SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT
Newsletter of the Geneva English Drama Society
Case postale 83, CH-1217 Meyrin 1
EDITORS’ NOTE
W
e hope you enjoy
this, our first-ever
special edition
of Spotlight, in which we
shall whet your appetite for
Ben Crystal’s exciting and
innovative production of
Shakespeare’s Much Ado
About Nothing, prepared
using original Elizabethan
rehearsal techniques (but
not original Elizabethan
pronunciation, don’t worry!)
The show will take
place from November 11th
to 15th at the Théâtre de
Terre-Sainte, Coppet.
Tickets can be
purchased online at
www.theatreinenglish.ch
Save the date!
The GEDS Christmas
dinner and cabaret will take
place on December 13th
at the Salle Communale in
Commugny. Keep an eye on
GEDS At A Glance and next
month’s Spotlight for more
details!
(ccp 12-10826-9)
www.geds.ch
Ben Crystal: interview
The actor, producer, author, educator and Shakespeare expert
extraordinaire chats to Spotlight about his work, the Bard, and what he
likes to do for fun. Ben gave us so much fascinating material that we
had to cut the interview considerably to fit it in the newsletter, but don’t
despair: the full text will be available on our website, www.geds.ch
Was it Shakespeare who made
you fall in love with theatre?
It was Shakespeare who
made me fall in love with acting.
I think I already had a love for
theatre. But with the acting, yes.
There are some people who
think that you have to get the
rhythm of the script to get the
meaning, and some who think
that it’s the meaning that gives
you the rhythm of the piece.
What do you think?
Good question. I would say
that each of Shakespeare’s
plays does have a particular
rhythm to it, does have a
particular overarching melody
if you were to zoom out from it
to the macro-scale and indeed
each character has their own
particular variation on the
iambic pentameter rhythm
which is idiosyncratic to their
mode of speech, to the point of
being singular from every other
character. I mean, I suppose
that’s one of the reasons why
Shakespeare is Shakespeare,
because he’s so good at
manipulating that rhythm.
I suppose I come to it from the
perspective that, well, there are
legion ways of how you could
say something, so why did the
character choose to express
that particular thought or
emotion in that particular way?
So if you say, “O that this too, too
solid flesh would melt, / Thaw
and resolve itself into a dew … ”,
why doesn’t Hamlet say “I wish
I could just die”, why does
he choose to express
himself in that more
flowery or
poetic way?
Why does
he begin
with
that
expression of emotion – O –
when he could just say, This
is where I’m at? Why is it “too,
too”? You essentially build a
character from the evidence
in the text, and go, “Well, what
sort of person refers to
themselves in that
way when
they’re feeling
that great
emotional
depth?”
www.geds.ch
1 | Shakespeare special
www.geds.ch
BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
Essentially the answer is, he’s
one of the greatest character’s
minds ever written.
Why do the fairies speak
the way that they speak in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream?
They speak slightly shorter
lines of poetry that make them
sound, almost subconsciously
to an audience, slightly less
human. And of course fairies
aren’t human. So there’s a great
amount of character to be found
in the manner in which the lines
are given.
But in terms of, Do I spend
time going dee dum dee dum, no
I don’t, that’s the kind of work I
expect actors to have done as
their homework. I certainly start
out looking at the fall of the stress
and that kind of thing but nine
times out of ten once an actor
knows the truth of what they’re
saying, knows how to deliver the
line from a point of honesty, the
rhythm takes care of itself.
If anything, too much
reverence to that rhythm will
make actors say something
in too careful a way, because
they’re being so subservient
to it, they’ll say things like
rhythUM, and nobody says
rhythUM, no-one’s ever said
rhythUM.
There are a lot of
contradictory ideas about
how Shakespeare should be
performed and the biggest one is
the thing that made Shakespeare
the “Immortal Bard” in the
eighteenth century or so: the
fact that he was a “Great Poet”
and that he should be spoken as
“Great Poetry” even to the point
of sounding completely inhuman
and alien. He wasn’t interested
in that, he was a very human
writer.
2 | Shakespeare special
Did you know?
