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Actor / Director Sam Wanamaker

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Obituary: Sam Wanamaker
by NICK SMURTHWAITE The Independent,Monday 20 December 1993 [Text only - photo is from another source]

Samuel Wanamaker, actor, director and producer: born Chicago 14 June 1919;CBE 1993; married 1940 Charlotte Holland (three daughters); died London 18December 1993.

If Sam Wanamaker wasn't as famous or acclaimed an actor as he might havebeen, he only had himself to blame. Or rather, his obsession. For over 20years he poured the lion's share of his considerable energy into recreatingShakespeare's wooden 'O', the Globe Theatre, on London's south bank.

Born in Chicago in 1919, Wanamaker had a dogged entrepreneurial zeal thatwas often mistaken for American excess in the London theatrical establishment,especially since he was always aware of the commercial imperatives attendantupon his dream to rebuild the Globe. The need to make it a going concernwas seen by many as thinly veiled Disneyism.

What his detractors often forgot was that Wanamaker was a genuine Shakespeareanenthusiast, man and boy. Appropriately, his debut in Shakespeare was in aplywood and paper replica of the Globe at the Chicago World Fair in 1934,when he appeared as a teenager in condensed versions of the Bard's greatesthits.

Wanamaker was 23 when he first played Broadway inCafe Crown in 1942. The following yearhe was called up and spent the next three years doing his US military duty.Returning to the theatre in 1946, he took on a succession of headstrong juvenileleads in long-forgotten plays. What he hankered after was classical theatreof the kind that flourished in England. To this end he created the FestivalRepertory Theatre in New York in 1950.

Two years later, by now blacklisted by Senator McCarthy's Commie-bashers,he came to London to join Laurence Olivier's company at the St James's Theatre,playing alongside Michael Redgrave inWinterJourney, which he also directed. One of the first things he did onarriving in London was to seek out the site of Shakespeare's Globe. Insteadof the elaborate memorial he'd always imagined, Wanamaker found a dirty plaquefixed to the wall of a Courage brewery bottling plant in a particularly drab Southwark back street.

From 1953 to 1960 he produced and acted in plays in London and the provinces,creating the New Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool, where his productionsincludedA View From the Bridge,The Rose Tattoo,The Rainmaker andBus Stop. Another American play,The Big Knife by Clifford Odets, wasa personal success for Wanamaker as actor-director at the Duke of York'sin 1954. Perhaps his outstanding performance of this period, certainly theone for which he is best remembered, was Iago to Paul Robeson'sOthello in Tony Richardson's 1959 productionat Stratford. [Photo of this productionis at the bottom of this webpage.]

He first tackled opera in 1962, Tippett'sKing Priam, twice revived at Covent Garden.Wanamaker later admitted he relied on others better acquainted with operaticproduction to tell him what to do, including the composer himself, 'who keptlaughing, patting me on the back and telling me not to worry'.

Later that year his radical reinvention of Verdi'sLa Forza del Destino caused a sensationat Covent Garden, and led to many other operatic offers, including, muchlater, the opening production at Sydney Opera House, Prokofiev'sWar and Peace. In 1977 he returned toCovent Garden to produce the premiere of Tippett'sThe Ice Break.

Wanamaker's track record shows a commendable lack of cultural elitism. Hewould happily go from producing Verdi to playing a cameo in a Goldie Hawnfilm (Private Benjamin, 1980), ordirecting an episode ofHawaii Five-0(1978). He thrived on diversity and contrast, the more challenging the better.Though there were some memorable screen roles inThose Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines(1964),The Spy Who Came In from the Cold(1966), the 1978 television mini-seriesHolocaust and, most recently,Guilty by Suspicion (1991) with RobertDe Niro, Wanamaker never took film seriously enough to claim the first- divisionstatus that was his due.

From the late 1960s his colleagues in almost every job he undertook wereregaled, like it or not, with the latest chapter in the Globe saga, whichsometimes seemed as if it would never reach its climax. From the moment hefirst presented the Architectural Association with a model of the Globe hehad had made at Shepperton Studios in 1969, Wanamaker was a man with a mission- to create an international focus for the study and celebration of Shakespeare.

He found a staunch ally in Theo Crosby, who became chief architect of thescheme, sharing Wanamaker's determination to make it both commercially viable(since government subsidy always seemed unlikely) and true to the Spartanstyle of its 16th-century blueprint - hard wooden benches, no heating, noamplification, and no roof to cover the hole in the middle.

