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MR.SAMMON: Give me a little bit of a follow-up on the language question.
Shakespeare is translated into a lot of foreign languages for foreign
audiences, but in that translation it is—the translation is the modern version
of the foreign language. Why not a
modern version of the English language for Shakespeare?
SIR DEREK: How dare you? (Laughter.
Applause.) Hands up who
asked that question. (Laughter.) An
interesting question. Should I
deign to answer it? (Laughter.)
No, no. It’s our business
as performers to make what Shakespeare wrote understand-able—as I just
said—and acceptable. If we fail
to do that, we have failed completely in what we set out to do.
I think sometimes there are rules that have been made for the performance
of Shakespeare and the speaking of Shakespeare that have gotten away actually of
the communication of Shakespeare, because many directors and commentators have
decided that there is a way to say Shakespeare from which we must not waver.
But I don’t believe that. I
don’t believe that. And I think
that one of the things that have made those plays live now is that they are
totally contemporary, because they deal in universal truths, in universal
situations and emotions.
Some of the words obviously we are not going to understand, because they
have gone out of usage. But what I
got—again, I refer to the “Hamlet” film is that when you didn’t
understand the actual words that were being used, you knew exactly at any given
time what the people were thinking and what the people were feeling.
So it doesn’t need I think an update of the language. I think you would—you would absolutely disable and cripple
those plays.
When I did “Cyrano de
Bergerac,” I worked from a wonderful text by
Anthony Burgess of the Rostand original—and I read the Rostand original.
And curiously enough Burgess’s translation of that was brilliant enough
to actually on the page look and read so well—there were so many little
internal niceties of language that in performance I don’t think you could—it
couldn’t come across—it was so intricate—it was so beautiful to look at on
the page.
But, no, as putting Shakespeare in rap Shakespeare.
(Laughter. Applause.)
MR. SAMMON: I understand you were with Mrs. Clinton at the White House
this morning. Can you tell us of
any commitments she is planning regarding funding of the arts, especially arts
in America? And before your own
passport is revoked, can you tell us about the reduction of arts in Britain?
SIR DEREK: Well, she was (hopelessly?) cooking breakfast.
She didn’t have much time—(laughter)—No, she was very lovely and
very gracious. She had come all the
way back from Philadelphia to be there, which was very heartening and
heart-warming. And she gave a
lovely speech. And I think she is
truly dedicated to the arts in this country.
Of course she didn’t go into any detail about plans for the arts. But she did say that the arts were an essential part of life
on this planet—not just a side issue, not just something for the elite or the
cultured or the knowledgeable, or the partial, the grand—that they were for
everybody, and were an essential part of everyday life.
And obviously I and all those there agreed wholeheartedly with her.
Funding is always a difficult situation.
In England there are many companies that are going out of business, there
are many—I mean theater companies. There
are theaters closing, which is very sad to see.
We are, as you know, in the middle of an election, and it looks like we
are going to have a new Labour government.
They have stated that they will take the lottery funding away from the
arts and plow it into the National Health Service, et cetera.
That would be a terrible blow, because the lottery funding is so
essential, because local communities are cutting back on their funding.
It is a continuing problem.
I think in America you have a much more established idea of funding by
private individuals, which we are only now coming round to in England. It is a
shame that the arts have to go cap in hand all the time asking for money.
I know many people who run companies in England who would much rather be
concentrating on the work—directing the ballet, directing the plays—whereas
they have to spend their time at meetings asking people to give them money.
It is time consuming. It is
rather soul-destroying at times, because you have to literally beg.
That is bad news for the arts. But
in a sense without a doubt, because the other side of it—and I have to be
honest, because I’ve seen it and I’ve been part of companies, like the
National Theatre in Britain, like the Royal Shakespeare Company, the big
subsidized companies, and I know they waste money.
I know that money is spent on sets and costumes, but is way beyond what
should have been spent. Money is
wasted. A costume is made out of
raw silk which at a distance of 10 feet you can’t tell is raw silk, and then
the actress doesn’t like it, so it’s changed.
Sets are changed overnight because they don’t work—they cost
thousands of pounds. Money is
wasted, yes, of course. But (‘twas ever done?).
If only we could get back to Shakespeare.
They don’t need sets. He
described where you are. You
don’t really need costumes. In
Shakespeare’s day they did it in their everyday clothes—Elizabethan clothes.