We know that old Shakey
was partial to the odd
double entendre, and what
we now know about the
original pronunciation of
Shakespeare’s words gives
us to understand that the
title of the play would have
been pronounced “Much Ado
About Noting”. That’s right,
noting as in taking note of,
or noticing (which would
even have been interpreted
as eavesdropping). And
indeed, the play is very much
centered on the much ado
that arises from someone’s
noting (and misinterpreting)
the appearance of two figures
at a window, not to mention all
the overheard conversations.
Another little bit of trivia
from the play: this is where the
phrase “When the age is in the
wit is out” originated. (Though
some may be more familiar
with the later adaptation: “when
the wine is in, the wit is out”!)
How do you find your way into
a script?
As an actor I will get a cue
script, and I will begin by ripping
it apart, really. Does the character
speak in prose or verse, what
type of character speaks in prose,
what type of character speaks
in verse, what type of character
speaks in both, do they speak in
rhyming verse ever? By looking
at what type of language a
character speaks, you can work
out what type of character he is.
Polonius isn’t verbose just to be
funny; he is verbose because he’s
the type of person who needs to
speak in a long-winded way. So
by noticing that he has very long
thoughts, thoughts that wend and
wind their way along, we can
ask ourselves, “Well, what sort
of person does that?” Perhaps
channel that person in your life
who reminds you of that kind of
speech. Polonius, in some ways,
has got the power in that society,
or the authority; he’s used to
people listening to him – what
sort of person is that?
Then I’ll take a look at what’s
going on underneath the lines,
the mechanics of the lines,
the meter, and see what that
tells me about the character.
Shakespeare manipulates the
meter to express what’s going
on dramatically as well. For
example, whenever the meter
becomes irregular it indicates an
irregular turn of thoughts.
Once I’ve done all that then
I’ll start thinking about learning
it. You can’t take on a role like
Hamlet and just start learning
“To be, or not to be … ” you’ve got
to think about the type of person
who expresses themselves in
that way – why does he come
to the audience and start talking
about mortality, whether it be his
own or someone else’s?
You think about the script
as being the tip of the iceberg,
but you’ve got to work out the
other 90% of the iceberg under
the waters that you don’t get to
hear, in order to come to a place
where you can make sense of
the speech.
And then, in a lot of respects,
I go through the same process
for each character’s part
when I’m directing, or at least
I encourage my actors to do it.
It’s not necessarily a question of
thinking about how I would act
it, it’s a question of tuning in with
each actor, (hopefully I’ve already
done that a little bit already in the
casting) and you try to see what
each actor offers, see what’s on
the page and see where there’s a
gap that needs to be filled.
So once you’ve chosen the
actors then the play sort of
moulds itself around them?
Absolutely, because I have no
idea how x or y or z character
is going to be until I see what
the actor brings to the table, or
really how any particular thing
is going to go… There’s no
point in planning huge elaborate
direction if the actors are going
to decide they want to take
a character in a completely
different way or it doesn’t suit
their skill-set. It’s very organic
and my reason for that is
because Shakespeare wrote
these plays to suit his company.
He wrote particular parts for
particular people?
Absolutely, yeah. We know
that for a fact because of the
way that his characters changed
as the company changed, over
the course of the canon, you
know, one actor who normally
plays the fool character leaves
and then another fool arrives
and at that point the fool
character in Shakespeare’s plays
radically, radically changes from
Dogberry, for example, to Feste.
I think there is something
to be said for adapting your
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BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
process to tune in as close as
possible to the original dynamic,
to set conditions so you’re using
a space in the way that they
would have used it then.
So, if you set up those types
of dynamics then it allows
the actors you’ve chosen
to surprise you with their
performance, which makes the
whole thing more active than if
you’ve got a director who’s got
a very clear idea of how they
want a part to be played.
It’s only my opinion, but
personally I want to be surprised
when I’m in the audience, and I
want the actors to be surprised
in the moment of play. With the
modern rehearsal method, the
one that’s become established
over the course of the twentieth
century, acting often seems to be
about pretending that you haven’t
heard these lines 50 times over
in rehearsal, and that the news is
“new”. The news would’ve been
new to Shakespeare’s actors;
they only would have performed
it once or twice, never having
heard the play before. So, do
you want to spend more energy
pretending that you’ve never
heard it before or more energy
just reacting live and playing,
that’s what they’re called after
all – players? You want to see a
troupe of actors on stage playing
with each other because they’re
so comfortable with their own
lines, and so comfortable with
each other, and so comfortable
with their stagecraft that they
just joyfully play and surprise
each other.
