(00:00:05) You're so well known for your roles in modern works of Beckett and experimental works with my boo Minds. What kind of acting gears do you have to shift to do Shakespeare at this point? (00:00:18) Not at all for one thing? Because I think that Samuel Beckett is a classical writer and he's in the highest poetic tradition and therefore he joins Shakespeare because after all it's all about music, I think the one has to deal primarily with the musicality of language rather than the psychology of that which has been written into it. If one treats the language carefully enough With the right kind of energy then the thought process the philosophy or the psychology of the writer will inevitably emerge because after all he took care of that when he wrote (00:01:11) it, can you give me an example of that say in the role you're doing now? (00:01:17) Yes, I feel that when I do the speech all the world's a stage, which is a frightening thing to have to deal with because it seems so absolutely familiar. Yes, of course. It isn't very few. People could actually quote that speech in Toto and I was very afraid of it for a while. And when we did the first reading of the play we arrived at that point and I said to love you too late. That's just got this and it was quite a while before I was able to just calm down about it and in a sense. Write it for myself and sing it in quotes as simply and as purely as I know how it's the same problem with Samuel Beckett's work. Because his language is so exquisitely structured. That if you start to fool around with it, you obscure it rather than making it clear and accessible to people. When I do the player that he wrote for me just called a piece of monologue. I Endeavor to put as little Interpretation, if you like into the words as possible, it's all about pacing and breathing. So that this is the way that piece sounds. brr Was the death of him? again words of you dying, too birth Was the death of him? Now that goes on for about 50 minutes. Because the experience might be too difficult for some people depending on the mood they're in or they're receptivity. But very curiously I found that people are very willing to listen to that in October. I performed that play three times in Bologna Italy before an audience. But from very few knew any English whatsoever. but nobody (00:04:20) moved and just by the intonations just by the very sounds you're saying you translate what that is into any language (00:04:29) something comes through. I didn't know quite what it is. And I don't think anybody can quite describe it but there is something (00:04:35) else. Could you do a bit of all the world's a stage? (00:04:38) No, I'd rather not I'd anticipated that question that I decided that I want to save it. I want to do it in the right place in the right context. That's (00:04:51) very interesting. You could you could do the Beckett to make the point and not do this because it's not the right place. What what what's the importance of place? (00:05:03) the something about Protection the stage is very protected place because after it corresponds to the altar. In the temple all the church. From whence it emerged since I've already performed the Beckett peace a number of times and I've recorded it for radio and therefore I know I think how to protect it myself but as yet the As You Like It role is still under wraps? It's like the kajillions collection, you know, and it has to be covered with sheets for a while. (00:05:48) But but an actor protecting in that way is interesting to me. Are you buying by Nature protective person (00:05:55) in certain areas? Yes, certain parts of ourselves need to be nursed and when we feel strong and secure about a particular area of ourselves, then we can open it up without damage to it. I pride myself on telling the truth. I tried to lie for a while because I thought it was the thing that everybody did maybe I better try to do it tube didn't work but that's an area now that I know how to deal with and I'm not afraid of telling truth. It doesn't matter what it is. As long as I didn't hurt person and dealing with (00:06:37) the I sense from what you're saying that you are an actor that works from the inside out to a role rather than from the outside in. (00:06:46) Well, that's a rather tricky question. I'm not quite sure what the process is. Actually. I'm not quite sure what the percentage of thought as opposed to instinct is. I don't know possibly it changes all the time. (00:07:08) What did you do for example in preparing for this role? (00:07:18) I have to decide first of all that I was going to do Shakespearean roll. It's my first one. I knew that it was coming one way or another Justice. For example, I suppose I must have known that one way or another. I was going to do an old card play and I did one a year and a half ago private lives and it's been there all the time. Just waiting to come out the opportunity had Arisen or I hadn't sought it at that time until then rather and once it happened. It just flowed at work or said to learn the roles rather tricky one. I also had to sing on stage frightened me to death, but it worked perfectly. Well once I allowed this character to sing. It was really a matter of making decisions. It was a matter of deciding to work with you to lay the matter deciding to come to Minneapolis for three months for one thing. If you were 10 years, I was a member of company called mabu Minds which is quite well-known I think in Minneapolis. And I left that company last year and I realized just about when I was getting on the plane to go down to Minneapolis. Did this was the first time that I had gone out on the road alone and That became a little traumatic something that I've had to deal with. It's always one's own choice and one has to deal with these things because one chooses to do them. (00:09:02) How is it different from the first time you joined mobile Minds because in a sense you were alone then (00:09:07) to yes, but I was going into a family another family and I had my biological family and then for 11 years. I was an editor in Paris and don't the staff that magazine was like a family I left that then I went into my room Ines family again, and I come from a large family of six children and then