Over two decades of fund-raising and bureaucratic battles, Wanamaker's missionaryzeal was stretched to the limit, mostly by the left-wingers of SouthwarkCouncil, who tried to sabotage what they saw as indulgent elitism by claimingthe Globe site back for council housing. The matter was finally settled incourt, where Wanamaker's contention that the Globe project would bring employmentto many and regeneration to a notably depressed area of London finally wonthe day.

By the late 1980s the Globe had beaten off its chief adversaries, and becomevirtually unassailable thanks to the patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh,Ronald Reagan, Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman and a host of other victimsof Wanamaker's persuasive powers. No longer was he perceived as the crankyYank building castles in the air; despite an unfavourable economic climateand constantly escalating costs, the Globe really would be rebuilt and Wanamaker'sdream vindicated.

In more recent years, the quest for funds took him, appropriately, all overthe globe, shored up by his commitment to posterity and the firm belief thatthere was, just around the next corner, that elusive crock of gold. The firstbays of the Globe Theatre were unveiled this year. It is scheduled to openfor business in April 1995.

After having been born and getting his start here in Chicago, Wanamaker returnedonly a few of times to the Windy City. One such event was as co-conferencierwithTito Gobbi of the Gala 25th Anniversary Concert of Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1979. [Names which are links refer to my interviewselsewhere on this website.] Then in September of 1992, he cameback to narrate selections fromThe Tempestwith the well-known incidental music by Sibelius played by the Chicago Sinfoniettaled byPaul Freeman. The concert, which opened their season, also held music by MacDowell, Copland,Shostakovich, and Yuri Falik.

It was during this final visit that I had the extreme pleasure of speakingwith him at his hotel.

The topics were mostly about directing operas, and here is that conversation. . . . . . . . .

Bruce Duffie:    I’d liketo talk about just a few things, especially opera since you’re involved withthat. You’re director, producer and star. How do you divide yourcareer amongst those many taxing activities?

Sam Wanamaker:    [Laughs] Well, it’s pretty difficult. I haven’t directed operanow for more than a year because I’ve been so involved in the Globe project,reconstructing Shakespeare’s Globe on the original site in London. So I haven’t done anything that’s taken a lot of my time, and opera doestake quite a bit of time to prepare and rehearse and stage, and so on. I’ve been focusing on the Globe and the odd television or movie that comesalong and takes me a couple of weeks. So, much as I enjoy doing opera,I just haven’t been able to do anything productions recently.

BD:    Since opera takes more time, is it more work or is it more depth?

SW:    It’s both. I find that when I work on opera, I go to the source material, the text inthe first place.

BD:    Do you go forthe stories that the libretto was derived from?

SW:    Basically,yes. I go back to the original material, whatever that may be, becausethe libretto is a kind of shorthand, and just to understand the underlyingobjectives of the story. Basically one is looking for a way of interpretingthat story though the opera medium, not for the sake of freshness, but totry and find a fresh way of expressing the material and serving the music.

BD:    The composerhimself has taken some material and pared it down and made it a workablelibretto, and then fashioned, like a suit of clothes, which is the music. Are you then coming along and putting make-up on the person who is alreadyclothed?

SW:    No, it’s amatter of making that story credible through the music. I don’t feelthat the performer is already clothed until he does have an opportunity togive some kind of life to the character beyond just the music. Actingan opera enhances some element here which dramatizes, otherwise you do all the operas in concert, with everybody in black tie just belting it out andsinging it, or singing it with verisism and gentility, if that is what’sdemanded. But an opera director has got another kind of obligationto achieve, otherwise what’s the point of the opera? For example, I’veworked with certain people who were not actors at all.

BD:    They were justsingers?

SW:    Yes, and theynever claimed to be actors, although as they happened to be in opera, theyput on a costume and make certain gestures towards the idea of being a character. No matter how much you do to try to make them credible human beings in thatsituation, you really don’t win if they don’t want you to win in the sense that they feel they’re not actors. They say, “What the hell? People are coming to listen to my voice!”

BD:    So they don’ttry?

SW:    There is verylittle effort. There are singers like that. I remember one singer... I was doing an opera at Covent Garden and he was supposed to turn up to arehearsal about ten days before the opening. Now ten days is not alot of time to rehearse an opera, but since he was such a big deal as anopera singer [laughs], he would send a message a few days before the rehearsalsaying that his voice wasn’t right. Then he’d be there two days orthree days, and then three days would go by and somebody else would ringup for him and he would say he’s not feeling well and he can’t come. He turned up three days before the actual opening night.

BD:    So you couldbe little more than a traffic cop?