Watching a troupe of actors
on stage for two hours just
going through a routine which
they’ve established; what’s the
point in that?
3 | Shakespeare special
Mister Malaprop
The character of Dogberry,
the sincere but bumbling head
of law enforcement in Much
Ado About Nothing, has a habit
of saying the wrong thing – a
habit that his partner, Verges,
and the members of the Watch
have picked up. Though they
may not talk the talk very well,
they somehow manage to walk
the walk fairly convincingly!
Here are a few examples of
their malapropisms – see if you
can figure out what they meant
to say! (Answers on page 8)
1. Yea, or it were pity but
they should suffer salvation,
body and soul.
2. First, who think you the
Are there any other
advantages to rehearsing
Shakespeare-style?
We don’t know how much
they rehearsed, we don’t know
to what extent our ideas of how
they rehearsed are true, but all I
can say is that having rehearsed
in this way and refining this
methodology, it certainly works,
it certainly provides us with
the type of Shakespeare that’s
rarely seen, and at the end of the
day, I want to find more ways
to bring people in who normally
think Shakespeare’s not for them
because they’re used to it being
grand and well-spoken and that
kind of thing, so anything that
will help revitalise that is a “good
thing”.
Why do you think we continue
to find Shakespeare so
3.
4.
5.
6.
most desertless man to be
constable?
You are thought here to be
the most senseless and fit
man for the constable of the
watch.
Five shillings to one on’t,
with any man that knows
the statues, he may stay
him: marry, not without the
prince be willing; for, indeed,
the watch ought to offend
no man; and it is an offence
to stay a man against his
will.
Truly, I would not hang
a dog by my will, much
more a man who hath any
honesty in him.
This is your charge,
compelling? Is it the universal
themes, use of the language, the
way he draws character?
I think that’s certainly why
they’re done so often, around the
world. Hundreds and thousands
of people can do the same
part in a multitude of different
ways, and yeah, I think a lot
of audience members find that
compelling, to go and see the
same show again and again and
again and for it to be so different
each time.
I think he’s compelling because
he talks about what it is to be
human. He talks about matters
of the heart and mind and
emotions that to a greater or
lesser extent we all feel, we all
experience at some point in our
lives. We may not go through
the situation, per se, we may not
be kings, but we all know what
you shall comprehend all
vagrom (vagrant) men, you
are to bid any man stand, in
the prince’s name.
7. Call up the right master
constable. We have
here recovered the most
dangerous peace of lechery
that ever was known in the
commonwealth.
8. Never speak, we charge
you. Let us obey you to go
with us.
9. One word sir: our
watch sir, have indeed
comprehended two
auspicious persons, and
we would have them this
morning examined before
your worship.
it is to love and lose. Repeatedly,
over and over and over again,
that’s what he is looking at, and
that is compelling, I mean, that’s
the working model for every
soap opera, and theirs, like them
or not, are the most addictive
plots on television.
Why do you think we’ve not
produced another Shakespeare?
Which playwright either
historical or contemporary
comes closest to Shakespeare,
either in the quality or the scope
of their work?
Who’s Shakespeare after
Shakespeare, right? It’s really
unsettling that there hasn’t been
another Shakespeare. You
could say that Dickens, perhaps,
reaches a similar height in
prose. You might say similar
things, although in a more
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BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
compacted way, about Austen.
You could say that Kubrick
reached similar breadth and
scale in his films, more in terms
of the directing than writing.
There are playwrights that you
can place an equal amount of
trust in as Shakespeare, like
Beckett, Pinter, Miller, Ibsen,
Chekhov. But none of them
managed to write as much
about as much in such a varied
way. It’s staggering.
Do you think there’s something
inhibitive about contemporary
theatre that doesn’t allow
for that kind of generosity of
expression?
I know that some people
think that there should be a
moratorium on Shakespeare
to give space for the next
Shakespeare to come
through, which I think is just
rubbish. I mean, Christopher
Marlowe was Shakespeare
before Shakespeare was
Shakespeare and John Lily was
Shakespeare before Marlowe
was Shakespeare, the title has
to be taken. I would love to see
a playwright come along and
do for the next 400 years what
Shakespeare did, goodness
knows we need it. And maybe
you can argue that someone in
the film world has done that…
maybe it’s the Cohen brothers…
You think it’s not necessarily
going to come from the world of
theatre?