I decided I had to leave that one. So that this experience is it's another departure is what it is and I have to get used to it. (00:09:47) Have you found an element of family? (00:09:50) Yes. This is wonderful company wonderful company very talented actors and the work has been very harmonious. I was not quite prepared for that. I thought that the bigger world of the theater would be more disputable with my character says one point, but it's not so tall. I think great deal of it has to do with The nature of live you to lay the director, but also because the humanity and thoughtfulness of the people at the Guthrie (00:10:27) tell me about the nature of chill (00:10:28) life. He's very trusting in my particular case. I can't speak for anybody else, but he's allowed me a great deal of space to develop whatever can be developed by me in this character. He's a thoroughgoing artist a scholar and a gentleman. And I suppose I could take the first two for granted but not the last and I appreciate it enormously. He's ethical to and I care very much about that. (00:11:04) Why there's so many points in that. I want to I want to go across a couple of them. First of all when you say he gives you space does that mean you don't feel as though every hand gesture every every step on stage is mapped (00:11:15) out. Absolutely. He will offer certain suggestions about how the personage of Jaques might be perceived or presented and then I will start to work on that example. Just my first entrance is a long slow cross downstage alone. Jerry time it happens ready in the play. And since the first moment, I did that walk. He hasn't sought to change it or modified or asked that I give him anything other than what I'm giving that's kind of trusted until he about (00:12:11) do you think though that there was a matter of luck? I mean if something had really stuck out (00:12:14) I don't believe in luck. You don't know I don't I believe in Choice judgment and crafts and self-development and self-questioning and all those things. But if one tries to impute any of these things to luck then one is choosing not to take responsibility for (00:12:37) them. He is called such a visual director. Do you do you sense the The emphasis on visual rather than on text (00:12:45) both a very important but I realized when I first met him just how visual he was when I walked into his office and we were introduced by Ellen Stewart of la mama in New York. And I looked on the wall behind his desk. There was a very fine drawing like an architectural drawing and I thought when I first saw it did it might just be a Gordon Craig but whose work I very fond then immediately I realized it couldn't be it had to be over later date and then I thought oh, it must be very useful indeed. It was one of his designs and it was beautiful very handsome indeed. And of course anybody coming see this production is going to no instantaneously. What a visual person he is, but that's only part of the story. I feel that One can't really separate the two things. If a person is very evolved in one particular area. Then it must mean one way or another that they're paying equal attention to all the other elements. And the care that he has put into the saying of the text. I think will show every bit as much it's going to be a ravishing the beautiful production Center. Look West's costumes are outrageously beautiful. They really are (00:14:39) tell me more about this idea of it's interesting to me how a director can allow that kind of freedom on the part of some of the actors to develop and yet keep a vision going his vision going as director. Well (00:14:57) one thing he has seen my work. I've never seen his but it seems fairly clear to me that When he asked me to play this role, which is a role that he himself has played. He played it in Romania. that he trusted my ability to but we myself properly into his structure and that I wasn't going to violate it and that I could bring something to this role that nobody else could it may be slight and that sells but it will be true because No, two actors will ever do a row same way. And one of the curious and yet quite proper aspects of this experience for me was at the last minute when I was packing New York to come down here I grabbed. An astro flash computer printout of my horoscope, which was done about 20 years ago in Paris and I put it in the trunk. And after about two weeks of work here Olivia would be bringing in essays and literary criticism about the play about my character and one morning. I went into rehearsal and I said I something to read you and I paraphrased it a little bit so didn't say you are but he is and just about every single thing was said in the astrological portrait applies to the character of Jaques. What is that - what's my horoscope (00:17:16) what are some of those (00:17:17) things principally very strong tendency towards Melancholia. which is certainly part of my life I try to fight it but I spend a lot of time alone against by choice and it's difficult choice, but at the same time it can be very profitable one depending on how one uses once time and in and she a tendency towards a certain kind of emotional schizophrenia the wish to be sociable and to be part of the world at the same time an extreme tendency to withdraw and to go into moods monastic my fellow lots of experiences in Europe of going to Cloisters and convents and monasteries and thinking Maybe this is really what I want to be. But then I have a very highly developed social gift as well. And I think it would be unhealthy to deny that. (00:18:42) He's not ultimately what brought you to acting from the editing job. (00:18:49) Well, I think that I was born actor, but I ran away from it. I'm still not quite sure why I think that I distrusted the competitiveness of the profession. I think I distrusted what I thought were the motivations of a lot of people who were involved in it. It's a lot of talent in my family and with my brothers and sisters we used to fool around on Sunday afternoon and do our players and dress up and all that stuff. And so I think that somehow I persuaded myself that it wasn't too serious. (00:19:32) possession (00:19:36) and it wasn't that I was 36. That I finally could no longer run away