So actually when it comes down to it, although it will be putting
designers and lighting directors out of job, which I don’t want to do, all
Shakespeare plays can be done with nothing—absolutely nothing but the words.
MR. SAMMON: Richard Burton had a memorable stage presence, but he was
severely criticized for concentrating on his movie career, as if he had somehow
sold out. How do you assess his
work? And did he influence your
own? Do you receive criticism about
not sticking purely with the stage, but venturing into television and movies?
SIR DEREK: No. So far I
haven’t received criticism to do that sort of thing, but then I haven’t
ventured very far into movies. I
ain’t a movie star, and I—in fact, I’m trying to chase the movies at the
moment—I am trying to do more work in movies, because I’ve been almost
exclusively theater and/or television.
I had the great honor to meet Burton.
When I was a young boy growing up in London, educated in London, I was
taken to the theater by various English masters.
And one of the theaters I was regularly taken to in school parties was
the glorious Old Vic in Waterloo, and there was a famous season when Burton was
playing Hamlet and Coriolanus and Henry V and Caliban (ph).
And I saw them all, and he was a colossus. He was a colossus He
came out to the stage. He looked a
million dollars. He had this
glorious voice. He had a (stage?)
that you’d die for. He had what
every classical actor would kill for. He
just walked on, and, God, he was wonderful.
And I saw “Hamlet,” and years later I was playing “Hamlet” at the
Old Vic—oh no, in between that, when I was a Cambridge I did a “Hamlet” at
Cambridge as a student, and we took it to Switzerland—we toured in
Switzerland. And one of the places
we went close to was Lausanne, where Richard Burton was working.
And he knew the boy who was playing Claudius in this particular
production of “Hamlet,” and came to see it.
And I met him, and he came around afterwards and was very gracious.
And when I got back to my college in Cambridge there was a letter waiting
for me from Richard Burton, and it basically said two things.
It said if I ever wanted to be a professional actor to get in touch with
him and he would help me. And the
other thing was that he thought if he had any criticism of the performance it
was that he thought my voice was too mellifluous—(laughter)—and that it
would put people to sleep, and that he felt that he as a young actor had
suffered from the same affliction, and that I should do exercises or take
lessons in order to roughen up my voice so that it was a little more interesting
and not quite so beautiful—(laughter)—which I took his advice and tried to
do that.
And then years later when I was playing “Hamlet” at the Old Vic he
was out front, and he came round—I didn’t know he was out front, but he came
round afterwards and sat in the dressing room, and he said, “Would you like to
go out to dinner?” “Well, you
bet, I’d love to.” And so he
waited until I got changed and got ready, and then we walked out of the theater.
As we walked out, in the corridor at the back, he said, “Do you mind if
we walk—go out onto the stage?” And
I said, “No, of course not.” And
he walked out onto the stage and he said, “I haven’t been out on the stage
for 25-odd years,” and I said, “I know, because when I was a boy I was
sitting up there and I saw you on this very stage play Hamlet,” and all those
other ones in the past. And he
said, “Yes, I remember when I played Hamlet, Winston Churchill was sitting in
the front row—(laughter)—and as I got to ‘To be or not to be,’ Churchill
started saying with you.” (Laughter.)
But it was sort of a wonderful, wonderful moment of the whirligig of
time. And he was marvelous, because
all he wanted to do was talk about theater, talk about plays, talk about
Shakespeare. He didn’t want to
talk about movies or Elizabeth Taylor or money or Hollywood.
He wanted to talk about the theater.
And we did. And
we—(inaudible)—until 4:00 in the morning.
He was castigated and in a sense I think rightly that in a sense he
diminished his very, very great talent by concentrating too much on the movies,
and not always very good movies, because he had such a gift for the theater, and
he had everything that theater requires—a classical actor in the theater,
because he had it in space. It was
just wonderful. And he didn’t
fulfill it, I don’t think, he didn’t fulfill that potential, which was sad,
because he went for other things.
I have never had that opportunity. (Laughter.)
So, who knows? If they
said—if Spielberg called up and said—(laughter)—I nearly—I’ll tell
you—I got into the last three—I went to see Jonathan Demming (sp) in Los
Angeles, and I was in the last three for Hannibal Lecter.
So, who knows, my career might have taken a—(laughter)—I mean Tony
was very good—damn him—(laughter)—but if—
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