SW:    Right, that’sall. So you say you understand his voice isn’t so good, but let meshow you exactly the movement at least. That’s about as much you could do. You take him through rehearsals with an understudy.  Well, what would happen on opening night is that this particular person I’mspeaking of totally ignored even the traffic cop movement that I gave him,and whenever he came to an aria of his, he was simply walked down to thefront of the stage and belted it out! It absolutely bore no relationto any kind of human experience. [Laughs throughout this entire story]

BD:    So his wasa vocal recital!

SW:    Yes, and atthe end of the aria he got huge ovation! So we figure, what the hell!  Why should I waste my time doing all this utter nonsense? For example,in this one opera, there as a dual, and in order to make sword playyou have to rehearse that a little bit. We rehearsed it, and he half-heartedlytried, but when it came to do this thing on the actual night, he just sortof stood there and waved his sword like kids do. He stood there, andit was funny. People laughed. It was so ludicrous.

BD:    I assume thenthe dual was with the baritone. How did the baritone take all of this?

SW:    [Still laughing] Because he was not as important as the other man, he wasn’t getting as much money. So he had to take it, because he knew he had to work with thisman again some other time. He couldn’t have a row with him. Butthe point I’m making is that at the end of the opera evening he got standingovation. So people were not really interested in whether he could actor couldn’t act. They loved his voice. He had a beautiful voice,and that’s all they came to hear.

BD:    But would theynot collectively have been immensely more satisfied if, in addition to thiswonderful voice, he had given them a credible or even superb acting performance?

SW:    Oh, absolutely. There’s no question about that. I think they would have appreciatedif he could do it, but he felt he couldn’t do it, or he wasn’t good at it,and he didn’t care about it. All he cared about was getting out there,like a concert with costume. Let me give you an example...

BD:    [Interrupting] First, let me ask you perhaps an impossible question. Assuming youcan’t get the wonderful singer with the wonderful acting ability, would yourather have a lesser singer who has wonderful acting ability, or a wonderfulsinger with less acting ability?

SW:    Well, as Icome from the theater, I would of course prefer the person who could actand try to. There are many opera singers who are wonderful actors who wouldn’t need to sing at all. They could credibly work in the theaterbecause they were so good and had such a natural talent. But I wasgoing to use an example of Pavarotti, because everybody recognizes him.

BD:    I thought wewere talking about him before!

SW:    No, we werenot!!!

BD:    [Mildly shocked] Oh that was another tenor???

SW:    Oh yes, thereare a lot of tenors in the world! As far as Luciano was concerned,he made an effort.

BD:    That’s good. I remember him here in Chicago, and especially in the early days he did makean effort at acting.

SW:    He is not agood actor, but the thing that makes him so marvelous, apart from his voice,is that he has a wonderful personality. He’s a lovely, charming man personally, but he also has a credibility in his singing where you totallyexperience the character in terms of his voice and in terms of what he’ssinging about. He understands that emotionally, and that compensatesfor a lot. I remember when I worked with him the only time, we didAïda in San Francisco for thefirst time.

BD:    This was hisfirst shot at the part?

SW:    That’s right. We had two or three weeks of rehearsal, which is very unusual.

BD:    Did he showup for the whole time?

SW:    Oh yes, hedid, and he showed up for rehearsal on time every day. He was concernedto do it well. At a certain point I said, “Please, Luciano, face theperson you’re singing at so we can have a connection in this particular duet.” And he said to me, “Look at me when I turn sideways, you see what the profileis. I can’t!” He was very conscious of his size and weight, andthe image that he represents up there. Of course costuming is a veryimportant thing that he worries about, but he tries to diminish that heavyweight image of his. But I never got a sense that he didn’t care orthat he wasn’t trying. He’s just not a natural actor in terms of movement. He’s a natural actor in terms of singing. That’s the thing that I likeabout him, that he makes an effort even though he’s not a natural actor. But the fact that he’s making an effort is very important. I believethat the type of person I was talking about in the first example—who shall be nameless —is part of theold school, where to him opera is singing only. Yes, you have to puton a costume and do a little make-up and so on, but he’s not interested inthat. He knows that his voice has found a claim throughout his career,and he didn’t have to do the other thing; nor was he good at it, so we justthrew in the towel, really. It’s a sort of selfish sort of thing.

BD:    Selfish orlazy?

SW:    Well, selfishbecause there is no effort made, and it was not fair to the other actors,singers, who were attempting to perform in the opera-sense, where opera isa combination of acting and singing. That’s what it’s all about.

BD:    Then let meask the‘Capriccio’ question. Where is the balance between the acting and the singing?

