Simon Russell Beale is one of those rare combinations: an instinctive and compelling actor and an erudite intellectual. Well-read, thoughtful and incisive, he is equally comfortable talking about questions of textual variances as giving amusing theatrical anecdotes. The conversation, deftly handled by King’s Professor of Shakespeare Studies Sonia Massai, began with three short clips of Beale in action as Timon of Athens (National Theatre, 2012), King Lear (National Theatre, 2014) and Falstaff (‘The Hollow Crown’ for the BBC, 2012). Although the recordings kept losing sound, this did not detract from Beale’s mesmeric performances.

Watching them one after the other, it was clear to see his impressive range as an actor. Not only is he able to make familiar lines sound new-minted, but he manages to give a fresh interpretation of characters we think we already know. His Falstaff, for instance, was an unusually dark portrayal of an old, disillusioned drunkard with broken veins and decaying teeth. When asked how he approached such gargantuan roles as Lear and Falstaff, he replied that, although conscious of the ‘sentimental overload’ attached to some of Shakespeare’s more familiar characters, he was not afraid to disturb orthodoxies if he felt the role demanded it.

Nor is he averse to textual excisions and insertions. His first responsibility, he explained, is to give a clear performance to an audience that will never see the production again. That is why he and director, Nicholas Hytner, ‘borrowed’ some lines from Coriolanus to make sense of some of the more opaque language of Timon of Athens.

Beale’s next Shakespearean venture is the role of Prospero in The Tempest at the RSC. It will be, he explained, the first time he has worked with RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran, although not his first appearance in this play. He memorably spat in Prospero’s face when he portrayed a dark, vengeful Ariel for Sam Mendes’s 1993 production.

He was enticed back to The Tempest by the proposition of working with The Imaginarium’s Andy Serkis, who will use the same type of CGI effects to create Ariel as he used for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film franchise. The aim was, Beale explained, to find the 21^st-century equivalent of the spectacle and wonder of James I’s 17^th-century court masques. It certainly sounds like an ambitious venture. Unlike the filmed versions of CGI characters, this Ariel will be projected in live motion capture at each performance. ‘I don’t mind being upstaged by computer-generated imagery’, said Beale with customary self-deprecatory humour. Somehow, I think it would take more than a hologram to overshadow this most charismatic and absorbing stage-actor.

 

Links:

https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-tempest/about-the-play

http://www.imaginariumuk.com

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/simon-russell-beale-best-and-soundest-actor-of-his-time-9068396.html