Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.
If I'm in a serious play, I often think to myself, 'I could make that line funny.'
Our job is to unleash the play. It's not just about your character or interaction with the other characters. There's an energy in all good plays which you have to find. And that is part and parcel of ensuring that an audience gets what it's about.
Fine-tuning a play like 'Uncle Vanya,' which is already well-known to the people playing it, is not so much a verbal exercise as it is a visceral one.
Actors are the jockeys of literature. Others supply the horses, the plays, and we simply make them run.
It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.
We try to find the information, the clues, to unlock the play or the story or our characters, especially when they're based on real people that live and breathe.
To be true to a play, you can't add something that takes away from the author's intent.
Well-written plays deserve to be learned from and understood properly, both by actors and audiences alike, and Rattigan's very human characters help us do that.
Peter Brook's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' I remember seeing. That was pretty early on. And suddenly, I realized how theatrical Shakespeare is, how alive, how wonderful it is when it's opened up by a great director and a great company.
You get to crack the code of the play. You get to really pick at it and see, 'What is the story that we're telling?' 'What are the clues in the text that I can find that will help inform what story we're telling?' It's almost like a detective mystery.
When you're reading some of the great plays, when you do what I call "taking up with a writer," something happens.
Somebody who likes to do my plays is a good director for them.
You can't take a play someone has directed and do whatever you want with it.
The Crucible became by far my most frequently produced play, both abroad and at home. Its meaning is somewhat different in different places and moments. I can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past.
I always just read the play and find a world. That world must honour the play, enhance it, and maybe shine some new light - not satirise or try to reinvent in a way that is placing the idea above the thing. The play is the thing.
Maybe they say they do but I don't think many actors really enjoy trying to do a Shakespearean play.
Critchley and Webster’s fierce, witty exploration of Hamlet makes most other writing about Shakespeare seem simpleminded.
When people ask me why is 'Winter's Tale' a fantasy, I point out that it is not a fantasy.
Sometimes it's learning how the play wants to function rather than imposing something on it. For me, that's the thrill in directing.
It is strange how your understanding of a play changes. It normally happens after a performance and you suddenly think, 'So that's what that line really means' - it's like a light going on.
The first time I went over to [my director's] house, he said to me, This is a very strange play. I was pleased that he reminded me of that. [He] understands the play [VENUS] intellectually and emotionally and the humor, the funny bone.
I think working on Shakespeare was a big part of my time at drama school. I'm so glad that I got to know Shakespeare and got a chance to play great parts in Shakespeare, because it really teaches you - or taught me, anyway - everything.
I find it very strange when people say that they are trying to solve 'Uncle Vanya' or find a solution for 'Henry V.' Plays aren't puzzles. They are about playing. But so much theatre has become about performing and acting rather than playing, which is a great pity because audiences are captivated by watching people play.
The way a play is seen is completely dependent on the circumstances and the world in which it is received.