SW:    As a directorin opera, one always has to be aware of the machinery of singing when youstage an opera. I know that some other producers make singers go throughphysical contortions which make it difficult for them. They put themin awful positions which are difficult for singing, and that’s not fair. I know a lot of modern operas which they don’t care about such things. There is a school of thought in modern opera today where acting becomes more important than the singing, and these works require putting actors in theright positions. You do see several modern operas where this is happening,where the emphasis is on the acting more than on the singing, and sometimesthere are contortions that actors are put through — such assingerslying on their backs or bending way over so can’t breathe properly, and doing physical leaps where they lose their breath and can’t sustain notes, andso on. That happens in modern, contemporary opera today.

BD:    Does it alsohappen in old operas staged in updated versions?

SW:    Sometimes itdoes, depending on who’s producing and what organization is doing it, andwhether the singers will allow it to happen. But I as a producer feelI probably fall between the two stools. I believe in refreshing thecontent of the material, to enhance the music, but always to give a freshnessthrough what’s happening on the stage in terms of the story and the dramathe emotion and so on.   But I also recognize that there is a physicalcondition that has to permit the singer to give the best vocal quality, wherehe can breathe properly and have enough weight behind the music. The demands on the voice are very great. It’s a very delicate instrument.

BD:    I suppose thoughoccasionally you might want one of these contortions or something but youhave another singer is singing so that ...

SW:    Oh, yes, youcan do that. But if the singer says to me that they can’t really producethe notes properly in that position, or they can’t run up the steps and thebelt out a high C, that’s understandable.

BD:    So then youchange your direction?

SW:    Absolutely,you have to.

BD:    Because thereare directors who say they simply must do it.

SW:    I know, andI don’t agree with that. I think the music must not be sacrificed,and that means vocal music mustn’t be sacrificed to some crazy demand thata director might make. It’s not right.

BD:    So ‘prima la musica e poi le parole [firstthe music and then the words]!’

SW:    That’s right.

BD:    When you stageoperas, I assume that mostly you’re involved with new productions so thatyou can collaborate with the designer and the whole team rather than comingin onto an existing production?

SW:    Exactly. I did an opera in San Diego some time ago which had been staged before. At first I said, “I really am not interested.” There was ten days ofactual rehearsal time, and none of these people had sung the major rolesbefore, and they said they’ve got the sets. I’m really not interested in just remounting something which, in effect, confines everything to what was done before.

BD:    You made thisassumption without even looking at the stage pictures?

SW:    That’s right. I think there’s another role for some other kind of person who’s a stager. There’s always a resident producer or director.

BD:    What if you’dlooked at the pictures and thought the production was fabulous?

SW:    Well then Isuppose I would have felt differently about it, but in that particular casethe set was rather boring and the costumes had been hired. Some ofthem were made but they’d have to be fitted to the new singers. Anyway,I was very reluctant to do anything about it and take on this job, when themanagement said they wanted to refurbish it, even change the set if needed. They said they would do fresh things, etc., but when it came to actuallydoing it, a) there wasn’t time, b) there wasn’t money to do it and c) thereality was that they weren’t interested in changing it in any way. So I found myself trapped, once I’d agreed to do it, to try and bring somethingoriginal or new to it. The only thing I had left was to try and makethe singers perform in a credible human and emotional way.

* * * * *

BD:    Aside fromthe very obvious, what are the differences between directing opera and directinga stage play or a film or television?

SW:    As far as thestraight theater is concerned, the concentration there is totally on theacting and the interpretation of the play without any limitations other than what the living author might impose. If you’re staging it from scratchas the first production, the living author would be normally there with you, working together...

BD:    As a collaboratoror a pest?

wanamaker

SW:    Well, some might say both, of course! [Both laugh] But it depends on what that relationship is. Inmy own experience I have worked with authors of original productions, andwould have preliminary meetings with that person before we began. Iwas happy to carry on with it, and I suppose the writer, too, had to be assuredthat the director he was getting wasn’t going to distort his play. So it was a common objective to try and understand each other and the materialbefore you actually commit to doing it with each other, and in most casesit works out very well. In some cases there are disagreements, andthey’re either resolved happily or they’re resolved unhappily, or they’renot resolved at all!

BD:    So there areseveral possibilities?

SW:    Oh yes, therealways are. If the director felt that the author was wrong in a certainarea, he would try to persuade the author that it needed changing.  If he couldn’t persuade him to do that, there could be a point of no returnin the collaboration. It has often happened that the director leavesthe production because, after all, the writer is the one that takes precedencein the end —unless you can persuade him— and that element of persuasion happens quite a lot in a newproduction where a director can persuade an author to make certain changes. That’s what a new production is all about. You maybe make those changesafter you do previews. You see what’s happening on the stage and youboth can see that something isn’t working. Then you both have to find a way to make it work!

