A Muse of Fire:
The 1997 Gielgud Presentation

In addition to Sir Derek Jacobi and Dame Diana Rigg, the April 28^th revel attracted a lustrous array of other notables, among them composer Marvin Hamlisch, who had devised a piano overture with lyrics from Kiss Me Kate, The Boys From Syracuse, and West Side Story, and Franklin Gamaro and Iliana Lopez of Edward Villella’s Miami City Ballet, who danced a pas de deux from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.  The theme of the affair was A Muse of Fire, and it exalted Shakespeare as the progenitor for a panoply of modern artists.

The evening was chaired by Mrs. A. Huda Farouki, who introduced the entertainment in the Elizabethan Theatre, and it took place under the gracious patronage of President and Mrs. Clinton and the honorary chairmanship of British Ambassador Sir John Kerr and Lady Kerr, who generously lent their presence to several of the events that preceded the Folger benefit as well as to the gala itself.

Before Dame Diana Rigg presented The Golden Quill to its 1997 recipient, she spoke briefly about both the perquisites and the perils of belonging to an august tradition.  Without mentioning the heroine of Euripides’ Medea, in whose robes Dame Diana had won theatrical distinction on both sides of the Atlantic, she summoned the master spirits of a calling she traced back to several centuries before the dawn of the Christian era.  Drawing from No Turn Unstoned, her compilation of devastating satirical reviews, she quoted a phrase that John Simon had coined for a nude scene in which she’s participated in Abelard and Heloise.  According to New York’s most acerbic critic, Miss Rigg’s principal deficiency has been a physical handicap:  she was “built like a brick basilica with inadequate flying buttresses.”

As time approached for the moment the audience had been anticipating, Dame Diana surprised both the honoree and his adoring fans with a “Government Health Warning” that had been issued earlier in the day.  Its author cautioned that “Sir Derek Jacobi can change your life.”  He point out that, “some twenty years” earlier, “a 16-year-old’s promising academic career” had been “thrown into crisis as all homework was placed on hold.  The reason: I, Claudius.”  Within a few months “this 16-year-old” had also “made a trek to the Oxford New Theatre to witness Mr. Jacobi as Hamlet.”  As a result he made up his mind to enter show business, and upon his return he “duly informed” a pair of “outraged parents.”  To this day, he insisted, “my mother has a legal suit pending against Sir Jacobi.

The source of this message, of course, was Kenneth Branagh.  After extolling the “wit, originality, and honesty,” of the awardee, he said that “quite frankly he makes us proud to be in the same profession.”  He lauded “an ongoing sweetness of character that makes him the most popular of actors’ actors.”  And, in what might have been the ring of a cliché if it had been uttered in a less pertinent context, he labeled Sir Derek “an inspiration to us all.”

As it happened, Branagh’s paean to one of his “closest and dearest friends” was not the only missive that Jacobi received from a theatrical comrade.  Dame Diana also shared a few paragraphs that had come in from playwright Peter Shaffer.  Mr. Shaffer told Sir Derek that “this is finally the quality I treasure most in you:  the natural, unforced humanity of your playing—and the humility which sustains it.  It enables you to perform the supreme artistic public act—infinitely harder than making movies—of conjuring that veritable and inimitable magic which can only be called up on a stage, which no other help than breath and body:  an instinct to shape scenes, and a voice to shape lines.  Playwrights are lucky to have you.  Audiences are lucky to see you.  And the Theatre itself—eternal, now beleaguered on all sides by literalism and banality—is lucky to possess you.  It is splendidly appropriate that you should receive an award named after a gentleman who may virtually be regarded as the Patron Saint of Purity in Acting:  Sir John Gielgud.”

When at last Sir Derek forsook his front-row seat to ascend the stage—now adorned by one of the Folger’s treasures, an ornate, symbolic Garrick Chair that had been designed by Sir William Hogarth in 1756 for the actor, director, impresario, and playwright who’d done more than anyone else to carve a permanent niche for the Bard of our culture—he was accompanied by tumultuous applause.

Sir Derek harked back to his happy memories as a leading man in stage vehicles that had traveled to the United States.  He catalogued a multitude of benefactors—so many, indeed, that he admitted in a wry aside that he was beginning to sound like the holder of a brand-new Academy Award.  And then, in what would be recognized as the keynote of an eloquent, wide-ranging acceptance speech, he held aloft the gleaming trophy he’d just been given and asked, “With this, who needs a Oscar?”