from it. I had to decide to allow that part of myself to fulfill itself. I had this awful image myself the age of 70 with my great nephews and nieces and saying world was I could have been an act of I wanted to do until that was unbearable. That's all I really got to be honorable to these gifts. Which of course I now realized and not for me at all there for anyone else who can benefit from them. I believe that that is why we are given certain talents and capabilities. It's because we have to work to serve others. It may sound a bit stuffy. I don't know but it's the only way I know now how to (00:20:40) proceed I hear using words honor truth use the word ethical in terms of Julie. Go back a moment to that. I assumed that it was the ethics the honor that brought you here to work with him. (00:20:53) Yes, and also because one way or another I have a debt to Shakespeare because he's a fellow Countryman of mine. I incidentally I went to a school that was founded in 1558, which was six years before Shakespeare was born So it's in my blood. Also. I have a debt to Minneapolis. Minneapolis has been very good to me the first engagement out of New York that mabu mines had in 1970 was at the Walker Art Center and dear Sue while brought us out here sight unseen. So I considered an incredibly courageous and Visionary thing to do and I've been back some four times and I've always found the audience is here to be extremely evolved. Very aware. Very educated. (00:22:01) How do you judge that as an actor? I mean what what kinds of things tip you off to that (00:22:05) the quality of attention it is given to the work the quality of listening that one can feel in it. Audience and that to me is very important thing. Most people don't know how to listen because there's too much noise going on in their heads. For them to allow something else to flow in but that has not been my experience here. (00:22:36) What was your favorite performance that you did here with my boo? (00:22:40) Oh The Lost Ones. I suppose that piece of work is going to be with me until I can no longer move. I just recently in October. Did it in Paris in French the first time and it was originally written in French. There was a festival in honor of Samuel Beckett's 75th birthday and I was in four different Productions and I could erected a fifth. I did 41 performs his in 30 days, which is absolutely insane, but it went very well wonderful event. (00:23:20) What is it that you need in a dramatic piece to set you off? principally (00:23:27) the piece of work the writing has to have so many levels. That I can't possibly perceive them all and whenever I read text script and I'm sent a great many and if on page one, I already know what the whole thing is about then it's not worth my time and attention. That's why the reasons that Samuel Beckett's work has been so very important in my life is because I know that I shall never ever be able to perceive all the levels. What I have to be able to do is to open up my my instrument my body voice mind spirit in such a way that I can Channel whatever is in their Network to people so that they can receive it at whatever level they wish to or capable of (00:24:34) and Shakespeare the same absolutely. What do you want to do next in Shakespeare? (00:24:41) I want to do Prospero. And before I'm altogether too old I would love to do Richard II. Is it (00:24:49) possible do you think for actors at your stage to stay out here for an extended period of time I mean, obviously Rep Theater poses that problem to you. (00:25:00) Yes certainly is a problem last year which it for me and asked me if I would come out here and play it on one and it was to be five months and I couldn't face it now. I've come out here for a three-month stay and so I'm in a better position now to be able to make that kind of decision, but since it hasn't come up yet. I didn't know what my answer is and I won't know until the actual project. Becomes apparent (00:25:32) I think because so I'm not sure a general listener knows what kind of a sacrifice it is for an actor to say. I'm going to leave a coast and come here for three months. (00:25:43) Well, I mean, there's no reason why they should (00:25:48) I mean are you giving up things that you could have been doing in New York? (00:25:53) Well, I suppose so but I didn't know really quite what they are. It's just that it is really quite difficult to do such demanding work in a situation where you're not surrounded by all your chosen Creature Comforts and you don't have all your books and you know, the sheets aren't the same and of the refrigerator is too small and and you don't have a car and you can't - out and do shopping on First Avenue as I do in New York what I can get just about anything in five minutes here. I have to make Expeditions, you know, so that just means one has to restructure one's life a little bit, but I'm not I don't want to complain after all I think in this profession really. one lives where one's work is and if one chooses to do a particular piece of work because I have chosen to do this one. Then I damn well better be able to live there to do it. (00:27:03) We've gotten through this whole intervene. You've never not once mentioned whether come on now, what was it really like (00:27:12) it was startling but I think my experience was like that of a lot of the other actors. We all thought it was normal this place that time of the year and then we began to understand it wasn't at all it was breaking all kinds of Records, but then he got to rather exciting because of that. It was a little difficult times and I've suffered with my throat and nose because of the extreme dryness of the air. It's probably a lot of the actors have had. They were you know. I was I was brought up in rain and fog in English is something that a lot of people just wouldn't be able to cope with the tall butt. The instrument (00:28:05) just you're not going to give away your parka or your boots or whatever. (00:28:10) No, I have to save them for the next time if there is a next (00:28:12) time. Thank you very much. The instrument just you're not going to give away your parka or your boots or whatever. No, I have to save them for the next time if there is a next time. Thank you very much.