BD:    Does the samehold true for a new opera? I know you’ve stage a couple of the newworks by Tippett.

SW:    Yes. I worked with Michael Tippett twice on two new works, and he was immensely co-operative about the staging. Interestingly enough he always deferredto the director because he had certain visions about the music and sound,but his vision of staging was very dim. He never thought in terms ofstaging, which is very interesting with him. So in almost in all casesdeferred to the director in terms of staging.

BD:    Was he hisown librettist?

SW:    Oh yes. He always has been. It’s very interesting that every opera that I canthink of that he’s done has been the libretto written by him. So you’vegot a double whammy there. He has not only written the music but alsothe libretto. Yet curiously enough, he is very generous about givingthe director his own creative head, and that’s very exciting. WhenI didKing Priam, it was his second opera. His first opera wasMidsummer Marriage, and that when that was premiered at Covent Garden it wasa disaster. The critics just killed it. I didn’t see the production,but I read some of the press and they were devastating. King Priam was my first opera, andJohn Pritchard, whomI knew and who conducted it, used to come and see my productions up in Liverpool. He was the conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at the time, andhe used to come and see my plays that I staged in the Shakespeare theaterthere. He was the one who suggested my staging of theKing Priam.

BD:    Pritchard wasa great favorite here in Chicago.

SW:    A lovely mantoo. But I demurred because I just felt that I’m not a musician. I don’t read music for example. I love opera, I love music but I don’tread, and so I said, “I really haven’t got the confidence that I could do this.” He told me, “You come and talk to Michael Tippett, and you will see!” Michael was absolutely wonderful about it, but the interestingthing was that none of the major producers of opera wanted to do his work. So I was sort of at the end of a line, if you see what I mean!

BD:    Did they assume,no matter what, it was another scandal?

SW:    Well, yes! They just didn’t like his music, and they thoughtKing Priam was unstageable. I foundthis out later, of course, but it didn’t take much to figure it out why theywere coming to me, a guy who’s never done an opera before and can’t readmusic, just to take on this very important job. Finally I was persuaded. I really had to back into it because I was very nervous and frightened. Pritchard said, “Michael will be there with you,” but as it happened, Michaelwasn’t. Michael didn’t come near the rehearsals until the very endwhen we started to work with the orchestra for the first time. Thefascinating thing is that I remember Michael took the first orchestral rehearsal.

BD:    He conductedit?

SW:    Yes. He wasn’t going to do it, but he took it only because he wanted the experienceof hearing it for the first time with the whole orchestra. All thisstuff was in his head! The only thing I had to work with was a piano score and somebody playing the whole opera on the piano. Not beinga musician, it was very hard for me to hear all the orchestral voices. I’d say, “Well what is this?” and of course the orchestral score told youwhat it was.

BD:    That’s a littleoboe line or a trombone part!

SW:    Exactly. In my own imagination I had to hear that instrument, and not having the experiencea proper musician, it was much more difficult. So for me it was a wonderfulsurprise too to hear it, and I remember Michael taking this first orchestralrehearsal and suddenly breaking down the orchestra. The instrumentwould suddenly not be able to play something and he would burst out laughing. It was way out of the range of that instrument, and so he laughed and theyall laughed. He said, “Well, I’ll have to fix that, won’t I!” It was rather charming, and the success of that production was a great surpriseto me and everybody for that matter because they were expecting the worstof Covent Garden and all the critics and all that. Instead, it wasa great success with the audience and with everybody concerned. I thinkthat was because I was dealing with a great classic story, and I had enough material from theIliad to createsomething on a stage that was marvelously exciting. And the music fittedit beautifully. Suddenly the music became alive. If you listen to the score ofKing Priam itself, it’s not so hot just to hear. It’s something you’ve got to see, andthis has been true when they did it in concert performance. They’vehad one or two stagings of that opera since I did it over twenty years ago,and they both succeeded very well. After the first production it wasstaged quite differently.

BD:    Is that a tributeto Tippett, that it can be staged several different ways and still hold up?

SW:    Yes, yes, exactly. It’s a tribute to him, but it’s also a tribute to the fundamental core ofthe story and the material, which is wonderful stuff.

BD:    You also dida second Tippett opera,The Ice Break. That’s a completely new story.

SW:    That’s right,a completely new idea that he’d written from somewhere in his imagination. He’s very American-oriented, you know.   He loved American musicand jazz and spirituals and black music.