Certainly in terms of the
impact and the renown
that filmmakers have, it is
comparable with the renown
and impact that theatre-makers
would have had 400 years ago.
I don’t know, is it Spielberg?
4 | Shakespeare special
It’s interesting you say
Spielberg, because he’s not
embarrassed to say what he
wants to say. Sometimes I feel
that contemporary writers
are trying so hard to be
something that they are almost
embarrassed to express what
it is to be human. They’re not
generous with themselves, as
Shakespeare was.
I agree. The other thing is
that people have to be so careful
nowadays, they have to be
politically correct, they can’t
offend x, y, and z…
And yet, at the same time, you’re
supposed to be controversial…
the macro, of being able to
write incredibly intricate and
complicated poetry which fits
the mouths of incredibly intricate
and complicated characters who
talk about huge diverse themes,
which, as you say, are still
regarded as universal and yet
reveal nothing about himself…
What do you think
Shakespeare’s weaknesses are
as a writer, if he has any?
Ha! I’ve never been asked
that before. Well, he’s got plenty.
It’s interesting that you say,
“if he has any”. There’s this
idea that Shakespeare is this
immortal bard and perfect and
The cast of Much Ado grappling with (sticks)
Ben’s unique rehearsal methods,
It must be terribly, terribly
hard. The first thing that people
will ask is, Well, what are you
saying with this piece? And
what does that tell us about
you? We have 39-odd plays
and 154 sonnets and a few
long poems, and you could
give all that work to everyone
in this room and they would
all draw separate conclusions
about who Shakespeare was.
His skill, from the micro to
that every word that dropped
from his quill was perfect, but
he was human, he was flawed
like all of us. Love’s Labours
Lost is a terrible play, with some
good bits. The Merry Wives
of Windsor is not a good play.
Hamlet has plot holes you could
drive a bus through. “Oh, no but
Hamlet is the greatest play ever
written…” – it’s very, very good,
but it is fairly un-presentable in
its extant form. It’s four hours
of text which is a LOT to sit
through for any audience, and
three or four of the plot lines
don’t tie up… Shakespeare
would write his director’s cut of
the text, if you will, and would
sell it to his acting company and
thereby retain no copyright over
it, and they would then turn it
into the best two-hours’ traffic of
the stage.
They would cut it down?
Absolutely. Oh God, yeah. No
Elizabethan could sit through
four hours of theatre. Apart
from anything the sunlight
would have faded by 4 o’clock
in the afternoon, if their legs
hadn’t already dropped off. Our
attention span is only about as
long as a commercial on TV
now. They would have got tired,
there’s no way they would have
been performed in full because
they didn’t have the attitude
of “Oh My God it’s Sacred
Shakespeare”. I wouldn’t want
to go through that. I wouldn’t put
an audience through that.
I’ve never produced or
directed a Shakespeare play
that is more than two hours,
usually including an interval. He
says it in the text of Henry V …
“is now the two hours traffic
of our stage” – ok, yes, he only
says that once in one play, but
you’ve got to cling on to what
you can cling on to, and a
handful of plays were written to
that length.
So you think that even for
Shakespeare it was still
ultimately quite a collaborative
process?
Definitely. You can see
evidence of that in transitions
in the types of characters as
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BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
the company changed. It was
hugely collaborative. There’s a
quote from a Shakespearean
academic that “Shakespeare’s
actors were the understanders
the like of whom has never been
seen before, or since.” They
were the vessels for his words.
No-one else was going to speak
them. And just as he knew
their acting strengths, they
knew his writing strengths, and
they would adapt around his
weaknesses or his verbosity,
his tendency to overwrite
something, and boil it down to
the best show.
Whenever we’re rehearsing
my company usually have
a bust or a picture of him
somewhere, and often we’ll look
at Shakespeare and go “Can
we cut this?” and he’ll go, “What
is it?” “Well, it’s a 400 year-old
cultural joke that no-one’s going
to get now” and he’s like “Well,
yeah, why would you want a
joke in a show that doesn’t make
people laugh? Can you make
people laugh with it?” “Well,
we’ve tried, and we’ve tried
really hard but at the end of the
day, people aren’t going to laugh
at Chandler in Friends in 400
years time either.” “Yeah, cut it.
