to his Falstaff and was able to appreciate what he did with this character. I think that the reason I came to understand and appreciate what he did with the Home Secretary and Falstaff was the way he “nailed” Lear: He walked right to the middle of the stage and told us what we DON’T want to know.

There can be something wicked about being an actor which I totally like because it is what I am sometimes tempted to do myself: tell people that they should stop lying to themselves. But I have learned to be really careful about this. I did it once, I think, by accident, and it has haunted me ever since. So I know better now, but there is a certain temptation of having a stage to do it because it is the only place where you can do it without being punished for it. Kind of like it is the only place where you can stand and roar without anybody thinking that you are mad or pathetic. And, if I am quite honest, I really, really, REALLY want to do it JUST THIS ONCE.

I have no doubt he ENJOYED the “Not mad!” bit and the roaring even more than I did. But to be able to enjoy the liberating experience it was necessary to go through the whole Lear and to get to the bottom of what is the matter with Prospero. And, as a human experience, this is kind of the worst that you can get. And as “we”, as an audience, already know what Prospero has gone through and what Lear is about the most important job an actor has to do is to make us realize that we are WRONG about this. As we have always been wrong about Falstaff, by the way. Because Falstaff can be so entertaining. It is so easy to fool everybody – including yourself! – about who you really are if you can keep people entertained. They will always be so grateful as to forgive you EVERYTHING … In fact I kind of liked every Falstaff I have seen, even Anthony Sher, because they entertained me. I liked them until I looked back on what Simon Russell Beale had done with Falstaff, and that was when I first SAW Falstaff and thought that there was something REALLY interesting about this character. And this was because he resisted completely what every other actor would have done with a character like Falstaff, and what is even the “right” thing to do, I think, if you “follow” Shakespeare: readily jump into the character and PLAY with him. In a way, Simon Russell Beale can be a real spoilsport as an actor, and, in this case, I loved him for it. Of course he knew exactly what he was doing when he STRIPPED Falstaff of everything we “know” about him, and like about him. And this is a method of acting that I have never become consciously aware of, but nonetheless have been very fond of already, before I saw him do it in this cruel way. It only works though when you can be sure there will be something left after you have done it. And, REALLY TRUSTING Shakespeare, Simon Russell Beale knew exactly what he was doing, and that there would be something left. And what would be left would still be human, but it wouldn’t be PRETTY.

I am certain that nobody knew better than Shakespeare that the theatre is a great place for furnishing people with the beauty and the excitement they are looking for, and which has nothing whatsoever to do with their real lives. To quote Fabian from “Twelfth Night” – which I have just seen in a beautiful, brand-new production by the National Theatre: “If this were played upon a stage now I could condemn it as an improbable fiction”. And Prospero knows of course how important the singing and the dancing is because it is what is EXPECTED of him. Everybody would employ the magician for their own “worldly” ends … But I am certain as well that he knew like no other what a great place the theatre is for telling the TRUTH, even though he never “says” so. To prove it would rather fall on the people who like to undertake the adventure of UNDERSTANDING what he has written - first of all extraordinary actors like Simon Russell Beale.

And what baffled me about his Prospero, and amused me, I think, is that – as “in” Falstaff – he resists the temptation to be spectacular and entertaining so as to make people enjoy his performance and LOOK at him. And this is something that is almost unbelievable in an actor – and it wouldn’t work at all, of course, if he hadn’t something else to offer instead. Whatever actors might say about it, this is what they do, and what they enjoy as well: make people LOOK at them. To be quite honest, it is even a bit disrespectful of the audience. I know, of course, as a single member of the audience I am nobody. AS A PERSON I am nobody, and sitting in a cinema probably even less than that. I don’t even exist. But as somebody who enjoys to look at actors, and pays money to see them, maybe tell them on facebook how much I had liked their performance (not me, of course!), or buy the dvd, I am almost as important as the actors themselves because I furnish them with the reason to do what they love to do and are good at. And I “tell” them if their labours have been successful. And I already wrote somewhere that I like the part where they take of their shirt and I get to enjoy the outcome of their daily hard work in a studio. But I know as well that, IF THIS WAS ALL THERE IS, I wouldn’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t pay money to look at it.

So I want MORE than this, and what still amuses and delights me about Simon Russell Beale’s Prospero is that he gave me the “more” without even bothering with the rest. I even suspect that he was delighted to be able for once to leave the whole fuss to Ariel and the special effects guys. As an actor he doesn’t still have anything to prove anyway. That was one of the points I tried to make, describing his acting: that he can do everything anyway, and of course he knows it! And he probably knows that people will look at him whatever he does because he is Simon Russell Beale. This isn’t a good thing AS SUCH, of course. I usually enjoy TO SEE the hard work, (and I have a suspicion that, when they take off their shirt, I admire the hard work even more than the male beauty …) But in this case I was just delighted because there is a substantial benefit in what Simon Russell Beale did, stripping himself completely of his actor’s “apparel”. He might have been pleased, for all I know, to discover that, for once, there was no good reason for doing any acting, for even “making up” a character for Prospero. But the important thing is that he was SO RIGHT about this. It might be that I actually never encountered an actor with such a sharp mind as him because he evidently concluded that, to “be” Prospero, ANYBODY would “do”. In any case, Simon Russell Beale would do nicely.