BD:    So then youdidn’t have quite so much historical material to call upon?

SW:    No, I didn’t,and that made it much more difficult. It was a very difficult pieceto stage. We had a very interesting set to look at, but it turned outto be very difficult to work on. That’s partly my fault in terms of the collaboration with the scenic artists. We worked very closely togetheron this thing, and I think we just created a set that was marvelous for thepiece, but made it very difficult for the actors. This was a situationwhere actors had to do certain things physically that made it difficult forthem to sing. So I feel partly to blame for the fact that it wasn’ta success.

BD:    Would you likeanother shot at it?

SW:    I would liketo correct my own mistakes.

BD:    Would you startwith the same basic ideas and correct them, or would you scrap it and startagain?

SW:    I would scrapit and start again. The other way would be tinkering with it, and Ithink we just bit off a bit too much in terms of trying to make a statementthrough the set, and we went too far. I needn’t take the whole blamefor the failure of that piece, because if it were the result of the staging,then you would think that the music would have attracted other productionselsewhere, and it has not. I vaguely recall the opera at Boston dida production of it. I know they didKing Priam... [The Ice Break was first produced at the Royal Opera House,Covent Garden, on 7 July 1977, conducted by Colin Davis, the dedicatee ofthe opera, with (among others) Heather Harper,John Shirley-Quirk, andJosephine Barstow. A German translation was given at the Kiel Opera House the year followingits premiere. The Opera Company of Boston mounted the work in May 1979 underthe direction ofSarahCaldwell, the first professional production of a Tippett opera in theUSA. It was revived at Covent Garden the same year, but was not thereafter seen until a concert production at the Henry Wood Proms in the Royal AlbertHall in 1990. A recording was made with the 1990 cast.]

BD:    There’s beena recording of the work...

SW:    This was donein the studio. I haven’t heard it so I don’t know whether it’s standsup musically or not. Have you heard it?

BD:    I have therecord, but I must confess I’ve not had a chance to listen to it yet.

SW:    I should getit too. We should both listen to it now and judge it on just the musical score. But I suspect it imposes a tremendous problem for anybody whois staging it. It’s a very difficult piece.

* * * * *

BD:    You bring upa word that I want to pounce on just a little bit, and that is ‘judgment’. When an audience comes to an opera that you or someone else has staged, howmuch should they be judging and how much should they just be enjoying or becomingenriched?

SW:    I like to gofor myself whenever I go to something new, whether it’s an opera or a playor a ballet, or whatever.   I come with an open mind since normallyyou know who the people are who have put it together, but even if it’s peopleyou don’t know, who have no track record that you know of. BecauseI have been myself the recipient in the normal way of criticism for productionsthat I’ve staged or be involved with as an actor, whether it’s films or television,I’m much more open-minded. I don’t find myself folding my arms andsitting there, grim-jawed and saying, “Show me!” I am much more receptiveand responsive to what’s coming across. It takes me a long time beforeI will dismiss something and say this is rubbish, and even leave the auditoriumbecause it’s painful. It becomes painful if you find what’s happeningup there is offensive to you in terms of artistic quality and it’s corrupt,or horribly conventional or false. There’s no point in torturing yourselfas an audience. So I’m open-minded until there comes a point whereyou finally are open-minded enough and have allowed all the things you don’tlike to go by, hoping that the thing will overcome some of the mistakes ormisjudgments. So I hope the audience comes that way. That wasyour question. I hope they come open-minded, but unfortunately in operathis depends on what your relationship is to hearing or seeing opera.

BD:    You might becoming for the first time?

SW:    It could verywell be. But I’m afraid that people go to see their favorites, andthey don’t care about anything else.

BD:    So you drawa very distinct line between just being bored, and the production being corruptand offending?

SW:    Yes. There are various negative reactions. Boredom is a negative reaction. If you’re bored, why are you bored? You’re bored because there’s nothingfresh and nothing stimulating, nothing exciting to look forward to, and soyou’re bored. That may not be bad, though. It’s a conventionalfeeling, and I’m not against the conventional as such. There mightbe something good in that conventional thing, even if you come just to relaxand listen to the singing because it’s so lovely, and the music you’ve heardbefore and they’re doing that well. So you turn off on the stagingand you get something good out of it. But if the singing is not goodand if the acting is not good, and if the piece has been done many timesbefore and you’ve seen it or heard it many times before, you might say, “Whatthe hell? Why hang around? I’ll go and put on the CD when I gethome!” [Pauses] I have to get back to Shakespeare for a momenthere because I’ve been preoccupied in the latter part of my life with reconstructing Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, which is now coming up out of the ground finallyas part of an international Shakespeare set-up. [See the box below for details of the originaltheater and the reconstruction.]