Why would you keep that out of
some weird subservience to me?
I don’t want to be captured for
posterity; I want to make people
laugh and cry. I’m an entertainer,
cut it. I’m not perfect.”
On a tour of the Globe that I
went on last year, one of the
actors showing us around said
that in Shakespeare’s day the
performances of his shows were
much shorter because people
spoke a lot faster, is that true?
I’ve spent a lot of time working
5 | Shakespeare special
Say what?
The meanings of many
words have altered
considerably since
Shakespeare’s day – here are a
few examples from Much Ado
that you may not be aware of:
Coil: bustle or commotion
Dogberry, Act 3 Scene 3
One word more, honest
neighbours. I pray you watch
about Signior Leonato’s door;
for the wedding being there
to-morrow, there is a great coil
to-night.
on the accent of the time and we
don’t have a lot of clues about
the prosody, the melody, or the
speed. We have two, really; we
have Hamlet “I pray you speak
the speech as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue…”
and in the First Folio there are
a lot of “o’th’s” and “i’th’s” and that
kind of thing, There is a common
modern tendency to overcorrect,
to say “o’the sun” instead of
“o’th’sun” or even worse, “of the
sun”, and undo the tripping part
of it. It’s perfectly possible to
speak Shakespeare faster and
still be articulate, they were
professionals, they needed to be
understood. The accent was
different, and from what we can
understand it may well have
been faster, it certainly wouldn’t
have been: “Tooo beee, orrr, not
too bee… etc” like the modern
Shakespeare RP accent.
The Globe also has recordings
of actors, like Gielgud, who
sound a bit like that…
Difference: in heraldry,
variation, distinguishing
mark
Beatrice, Act 1 Scene 1
Alas, he gets nothing by
that. In our last conflict four
of his five wits went halting
off, and now is the whole man
governed with one: so that if
he have wit enough to keep
himself warm, let him bear it for
a difference between himself
and his horse, for it is all the
wealth that he hath left to be
known a reasonable creature.
College: assembly /
fellowship
Benedick, Act 5 Scene 4
I tell thee what, prince: a
college of wit-crackers cannot
flout me out of my humour
Gielgud was a tremendous
actor. It’s all well and good to
listen back to them now and mock
them, but I grew up watching
Kenneth Branagh and was
completely in love with his films.
I look at them now and think, “Oh
my God, it’s so staid and tired”. It’s
easy to look back and go, “Well,
you did it badly”. They did it for
the style and expectations of the
time, and indeed Gielgud, Olivier,
Burton and Branagh all broke
the style and expectations of the
time. Olivier, for example, was
considered relatively louche in
comparison to Gielgud. Branagh
blew people’s minds by saying
“yer” instead of “your”. He was
groundbreaking in his own way,
they all were.
anyone else. Setting his Much
Ado in that glorious Tuscan villa,
the huge scale and beauty of his
four-hour Hamlet, the amazing
if not entirely successful attempt
to do Love’s Labours Lost
featuring the music of Gershwin
– he certainly wasn’t afraid
of Shakespeare, afraid to take
risks. Do you think Branagh was
responsible for re-popularising
Shakespeare?
Before Baz Luhrman’s Romeo
+ Juliet, Branagh definitely did
more for bringing Shakespeare
back into popular culture than
Curious: fine, skillfully
done, elaborate, careful
Claudio, Act 5 Scene 1
I thank him: he hath bid me
to a calf’s head and a capon,
the which if I do not carve
most curiously, say my knife’s
naught.
Do you think that Shakespeare
is so entrenched in our culture
as being this cornerstone of
literary excellence that no-one
will ever be able to surpass
him?
No. He’s good, but he’s not
God. There is a problem in the
sense that people are intimidated
by him, that people think he’s
much harder than he actually is;
actors, producers and directors
alike. He was and is incredibly
good, but the only way to keep
him good, and keep him inspiring
us is by shaking him, grabbing
hold of him, being delicately
rough with him, and definitely
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BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
getting him off that pedestal.
No-one can be inspired by
something that’s treated with kid
gloves.
Do you ever get sick of the old
codger?