And, when I noticed this, I was already SO close … but all this might have been a bit complex and chaotic, so I’ll try to sum it up and make it clearer before jumping to any conclusions. In my opinion, the wisest thing anybody ever said is Sokrates’ “I KNOW that I know nothing.” And the wisest thing I have ever heard anybody say about acting is what Richard Armitage said about his motivation for playing John Proctor: that he WANTED to play this character BECAUSE he didn’t know if he could do it. And this isn’t because these two sentences are even MEANT to be strictly true. In both cases it is about the RIGHT ATTITUDE for taking on a task that should result in something NON TRIVIAL. There is all this beauty and perfection which is REALLY important, and which I REALLY like to see. Which even HAS to be there to make this other bit work that makes me go to the cinema to see the play, or buy the dvd. It is the bit that I really need, the one that is about ME. And I think it only happens in this way I have seen it happen in this case when the actor has succeeded to make it about HIMSELF. And that means that he doesn’t perceive it as something that has already been done, just, maybe, not THAT perfect. He perceives it as something that still HAS TO HAPPEN.

In most cases there will not even be any indication of this that can be SEEN by the audience. In most cases the actor will not SHOW us that this has happened. That he has made it “about” himself. I just SUSPECT that what made his Home Secretary, and his Falstaff, and this special moment in “Lear” so good was something very personal, but in fact I couldn’t know. Prospero is different because Shakespeare himself put something very personal into this character, and something very generally “human” at the same time, and this has to be something that taunts an actor who is still LOOKING for the best way to be an actor – even if he has done everything already that he can imagine. When I saw him whispering to the empty skies in “Lear” my heart might have stopped beating, but when Prospero stood on that stage and roared it was ME that stood there and roared as well because I KNEW exactly what just happened and LIVED it. And this was the great gift he gave me (- and which I selected as my birthday present this year because it was certainly one of the best presents anybody ever gave me.)

It is as well the REAL reason I can become jealous of actors, and it is a point I have already touched a few times but never come that close to. Of course I can’t know anything about it, but the way most people behave makes me think that, if they are actually jealous of famous people, or lead singers, or actors, it is because everybody LOOKS at them. And this would never happen to me because I REALLY DISLIKE being looked at. (I live in a city, so I don’t look at people most of the time, but I virtually NEVER look at people BECAUSE I actively avoid being looked at.) I know there must be something “wrong” with me – I don’t even think it is a bad thing to make people look at you, on the contrary. In a way, I even like “vain” people because they take good care of themselves, and imagine who they want to be, and make something of themselves. I despise people who don't take care of themselves and think that they are okay the way they are. So, there is absolutely nothing wrong with becoming an actor because you want people to look at you. And there actually IS a point in writing this, and I am coming to it. Because there WOULD be something wrong with it, even for an actor, if this was his ONLY motivation for being an actor. Or even his main motivation, because, in this case, he might as well have become a model, or a lead singer, or Kim Kardashian, and it wouldn’t even matter. In fact, it happens all the time, and most of the time people won’t even see the difference. But what is WRONG with it is what is wrong with the world in general, and probably has always been wrong with it, only people would have somehow “located” it differently in Elizabethan times: that people get lost in “worldly”, or “insubstantial” matters and so never come to enjoy the “substantial” part of life which is about their “souls”, or, as “we” might express it – still? - in the 21^st century (at least I hope so!): the part of life - or of what we do - which really is about OURSELVES.

And I think this is actually what Shakespeare was writing about when he wrote “The Tempest”. It is what is THE POINT of walking the line between the stage and the real world. Though I don’t think that there is actually ONE point anybody could make. It is rather what has to HAPPEN on that stage, what is the point of raising a tempest, and of employing actors like Simon Russell Beale who can make it happen.

I know it wouldn’t have happened for me if he hadn’t made it happen on this stage. If he hadn’t startled me into seeing what I couldn’t see. But it wouldn’t have happened either if I hadn’t been prepared for it, anticipating in some way what I WANTED to happen. First of all by acknowledging that there was something I didn’t understand but WANTED to understand. There was this single tiny moment which I remember from reading the play, and where I became intrigued. It was the moment when Prospero withholds the food from his “prisoners” and tells them – via Ariel – that what they would get was “nothing but heart’s sorrow and A CLEAR LIFE ENSUING.”

I didn’t understand anything about what this moment means. I didn’t even get it, I think, that it is about revenge. I think I never even bothered to take anything Prospero says or does “seriously” because neither the concept of revenge nor of forgiveness has ever had any relevance for my own life – as far as I knew … But the idea of a “clear life” must have held some attraction, and I set it down as a discovery, without any clear idea so far as to what it was I had discovered.

But when Simon Russell Beale had performed his “stunt”, which, with the force of a flash of lightning, put the different parts of the play together IN THE RIGHT ORDER, I realized that this was in fact exactly what Shakespeare wanted to happen. THIS is what all the fuss is about, what should “ensue” when everything else is done that was still left to be done. When the children are married, and everything is ordered, and every score has been settled: A CLEAR LIFE.