Lloyd Evans
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Having played most of Shakespeare’s great villains and heroes, he knows as much about them as any professor of literature and he discusses them with a sceptical jocularity. It’s the knowledge of the bush-ranger rather than the zoologist. The malign spirit of Iago still affects him. ‘God that was horrible, it actually depressed me for a bit. He’s the nastiest man I’ve ever played. It’s deep in every single cell of his body, this lack of acknowledgment of the power of love, but he was wonderful to play.’ Of Cassius, in Julius Caesar, he says, ‘he threatens to commit suicide in every scene, until he finally does it, and you have to make a choice about what that means. Is it hysterical attention-seeking or is it genuine? I plumped for genuine, using another device I rely on — always take the simplest option if you can.’
He approached Richard III in a spirit of radical pragmatism. Rather than playing him as a boo-hiss Machiavellian baddie, he emphasised his practical side and portrayed him as a political power-broker desperate to keep the kingdom in one piece. Playing Hamlet, he was able to resolve one or two of the play’s many enigmas. Is the relationship with Ophelia sexual? ‘No. Hamlet’s absolutely crap at women. One thing he can’t deal with at any level is women’s sexuality. He finds it very worrying indeed.’ And Gertrude’s complicity in her first husband’s murder? Probably none, he thinks. If Gertrude is innocent, the closet-scene need not be played as a sexual attack on her. The emphasis shifts. It becomes a process of discovery and by the end, when she fully realise her son’s terrible predicament, she has ‘an overwhelming sense of love for him and a knowledge that she will do everything to support him’.
Clearly he has the instincts and the analytical skills of a director. ‘Ever considered directing?’
‘I don’t think I’d be very good,’ he says. He then gives a comprehensive outline of the job from the actor’s point of view.
‘You need nerves of steel. And I’m not really patient enough. I don’t think I’d find it easy to see people progress at different rates, which is a great skill of a director. And my understanding of the grand visual presentation of a play would not be particularly acute so I’d have to have a really good designer. I’d be too prescriptive as well: “I think you should do it like this,” and you’d end up with nine Simon Russell Beales on stage which would be really unwatchable. And I don’t have that other fantastic skill of directing: if I want you to do something, I have to consider your psychological patterns and then take two steps back and give you a piece of information which will, well, you know…’ And he trails off here, neatly demonstrating the skill he’s alluding to, the ability to move your subject from clue to solution in a way that leaves the subject convinced he made the discovery which you have made for him.
He’s sufficiently aware of his shortcomings to be able to convert them into advantages, but my guess is that he hasn’t directed because no one has sat him down and said, ‘Direct!’ In 2012, he hopes to play Lear, and as we discuss the project his self-doubt becomes clear, his passivity, his need for a firm guiding hand. Sam Mendes plans to direct the production and he approached Russell Beale several years back when he was playing Galileo at the National.
‘He came up to me afterwards in the bar and said I should do Lear before it’s too late. And I thought well, if you really think I can, then OK. Because I’m a great believer in that. I’d be a hopeless caster of myself but if someone says, look, you can do Andrew Undershaft in Major Barbara — which is not a part I would normally do — then I’ll do it. They’re probably a better judge than I am.’ He seems torn between excitement and anxiety about Lear. ‘It’s pretty terrifying isn’t it,’ he says in a low murmur, aimed more at himself than me. ‘But I’m in good hands. If Sam says I can do it, I can do it.’
Mendes and Russell Beale last worked together at the Old Vic in Tom Stoppard’s version of The Cherry Orchard. He tells me that Stoppard loves to sit through rehearsals, watching everything, saying little. By convention writers leave for a week in the middle of the rehearsal period. Stoppard was persuaded to depart and did so reluctantly, ‘but he left his cardigan on his chair so it was like he was there anyway. And he crept back in a day early. Said he was bored. “Oh, OK,” we said, “come back in”.’
Stoppard once considered writing a play specifically for him. The mooted subject was a celebrity chef of the early 19th century who cooked for Talleyrand, Napoleon, the Tsar of Russia and George IV. ‘A wonderful Stoppardian idea.’ The project came to nothing but Russell Beale is still animated by the prospect of a tailor -made script.
‘I’d love him to write a play about a 50-year-old white man,’ he says, again with that characteristic note of hope and misgiving. It’s easy to see the attraction. To create the lead in a brand new Stoppard play would banish his deepest anxieties at a stroke. Instead of emulating past greatness he could create the definitive performance in a play that would almost certainly survive in the repertoire. From being the replica, he would become the standard against which future replicas were measured. So, Tom, if you’re reading this — your star awaits you. Boot up the computer.
London Assurance, starring Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw, will be broadcast via NT Live on 28 June. The forthcoming second season of NT Live will include Nicolas Hytner’s production of Hamlet, with Rory Kinnear as Hamlet and Clare Higgins as Gertrude.
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