In the summer I was directing
two plays and writing a book
about Shakespeare and I
certainly felt like all I wanted
to do was sit in a dark room
and play video games for a
month. Which is exactly what
I did. I think that it’s incredibly
nourishing, but it can also be a
particular kind of draining to be
always dealing with such huge
matters of the heart and soul.
You need to be able to recharge
those batteries to be able to
attack it afresh. Not sick of him,
but I always try to make sure,
either as an actor or a director,
that I go off and work with other
writers too. Shakespeare may
teach me how to deal with them,
but they also teach me how to
deal with him.
What do you read and watch
for fun?
You mean other than
Shakespeare?
I don’t really watch much
TV, it confuses me. There’s
a programme on TV when
people spend time bidding on
the unknown contents of a
storage container. And there’s a
production company who spend
the bulk of their lives filming
this… What does that even
mean? Why would you spend
time, or money, or talent on that?
I know the answer is, “Because
it sells”, but a lot of the time
people are striving more to be
famous than to create something,
or do anything good.
6 | Shakespeare special
What do I like? I like William
Gibson, Philip Pullman, Charlotte
Brontë, I like The West Wing,
I like Kubrick very much. I
adore music, jazz and blues,
manner and because of the way
in which his company worked.
As a practitioner, from working
on his plays, I can develop an
ensemble that hopefully mirrors
New honorary GEDS member, Edie Crystal
and modern classicists like
Steve Reich and Max Richter. I
suppose there’s a bit of a theme
with all these auteurs who seem
to be constantly searching for
the same thing over and over
again.
In my relaxation from
Shakespeare I suppose I’m
looking at people who create
stuff in similar ways. They
are the things that inspire me
to go back to Shakespeare
and work with him again, I
suppose. I would like to take the
methodology I have developed
and apply it to putting on plays
by some of Shakespeare’s
contemporaries, but I’m too busy
doing Shakespeare’s plays at the
moment and there are still so
many plays I would like to do.
What makes Shakespeare so
unique?
Shakespeare is singular for
me both because of his writing
Shakespeare’s ensemble. You
have some modern equivalents;
Wes Anderson, for example, reemploys the same actors all the
time in his films. He has created
his own kind of contemporary
ensemble.
Is there a search for a kind of
purity in the way in which you
stage your productions?
It’s about following what we
know about the way in which
they produced their shows.
They just needed an inspiring
space, a group of talented actors
and the words, so what was
good enough for Shakespeare
should be good enough for me.
This production is more
concept-driven than I usually
have, it being 450 years
since Shakespeare’s birth, the
centenary of the beginning of
World War One, and the fact
that we are in Switzerland,
we found a way of tying all
these elements together. The
important thing is that you
don’t force the play around a
concept; the concept has to
come from the play not the
other way round. Don Pedro’s
soldiers returning from a
war to place of sanctuary, fits
Leonato’s Messina. You can use
Shakespeare to give voice to
anything you like, it can wave
any political or thematic flag you
like, but you have to be careful
you don’t prevent the audience
from seeing all the other things
that the play is about as well.
Do you think that he was
political as a writer?
He was, but he had to be
very careful. Look at Macbeth, a
play about the assassination of
a Scottish king, during the reign
of James I and shortly after
the Gunpowder Plot, featuring
witches, during the European
witch craze. That’s about as
political as you can get. James
certainly wasn’t very happy
about it.
Shakespeare was political, but
he was very canny in the way
he wrote, otherwise it would
never get past the Master of the
Revels, the Elizabethan censor.
Some people think that having
the restrictions or limitations
imposed by the Master of the
Revels (whose function in this
capacity was taken over by the
Lord Chamberlain) made for
better writing as the writers
were forced to be inventive with
their message, do you agree?
The Belarus Theatre
Company is an exiled theatre
group that, in order to perform,
have to stage these secret popup performances in basements,
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BEN CRYSTAL
INTERVIEW
and their work is extraordinary.
Constraint can often be
conducive to great work.
Parlez-vous franglais?
Is it safe to say that as an
actor, there is nothing you
enjoy performing as much as
Shakespeare?
No! God! I love acting. Acting
full-stop is the best job in the
world. Acting Shakespeare, I
think, requires a particular skillset that is both invigorating and
challenging, but you could say
the same thing about Pinter. All
actors want to do is work with
good writers and good people,
good directors, good producers,
do good stuff. There are a
relatively finite number of great
writers; there are plenty of good
writers.