BD:    Did I readthat you found the original walls, and you found the nutshells and knew that was really the Globe?

SW:    Yes, they’dfound some of the foundations of the Globe, and they did find, as you say,some nutshells in all of this. This was in ’89, about three years ago, which has given us that much more information about reconstructing it accurately. But I’ve been so preoccupied with that, and my interest in Shakespeare hasdeveloped of course, along with my interest in rebuilding the Globe. One goes to all the productions of Shakespeare one can. That meanslooking for actors who could really do it well, and for producers/directorswho could stage it well. One has seenHamlet twenty times, and still you goback again. You know the play backwards but yet you go. Likea great opera, you go often and over and over again to be re-excited andre-stimulated by the work. But there are so many poor productions ofShakespeare, and it turns people off. It’s like opera in a way, inthe sense that people go to opera very often because they think it’s theright cultural thing to do, and they don’t really care about it very much.

BD:    A bit likecastor oil!

SW:    That’s right! It’s a kind of social thing they feel they must do in order to be seen tobe properly intellectual or cultured. It’s terrible for the peoplewho go for those reasons. They sit there, slarming a lot of junk, in effect like junk food, and not knowing the difference between good and badbecause they haven’t had the chance to see really great, and they’re reallyturned off by it. I’ve seen audiences turned off by Shakespeare, butwill sit there rigidly, gritting their teeth, pretending they’re enjoyingit.

BD:    Have you stagedany of the Shakespeare operas?

SW:    I have not,and it’s one of the things I’m looking forward to doing. It shouldbe very exciting for me to doOtello orMacbeth orHamlet.

BD:    If you stageOtello, will you have a little more sympathy for Iago, having played him on stage?

SW:    [Roars withlaughter] I think Iago’s a fantastic character, a wonderful character. Whether one has sympathy for him, I don’t see any. He’s not a verysympathetic character. I think he’s funny! I think he’s veryshrewd and clever, and those kinds of people make you laugh a lot becausethey’re so bloody brilliant.

BD:    Did Verdi dohim justice?

SW:    Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. [At this point,his wife, Charlotte, came into the room to summon him to get ready for hisevening’s event.]

BD:    Thank you somuch for spending a little time with me today.

SW:    Well, not atall.

[The following is from PlayShakespeare.com (text only - photo is from another source)]

Elizabethan Theatres

The Globe Theatre

The original Globe was an Elizabethan theatre which opened in Autumn 1599in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames, in an area now known as Bankside.It was one of several major theatres that were located in the area, the othersbeing the Swan, the Rose and The Hope. The Globe was the principal playhouseof the Lord Chamberlain's Men (who would become the King's Men in 1603).Most of Shakespeare's post-1599 plays were staged at the Globe, includingJulius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear and Hamlet.

The Globe was owned by many actors, who (except for one) were also shareholdersin the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Two of the six Globe shareholders, RichardBurbage and his brother Cuthbert Burbage, owned double shares of the whole,or 25% each; the other four men, Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips,and Thomas Pope, owned a single share, or 12.5%. (Originally William Kempewas intended to be the seventh partner, but he sold out his share to thefour minority sharers, leaving them with more than the originally planned10%). These initial proportions changed over time, as new sharers were added. Shakespeare's share diminished from 1/8 to 1/14, or roughly 7%, over thecourse of his career.

The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, The Theatre,that had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditchin 1576. The Burbages originally had a 20-year lease of the site on whichthe Theatre was built. When the lease ran out, they dismantled The Theatrebeam by beam and transported it over the Thames to reconstruct it as TheGlobe.

On June 29, 1613, the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performanceof Henry the Eighth. A theatrical cannon, set off during the performance,misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching. According to one of thefew surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man who putout his burning breeches with a bottle of ale.

Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritansin 1642. It was destroyed in 1644 to make room for tenements. Its exact locationremained unknown until remnants of its foundations were discovered in 1989beneath the car park of Anchor Terrace on Park Street (the shape of the foundationsare replicated in the surface of the car park). There may be further remainsbeneath Anchor Terrace, but the 18th century terrace is listed and thereforecannot be disturbed by archaeologists.