In a touching homage to Sir John, whom he praised not only for his stalwart integrity but for a “wicked sense of humor” that is one of the actor’s most endearing traits, Sir Derek focused on a tragedy that first saw print four hundred years ago.  He referred to a 1597 quarto that he had actually cradled in his hands a few days earlier, during a visit to the rare-book vaults of the world’s most extensive Shakespearean library.  He spoke of what it had meant to him to be cast in the title role for the 1979 BBC production of Richard II.  He told of the trepidation he had felt when he was informed that the pre-possessing Gielgud would be looking down upon him as John of Gaunt, the King’s angry, disapproving uncle.  And he smiled as he thought about the fulfillment he’d experienced when Sir John gave his blessing to a younger talent who’d now come of age.

Sir Derek recounted several anecdotes, among them the hilarious story of a poor Victorian Richard who, when his cue came to “tell sad stories of the death of kings,” planted his posterior on what he discovered to be a less than hospitable “ground” of prickly gorse.  For several minutes, according to a spectator who recorded this calamity, “not a word that was heard was remotely Shakespearean.”

Eventually, to everyone’s exhilaration, Sir Derek became the Richard II he’d been evoking.  He conveyed his listeners through a sequence that culminated in the protagonist’s resignation of the crown he’d done so much to render unto a Caesar of his own creating.  He culled many of the speeches in Act IV that Gielgud had recited four decades earlier in his famous anthology about Shakespeare’s seven Ages of Man.  And in the words of the Washington Post’s William Triplett, he “riveted the startled crowd, his performance a slow, heart-rending tour de force of magisterial anger, humiliation and failure.  A standing ovation followed immediately.”

As an auditorium full of excited patrons emptied into the Library’s florid, candlelit reading rooms for a sumptuous dinner, they listened to sprightly melodies from Sir Arthur Sullivan’s suite to The Merchant of Venice.  This, too, was a commemorative selection, to register the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s incomparable musings on “the touches of sweet harmony.”

After a dessert that displayed an imaginative caterer’s variations on A Muse of Fire, Folger director Werner Gundersheimer led a small delegation to the balcony of the Old Reading Room.  There, beneath a glorious stained-glass window of The Ages of Man, he expressed the Library’s gratitude to Benefit Chairman Samia Farouki.  Then he called upon Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador, Sir John Kerr, and Guild president John F. Andrews for toasts to a trio of birthdays: the Folger’s 65^th, Shakespeare’s 433^rd, and Gielgud’s 93^rd.  Following these remarks, the audience was treated to a marvelous benediction as Sir Derek delivered Prospero’s announcement that “Our Revels are now ended.”

Additional Festivities

The next morning, in a gesture that demonstrated her appreciation of a significant milestone and illustrated her commitment to the arts and humanities as essential components of American life, the First Lady returned from an important conference in Philadelphia to host and speak at an April 29^th White House reception.  The sunny East Room was bountifully furnished with coffee, juice, and pastries, and a cheerful gathering felt warmly welcomed to a venue that carried Shakespearean resonances of its own.

For all its glamour, however, the White House breakfast was by no means the only special occasion for those who partook of this year’s ancillary activities.  Others included buffets at the homes of Letitia Chambers, Mark and Carolyn Olshaker, and Samia and Huda Farouki, a private tour of Ford’s Theatre under the combined auspices of the National Park Service and theatre executives Frankie Hewitt and Alma Viator, and two inviting outreach programs that were open to the public.

At 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 26^th, Guild president John F. Andrews emceed AN EVENING WITH SIR DEREK JACOBI at which the Gielgud laureate commented on video clips form his work and replied to questions from a capacity throng in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theatre.  Author and filmmaker mark Olshaker shared a cozy, parlor-like set with Sir Derek and Mr. Andrews, and for a short time the three of them were joined by actor and director Richard Clifford, whose credits include roles in the Branagh movies of Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing. 

In what emerged as a grand finale to his stay in Washington, on Tuesday, April 29^th, Sir Derek addressed a lively luncheon forum at the National Press Club.  Club president Richard Sammon moderated the discussion, and Rebecca Eaton, the WGBH producer who brings us MYSTERY! and MASTERPIECE THEATRE, joined NPC officers Michael Mainwaring and David Martin and other dignitaries at the head table.  Sir Derek was in top form, and his sprightly observations were interrupted by frequent bursts of laughter and applause.  Cassettes and transcripts of this session, which was taped for broadcast over both NPR and C-SPAN, are available to anyone who wishes to call 1-800-NPC-2334.