Numerous words found in
Much Ado hark back to a time
when the influence of Latin
and French on the English
language was much more
obvious:
Who do you consider to be
great writers?
Like I said earlier, Beckett,
Pinter, Simon Stevens, Ibsen,
Chekhov, Anthony Nielson…
Why did you write You
Say Potato – A Book About
Accents?
Ha, because the publishers
asked me to! They came to me
and wanted me to write a book
about accents and I said, “You’ve
got the wrong Crystal, you want
my father”. They said “No, we
want you. We’ll put you in the
British Library for a year and a
half and pay you to research it”
and I said, “Yeah, you definitely
want my dad” and they said, “No
we want you”, and I said, “Well
why don’t you have us both?”
Then I went to my dad and he
said “I don’t want to write that”.
But I managed to persuade him.
We’d been looking for another
project to work together on.
7 | Shakespeare special
Benedick, Act 2 Scene 1
“She speaks poniards, and
every word stabs”
Shakespeare’s meaning: dagger
On reflection, I understand
why they wanted to do it with
me, because it’s all well and
good having an academic write
about accents, looking under
the hood of the car, but equally
you want someone who knows
how to drive the car and can
describe the aesthetic of the car.
I like using accents, and not just
for my job: I moved to North
Wales when I was seven
and found myself developing
a Welsh accent, moved to
Lancaster for university and
found myself developing a
Lancaster accent, came down
to London and found myself
cockney-ifying and starting
travelling the world and found
myself transatlantic-ifying.
I find myself talking to people
and trying to work out where
they’re from, from their accent;
and from my father’s work,
I know that accent equals
identity. It’s one of the things
that people value most greatly
about themselves, they’re very
territorial about their accents,
they’re very protective of them.
Your accent speaks more
about who you are than the
French equivalent: poignard
Hero, Act 3 Scene 1
“Good Margaret, run thee to
the parlour,
There shalt thou find my
cousin Beatrice
Proposing with the prince and
Claudio”
Shakespeare’s meaning:
conversing
clothes that you wear or the
way you style your hair. Your
accent is like the DNA of your
life. We show it loud and proud
everyday without realising
it, in a way that we never let
people see other parts of our
personalities. It’s an incredibly
interesting and personal thing.
What does the concept of accent
as identity mean for you as an
actor?
As an actor, I suppose it
means it’s a bloody good place
to start! Olivier always used
to start from the physical. He
said that his wife would always
know when he was preparing
a part because he’d start
limping around the house or
something.
Sometimes, but not always,
I’ll start with the voice because
you start from the text, and the
text comes alive in your voice
and the way that you articulate
and vocalize some things can
essentially have a domino effect
down into your body I suppose,
and you can draw physical
character from vocal character
if you want.
French equivalent: Propos can
mean words or remarks
Benedick, Act 5 Scene 4
Think not on him till tomorrow.
I’ll devise thee brave
punishments for him.
Shakespeare’s meaning: fine,
excellent
French equivalent: Good,
honest
How do you find acting on
screen as opposed to stage?
It’s a different skill-set. There’s
a different skill set required for
Pinter versus Shakespeare
and there’s a different skillset required for recording a
voiceover into a microphone
than there is for acting onstage.
And I love it.
I thought it wasn’t going to
have that similar frisson you
get when you step onstage, but
there was nothing really quite
as electric as being in front
of a camera – especially live,
knowing that 1.4 million people
are watching. That is pretty
exciting. In a very different
way. And when it’s not live,
the audience is even bigger
but you get the opportunity to
refine what you do and perfect
your craft. It’s really quite fun
to hone your performance, to
polish and polish and polish.
And you can do that in the
theatre, you just have to wait
24 hours from performance to
performance.
Do you have a particular
technique for getting into your
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INTERVIEW
creative space when there’s a
camera crew around you?
Oh, you just have to do it.
Just out of necessity, you get
used to it. Whilst you’re crying
over the death of your brother
you’re stepping over cables and
lights and you have to look in a
particular way even though it’s
physically awkward just to get
the shot in the right way… It’s
a different technique, but you
get used to switching it on and
off very quickly and thinking
yourself into a moment or an
emotion. When I was very
young, I was always in wonder
of actors who could just cry.
Once you know how to do it, it’s
pretty easy.
So how do you do it?