Layout of the Globe

The Globe's actual dimensions are unknown, but its shape and size can beapproximated from scholarly inquiry over the last two centuries. The evidencesuggests that it was a three-story, open-air amphitheatre between 97 and102 feet (29.6 - 31.1M) in diameter that could house up to 3,000 spectators.The Globe is shown as round on Wenceslas Hollar's sketch of the building,later incorporated into his engraved "Long View" of London in 1647. However,in 1997-98, the uncovering of a small part of the Globe's foundation suggestedthat it was a polygon of 20 (or possibly 18) sides.

At the base of the stage, there was an area called the pit, (or, harkingback to the old inn-yards, yard) where, for a penny, people (the "groundlings")would stand to watch the performance. Groundlings would eat hazelnuts duringperformances — during the excavation of the Globe nutshells were found preservedin the dirt — or oranges. Around the yard were three levels of stadium-styleseats, which were more expensive than standing room

A rectangular stage platform, also known as an 'apron stage', thrust outinto the middle of the open-air yard. The stage measured approximately 43feet (13.1m) in width, 27 feet (8.2m) in depth and was raised about 5 feet(1.52m) off the ground. On this stage, there was a trap door for use by performersto enter from the "cellarage" area beneath the stage. There may have beenother trap doors around the stage.

Large columns on either side of the stage supported a roof over the rearportion of the stage. The ceiling under this roof was called the "heavens,"and may have been painted with clouds and the sky. A trap door in the heavensenabled performers to descend using some form of rope and harness.

The back wall of the stage had two or three doors on the main level, witha curtained inner stage in the center and a balcony above it. The doors enteredinto the "tiring house" (backstage area) where the actors dressed and awaitedtheir entrances. The balcony housed the musicians and could also be usedfor scenes requiring an upper space, such as the balcony scene in Romeo andJuliet.

The modern Globe

At the instigation of American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, a new Globetheatre was built according to an Elizabethan plan. The design team comprisedTheo Crosby of Pentagram as the architect, Buro Happold as structural andservices engineers and Boyden & Co as quantity surveyors. It opened in1997 under the name "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre" and now stages plays everysummer (May to October). Mark Rylance was appointed as the first artisticdirector of the modern Globe in 1995. In 2006, Dominic Dromgoole took over.

The new theatre on Bankside is approximately 225 yards (205m) from the originalsite, centre to centre, and was the first thatched roof building permittedin London since the Great Fire of London in 1666.

As in the original Globe, the theatre is open to the sky and has a thruststage that projects into a large circular yard surrounded by three tiersof steeply raked seating. 700 tickets to stand (and you must stand, no sittingallowed) in the yard are available for every performance at 5 pounds each.The only covered parts of the amphitheatre are the stage and the (more expensive)seated areas. Plays are put on during the summer, usually between May andthe first week of October. In the winter the theatre is used for educationalpurposes. Tours are available all year round.

The reconstruction was carefully researched so that the new building wouldbe as faithful a replica as possible. This was aided by the discovery asfinal plans were being made of the site of the original Globe itself. Modernisationsinclude the addition of sprinklers on the roof to protect against fire, andthe fact that the theatre is partly joined onto a modern lobby, visitorscentre and additional backstage support areas. Due to modern Health and Safetyregulations 1,300 people can be housed during a show, under half the estimated3,000 of Shakespeare's time.

Replicas

Globe-Theater, Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

A number of conjectural replicas or free interpretations of the Globe havebeen built around the world:

U.S.A.

OSF Elizabethan Theatre, Ashland, Oregon, built in 1935, rebuilt 1947 and1959
San Diego, Old Globe Theatre, built in 1935
Cedar City, Utah, Adams Shakespearean Theatre
Chicago, Illinois, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier, built 1999
Dallas, Texas, Old Globe Theatre, built 1936
Odessa, Texas, The Globe Theatre Of The Great Southwest
Williamsburg, Virginia, Globe Theatre, built 1975 in the Banbury Cross sectionof Busch Gardens Europe

Germany

Neuss am Rhein, Globe Neuss, built 1991
Rust, Baden, Germany (in German), Europa-Park (in German), built 2000
Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg

Italy

Rome, built 2003

Czech Republic

Prague, built 1999, burned down in 2005

Japan

Tokyo, Isozakia Arata's Panasonic Globe Theatre in Tokyo, built 1988
Replica of similar Elizabethan theatre:
Waseda University Tsubouchi Shoyo Memorial Library Theatre (a replica ofThe Fortune Theatre), built early 1900s

Copyright © 2014 by PlayShakespeare.com.

This conversation was recorded at his hotel in Chicago on September18, 1992. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following year. This transcription was made in 2015, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British sopranoUna Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website,click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was withWNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series onWNUR-FM, as well as onContemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit hiswebsite for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information abouthis grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send himE-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.

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