H&H Series Thursday, June 15, 2017 37 THEATRE ETCETERA ‘I thought I’d be bored but I love playing her’

Juliet Stevenson is enjoying a blinding career run. From being Juliet Stevenson tells buried up to her waist in Beckett’s , to alternating Bridget Galton her fears Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots on a coin toss, she’s won about playing ’s legions new fans who don’t mother were allayed by remember her from Truly Madly Deeply or Bend It Like Beckham. ’s rich and

The 60-year-old has been tearing up passionate production the Almeida stage with late life sexual passion in Robert Icke’s sellout Hamlet, but reveals she’d Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude in Hamlet now running at the . Picture: MANUEL HARLAN previously rejected the part of lots of deep love and detailed Gertrude. exploration of these complex and NT roles, Stevenson’s not As you get older you get better at evening. There was a risk and “I thought I would be bored relationships. The has come interested in playing Shakespeare your job but where are the roles?” uncertainty the audience found playing her, I have turned it down up so richly under that lens.” as “heritage pieces”. Although her agent is cross she’s exciting. You could feel them on the before. I said ‘oh no, please Rob Gertrude’s painful dilemma to “Always my interest and desire is “not available for telly” Stevenson edge of their seats every night.” let’s do something else’. But I love pursue a personal desire that hurts to look for how they are relevant to is grabbing her moment and after She agrees that for most actresses working with him and said ‘I will her beloved son, has rarely been us and tell stories about who we are Hamlet plays a locked-in stroke of her age, “there’s a dearth of only do it if you allow us to look at more keenly felt. now. If you really look at them in patient in Wings at the . roles”. “I’ve been lucky, but that’s why Ophelia and Gertrude are so “She’s passionate about Hamlet detail, firstly you get very rounded “I have been really challenged, not the rule for women in their silent. If the production will frame and passionate about her new characters and secondly you really ventured into new territory and middle years. Their careers hit a that silence, place it in a context husband. She’s completely caught feel for them. If audiences are been really scared thinking ‘I don’t plateau in a way men’s don’t. and lift those two roles’. I feel we by these two male focuses of her really moved by the human know how I am going to manage “But Women want to see their have done that.” life. It’s fascinating to look at a struggle, it’s so much more this’ which is the best place to be. lives reflected in complex and As the modern dress production woman of my age who has for the rewarding. This (Hamlet) doesn’t Showing what it’s like to be inside interesting ways. We so often transfers to the West End starring first time in her life fallen feel remote, it’s a great the head and heart of someone who struggle with a two dimensional Andrew Scott’s febrile Dane, the completely sensually in love. She characteristic of Robert’s work can’t speak or connect to the world roles. Bit what’s the interest of actress enthuses about knows this overhasty marriage has that people are involved and is brave and terrifying.” playing that as an actress?” “the passion and emotional detail” made Hamlet miserable but she moved.” In Schiller’s at the Theatre, she says conveys “the Icke has brought to the play. couldn’t help herself. It’s one of the At a time when many actresses Almeida she and Lia Williams complexity of human exchange”. “It’s not just about one young many clichés that woman aren’t find roles drying up, she’s alternated the leads on a coin toss. “I don’t think people really man, it’s about men and women, supposed to be sexual after 40. It’s experienced the opposite: “It’s been “I thought it a little gimmicky but receive things if they don’t feel power and hypocrisy. Quite often been great to blast that particular the most wonderful three years. I’m once you explore the play you them. If audiences connect and Hamlet the play focuses on Hamlet cliché out of the water.” on a high. But there had been a realise so much of Elizabeth and really feel the truth it will sink in. the character and everyone else is Known for the emotional period when I felt ‘why when I have Mary’s lives was down to destiny. Acting is allowing people to feel two dimensional. We have looked at intelligence of Olivier-nodded been working for 35 years is there Either could have been the other. It their way through the play and the whole human canvas. There’s performances in numerous RSC so little work that references that?’ was a terrific way to start an inviting them to inhabit it.”

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Review

COMMON Moore also throws in a taboo though their romance surely National Theatre melodrama, supernatural would have provoked more of a ✩✩✩ meanderings, Wicker response. Man-esque Pagan cult, fourth There’s good support from DC Moore’s ambitious work is wall-breaking and gleeful Tim McMullan as a sardonic far from a dry history play, but – anachronisms, plus aristocrat and Trevor Fox as his despite losing half an hour ostentatious symbols like dead ferocious right-hand, but John from its original three-hour animals. Dagleish seems oddly miscast, run time – it’s an unwieldy The loamy, expletive-ridden failing to convince as the beast that Jeremy Herrin’s poetry is intriguing but dense, violent rebellion leader who production struggles to making an already complex lusts after his sister. tame. piece wilfully bewildering. It’s Richard Hudson’s barren Rural England, 1809, a time of hard to get invested in the earth leaves the actors forced enclosure: the fencing personal and political dramas stranded on the vast Olivier off of common land, turning when there’s little space for stage. small independent farmers into either character or theme to More effective is Stephen low-paid labourers for the develop. Warbeck’s percussive music wealthy. But as soon as the local Anne-Marie Duff is and Paule Constable’s lord orders Irish workers to put compelling as the scheming, painterly, expressive sky. up fences, the villagers burn bewitching heroine, who Striking moments, from a them down. somehow transcends class and talking crow to the literal That struggle has plenty of gender, but Mary remains more spilling of guts, but lacks either potential resonance: the side idea than person. She’s the historical detailing or effects of modernisation, strongest interacting with the primal power to consistently populist rebellion, anger turned sadly underused Cush Jumbo as engage. on unwanted migrants. But fiery country girl Laura – MARIANKA SWAIN Anne-Marie Duff and Cush Jumbo in Common. Picture: JOHAN PERSSON