{"id":1185,"date":"2015-11-19T17:26:03","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T17:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2015-11-19T17:29:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T17:29:33","slug":"experiments-in-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2015\/11\/experiments-in-humanity.html","title":{"rendered":"Experiments in humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dench\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The writer Veronica Horwell<\/a> likes to describe acting as laboratory for human behaviour, and believes that actors try out ways of expressing and inhabiting ideas and emotion. It\u2019s a brilliant idea \u2013 acting on behalf of humanity \u2013 that I find endlessly helpful when thinking about why we value acting, and how to read it. Messy, imperfect theatre, changing from night to night, may not allow sterile laboratory conditions \u2013 but it\u2019s all the more interesting for that, as a place to explore versions of the self, and to explore selves one couldn\u2019t possibly contain.<\/p>\n

I recently interviewed Judi Dench<\/a> for the Sunday Times<\/em>, alongside the effervescent Jessie Buckley as they prepared for The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em> <\/a>with the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company (it will be broadcast into cinemas<\/a>). I was more than a little overawed (Buckley caught my eye and mouthed, sweetly, \u2018I\u2019m like that every day\u2019) as Dench is a particular stage hero. The conversation reminded me exactly why \u2013 the way she wears both humour and sorrow so close to the surface, all sneaking through that glorious voice of crackled directness.<\/p>\n

Passing through<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the things I was interested in was the way lives pass through an actor during the course of a career. Dench has played all three leading female roles in this play \u2013 she doubled both wronged queen Hermione and her lost daughter Perdita in a famous 1969 RSC production, and now took on Paulina, the wise, testy magus who engineers the play\u2019s reconciliation. In this production, Dench also plays the choric figure of Time, who more than anyone helps the story skirt tragedy and find some kind of safe haven.<\/p>\n

The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em>, with its panoramic span, allows an actor to revisit it and mark the stages of their career through different roles. I met the fine actor John Dougall when he was rehearsing Propellor\u2019s production, and told him that he\u2019d played young prince Florizel the very first time I\u2019d seen this play (he has also played Leontes<\/a>). What was he playing now? He gave me a dry look. \u2018The OLD Shepherd.\u2019 Ouch. How one play can remind you your dewy days are fallen into sere.<\/p>\n

Knowing what’s coming<\/strong><\/p>\n

Passing through the same story from different perspectives, an actor can filter experience differently each time. Audiences too, of course \u2013 I was at school when I saw that first production, gusted by indignation and incredulity at Leontes\u2019 tyrannous jealousy and its disastrous consequences. Now I know what\u2019s coming \u2013 and I know that life throws the unexpected at you. I watch with a different sense of recognition and foreboding. The new production of The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em> by Branagh and Rob Ashford held me throughout, both because I knew just what was coming and was unprepared for how it arrived. It isn\u2019t a revelatory reading, but many of the cast \u2013 Dench and Buckley supreme amongst them, but also seasoned artists like John Shrapnel and Jimmy Yuill \u2013 dig into the lines and find nuggets of surprise and self-knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"Jessie<\/a>

Jessie Buckley, Jimmy Yuill and-
Tom Bateman in The Winters Tale. Photo: Johan Persson<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve often wondered whether having the opportunity to explore extreme states of behaviour is of any use when actors encounter grief, fear, love or loss in their own lives. It\u2019s a fanciful notion perhaps, and Dench said, \u2018I think it\u2019s the other way round. You have to use what you\u2019ve either experienced yourself or watched other people experience, or maybe read about or seen. I think it\u2019s that way round.\u2019 She thought for a moment and remembered a note that her friend, the actor Donald Sinden, wrote to her \u2018not long before he died. It said [quoting Hamlet], \u201cI have of late, though wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.\u201d\u2019 Her eyes filled with tears, and she added quietly, \u2018so that was the other way round.\u2019<\/p>\n

Buckley\u2019s take is that \u2018every play has a more heightened circumstance than everyday life, so you do have to reach for something. But you have to needle in to find honest people. You want audiences to recognise something in us.\u2019 I\u2019m glad that actors are trying out these states and experiences, letting us see and feel them from the relatively safe distance of the auditorium. As Buckley said, rather wonderfully, \u2018that\u2019s what you do in the theatre \u2013 it\u2019s for them, it\u2019s not for us.\u2019<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The writer Veronica Horwell likes to describe acting as laboratory for human behaviour, and believes that actors try out ways of expressing and inhabiting ideas and emotion. It\u2019s a brilliant idea \u2013 acting on behalf of humanity \u2013 that I find endlessly helpful when thinking about why we value acting, and how to read it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[260,32,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-acting","9":"tag-shakespeare","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}