This always comes up, with the emphasis on differences. We should be looking at the similarities. We are all actors, trying to reach an audience. And we will use whatever skills, experience or tricks necessary to get the play across. The actor’s response is always subjective. He is not likely to think he belongs to a specific nationality and is supposed to behave accordingly.
I do feel that British and American attitudes toward Shakespeare differ. He is part of the British heritage. He is theirs, and they can do to him or with him what they please. They’re less reverential, which is healthy. And they tend to see the plays overall, in relation to class and circumstances.
Americans are more intense about Shakespeare. Afraid we won’t do him justice, or more importantly, that we will be compared unfavorably to what audiences see on TV.
I think that’s wrong! What we bring to the plays is close to what Shakespeare intended. We are ‘raw’! Elizabethan audiences were not sophisticated. Reading and writing were confined to the upper classes.
Peter Hall has said that Modern American speech is closer than that of the British to Elizabethan English in its rhythms. Shakespeare wrote in verse. The emphasis is on the keywords, which is the way Americans talk in everyday speech.
We can both get bogged down in scholarship. Or psychology. The British are more likely to concentrate on scholarship. To research the period and strive for authenticity in every minute detail. This can result in dryness.
Americans tend to go for the psychological meaning – Stanislavsky and the Method applied to Shakespeare. That can be as deadly as research. An actor who’s straining to convey every psychic tension and motivation often loses the sense of the words.
But American actors can always be counted on for spontaneity. Our training includes improvisation and reaction. It’s refreshing and rewarding when applied to Shakespeare. When it works!
British and American productions seem to differ in approach. They frequently mount the plays around a central star, with the emphasis on individual performance. The American approach is that of a company or ensemble.
The differences among American companies playing Shakespeare are actually greater than those between American and British. The Oregon Shakespearean Festival at Ashland probably has the best informed audiences. The Ashland company, which recently celebrated its fiftieth birthday, plays the entire Shakespeare canon of thirty-seven plays in twelve year cycles.
That means Ashland audiences are accustomed to seeing the offbeat comedies and the less-dramatic history plays. They are familiar with all the plays and accept them as part of the festival program.
Other companies do the popular plays. They’re more salable! And their audiences receive them differently. At ACT (American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco) you can hear people out front quoting the familiar speeches along with you. Just say, ‘To be or not to be,’ and the atmosphere within the theatre changes.
Some theatre goers collect Hamlets or Macbeths. They go see a performer to compare him with others they have seen in the role. There’s nothing wrong in that. We’re a competitive nation, and comparison is a part of competition.
I was standby for Ian McKellen as Salieri when he played Amadeus on Broadway, and later replaced him. He’s a brilliant actor, and his portrayal was a wonderful example of British polish and glamour. A tough act to follow.
When he was preparing to leave the show, and we were sharing ideas on Salieri, he asked how I would play the role differently.
I countered by asking if he believed in God. That startled him, I think, but he dismissed the idea with a brisk ‘No.’ I do believe, I told him. That informs my characterization in a play about one man’s relationship with God.
That difference in interpretation also explains the difference in how we play Shakespeare. The difference is in people – actors, not in nationalities.
-W.E.F.