Media Response to the 1997 Gielgud Honoree

Press reactions to Sir Derek were just as overwhelming as were those of the audience he held spell-bound. He granted interviews to such media representatives as Kenneth Adelman, a columnist for the Washingtonian, Patricia Brennan, a writer for the Washington Post’s “TV Week,” Richard Day, a reporter for radio station WTOP, Barbara Harrison, the hostess for WRC TV’s local-news breaks from the NBC Today show, Bruce Heydt, the managing editor of British Heritage magazine, Ken Kahn, a correspondent for United Press International, John Mahon, co-editor of the Shakespeare Newsletter, and Ed Silk, veteran anchor for UPI Radio.

During a Friday afternoon excursion to WETA FM and TV, Sir Derek engaged in a videotaped radio conversation with Robert Aubry Davis while producer Deborah Jane Lamberton, publicist Jan Du Plain, and station president Sharon Percy Rockefeller looked in from an adjacent sound booth.  Mrs. Rockefeller was so charmed by Sir Derek that she immediately requested one of the remaining thousand-dollar tickets for Monday night’s award presentation.  On the afternoon of April 28^th, shortly before the gala, an audio segment of the dialogue was aired on WETA radio.  Three nights later, on Thursday, May 1^st, several sequences from the video footage highlighted WETA television’s weekly “Around Town” show.

On Friday, April 25^th, the Washington Times published a two-page Gary Arnold profile, “Much Ado About a Shakespearean Actor.”  Then on Wednesday, April 30^th, it augmented that piece with a handsomely illustrated, full-page Kevin Chafee article, “A Knight for Shakespeare.”  Chafee detailed a “high-brow” evening that signaled Sir Derek’s “elevation into the theater-world Valhalla.”  He emphasized that the Gielgud tribute, “which took place in the library’s impressive, wood-columned Elizabethan Theatre, included testimonials from fellow drama greats that were noteworthy even by the overblown standards of today’s ubiquitous awards-and-honors ceremonies.”

The Washington Post allocated sections of two successive “Backstage” entries to Sir Derek, on Saturday, April 26^th, and Saturday, May 3^rd.  Then on Monday, April 28^th, Annie Groer and Ann Gerhardt devoted an item in the “The Reliable Source” to “the Shakespeare Guild’s theatrical excellence award.”

Another story will appear next month in the Washingtonian, where Chuck Conconi plans to say a few words about the passage that came to Sir Derek’s mind as he peered into the Peterson House bedroom where Lincoln expired on April 15, 1865.  Sir Derek recalled a clause from As You Like It that has been read as a Shakespearean allusion to Christopher Marlowe’s murder in a 1593 tavern brawl:  “it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.”

Meanwhile, even “Suzy”  (Aileen Mehle) has been caught gossiping about the celebrities on this year’s bustling Gielgud calendar.  In the May 2^nd issue of Women’s Wear Daily, she opines that

            There is nothing like a dame, certainly if she’s such a busy one as Dame Diana Rigg.  The wonderful British actress, having closed her acclaimed run playing Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in London’s West End, flew to New York for a round of interviews for “Rebecca,” in which her stunning performance as Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper from hell, brought even more raves.  Tired but happy, Diana flew off to rest on a semi-deserted Caribbean island—there were only eight other souls there kicking in the sand—before heading for Washington to present eminent Sir Derek Jacobi with the Sir John Gielgud Award at the Folger Library’s 65^th anniversary celebration under the patronage of the President and Mrs. Clinton. In a stunning Saint Laurent with an infinitesimal skirt, Diana made a speech almost as short as her skirt.  She managed to be both witty and scholastic at the same time, the dear girl.  The rapt audience managed to listen to her and stare at her famous legs at the same time.  (They, the legs, haven’t changed a whit since she played the super-sexy Emma Peel sewn into a black bodysuit in that famous TV series, “The Avengers.”)  Never one to rest on her laurels—or for that matter her bed—too long, Diana was up in the morning for an 8 a.m. breakfast at the White House with Hillary Clinton and such guests as [Mrs.] Huda Farouki (chairman of the Folger dinner), the  . . British ambassador and his wife, Buffy and Bill Cafritz, Lionel Larner, the Sam Donaldsons, Lucky Roosevelt, Letitia Baldridge, and others too privileged to mention.