Everyone’s got their own way.
It’s singular and unique to each
person. If you think about what
it would really feel like to lose
your brother, why wouldn’t you
cry? It’s the only reaction that
most people would have. That
sounds rather Stanislavskian in
its approach but of course you
don’t want to actually believe
that your brother has died
because that’s not theatre or
acting anymore. When you’re
uncontrollably sobbing, that’s not
what an audience wants to see.
They want to see people trying
to hold back the tears, that’s
engrossing.
Do you believe – as some actors
do – that if you want to be an
actor, it has to be the only thing
you want to do in the world?
It’s certainly not a job that you
give anything less than 100%
at and if you do, you will find
yourself not acting as much.
How much are you prepared
8 | Shakespeare special
to sacrifice? Are you willing to
accept the fact that if you give
everything to this business, you
may not travel, you may not see
your family at Christmas, you
may not have a family, you may
spend your entire life financially
unstable? What are you
prepared to give to this business
that spits out hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of others
just like you?
But you know, I had an
opportunity to write and you
could argue that if I hadn’t, if
I hadn’t put the energy from
acting into writing, my career
might have gone in a completely
different direction. But I
wouldn’t have met the people
I’ve met, I wouldn’t have worked
with my father, I wouldn’t have
a book on people’s shelves that
will hopefully be around for
another 100 years or so and
that has inspired and given
joy to people (Shakespeare’s
Words); it’s the new industrystandard Shakespearean
dictionary.
Whilst I may have once
resented the fact that they have
held back my acting career,
I’d never give up the fact
that I have written with my
father, and I now run my own
Shakespeare company.
You can absolutely give acting
everything you’ve got. Whether
you should or not … it’s a tough
business, and many, many, many,
many people don’t get to do it.
Why was it important for you
to write?
I wrote Shakespeare’s Words
because it needed to be written.
There wasn’t a book out there
that did what I needed it to
do. Same for Shakespeare on
Toast and The Shakespeare
Miscellany. I like to write what
needs to be written… and I
suppose I like the sculpting.
Some elements of writing are
a bit like acting. You get a big
chunk of marble, a basic idea
or a character, and you spend
time sculpting away at it until
it turns into something you’re
content with. I like the craft
of writing. Oscar Wilde once
said “I was working on the
proof of one of my poems all the
morning, and took out a comma.
In the afternoon I put it back
again.” That level of specificity
is what I enjoy about film acting
as well.
What’s your favourite video
game?
I have absolutely no idea. It
was only this summer, after
doing two books and two plays,
that I let myself buy a games
console. I’m currently being
absolutely terrified by Alien:
Isolation. The makers went
back to the archives of Ridley
Scott’s first Alien movie and
took photographs of the set and
turned them into a computer
game. It’s like wandering around
the film, so it’s kind of interesting
and terrifying. I’ve spent about
Answers from page three
1. salvation = damnation
2. desertless = deserving
3. senseless = sensible
4. statues = statutes
5. much more = much less
6. comprehend = apprehend
7. lechery = treachery
8. obey = command
9. comprehended =
apprehended, auspicious
= suspicious
an hour playing it so far and I
still haven’t met anybody else.
Scary!
There is some seriously
impressive stuff being made
out there. I could kid myself
into saying that it’s research…
Actually, it is research because
I’ve had to audition for some
video games recently as a
motion capture actor. I just
played a video game called The
Last of Us, a kind of a zombie
thing, and much as it pains me
to say it, there were three or
four occasions when the acting
in the game choked me up. The
acting was that good, and the
script was that good; it was
utterly compelling. It completely
suspended my disbelief. I like
having my disbelief suspended.
That’s what I want to do in the
theatre. I like to be taken out of
my world and to forget about
my woes and troubles and just
get caught up, and maybe be left
with something to think about in
relation to my woes and troubles
afterwards.
What does the tattoo on your
forearm say?
It says “Nothing will come
of nothing”. It’s a line from the
opening scene of King Lear. It’s
written in my father’s writing,
my gran’s and my mum’s. It’s
one of my favourite lines from
Shakespeare and it means I’ll
always have my folks with me.
What’s your favourite
Shakespeare play?
Whichever one I’m working
on! But probably King Lear.
Favourite sonnet?
That is very, very difficult.
Eighty-one is pretty good.
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