The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0185 Friday, 28 March 2008
[1] From: Matthew Henerson <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 2008 23:22:26 -0700
Subj: Paul Scofield and His Generation
[2] From: Mary Rosenberg <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Monday, 24 Mar 2008 17:02:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: A Tribute to Paul Scofield
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matthew Henerson <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 2008 23:22:26 -0700
Subject: Paul Scofield and His Generation
Last Wednesday, Paul Scofield died, the last and youngest of a
remarkable generation of British actors who-depending on who you talk
to-invented, defined, or perfected the performance of Shakespeare's
plays in the 20th Century. You really do have to reach back to Russia
between 1809 and 1837 (Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and
Pushkin) to find as geographically concentrated a field of artistic
excellence in a single discipline as occurred between 1902 and 1922 with
actors in Great Britain. During those twenty years were born Donald
Wolfit, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peggy
Ashcroft, Michael Redgrave, Alec Guinness, and Paul Scofield. I'm forty
years old myself-almost fifty years younger than the youngest of them,
and I never saw a single one of them give a live performance. But it's a
tribute to the enduring power of these actors that it would have been
possible for me to see six of them perform major classical roles ranging
from Othello and Shylock to John Gabriel Borkman and James Tyrone. By
the standards of repertory theatre in England and America today, they
were an almost supernaturally tough bunch, cutting their teeth on
repertory seasons which no contemporary actor would be allowed, much
less encouraged to undertake. Consider Olivier at the Old Vic in 1937:
Hamlet, Henry V, Sir Toby Belch and Macbeth; Gielgud in his Queen's
Season in 1938: Richard II, Vershinin, Joseph Surface and Shylock, or
Scofield at Stratford in 1948: Bassanio, the Young Shepherd, Lewis in
*King John*, Troilus, and Hamlet, to say nothing of what Donald Wolfit
routinely put himself through during his self-produced tours in the 40's
and 50's. Then-with the exception of Wolfit, who never gave himself
easily into the hands of another director-these actors, as they matured,
departed from the traditional stagings of the classics on which they had
built their reputations, and worked in new plays and new companies, for
younger and more iconoclastic directors. Peggy Ashcroft was Brecht's
*Good Woman of *Szechwan, and Winnie in Beckett's *Happy Days*,
Richardson starred in Orton's *What the Butler Saw*, Olivier famously
collaborated with Osborne, Wesker and Anouilh, and Gielgud and
Richardson with David Storey and Harold Pinter. Late in his career,
Guinness had a hit with a Lee Blessing play, and Scofield starred in the
London premiere of *I'm Not Rappaport*.
All this is not to say that every performance these actors gave was
definitive, nor that every decision they ever made had as a motivating
force the furtherance of theatrical art. Even their most celebrated
performances, where they survive on film or in recordings, have begun to
date. It's the nature of the beast: every generation has its Hamlet, its
Falstaff, its Juliet, and usually more than one or two. American
audiences, particularly with the advent of regional theatres and
Shakespeare Festivals over the last fifty years, have become used to
American classical actors, and perhaps find the more aristocratic sounds
of Gielgud and Olivier mannered and stagey. But as we mourn Paul
Scofield-and people who work in and with Shakespeare the world over
*should* mourn him, whatever they may have thought of Peter Brook's
*King Lear*--I can't help remembering the rest of that extraordinary
group-of whom I never saw a one-and I can't help considering what we've
finally lost.
Matt Henerson
In addition to filmed performances of King Lear, the Ghost in *Hamlet*
and the French King in *Henry V*, Paul Scofield leaves behind recordings
of Hamlet, King Lear, Oberon, Malvolio, and Pericles (Caedemon); Hotspur
(Argo), Othello (BBC) and a second King Lear (Naxos.)
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mary Rosenberg <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Monday, 24 Mar 2008 17:02:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Tribute to Paul Scofield
I was saddened to read of the death of actor Paul Scofield. The British
and international stage has lost an actor of exceptional distinction,
certainly equal to stand with the other "greats" of his time - Gielgud,
Olivier and Richardson - and, for some of us, standing at their head.
Reading Benedict Nightingale's thoughtful obituary in the New York Times
(Friday, March 21 2008) I was reminded of two special memories which
will long stay with me.
When I first began teaching - in the dark ages before such teaching aids
as TV and video - I used a couple of audio tapes to demonstrate to
students the way in which an actor can use his voice to convey
interpretations far beyond the words on the page. Of all actors,
Scofield - with that distinctive "cracked" voice of his - provided
superb illustration.
My first example was taken from the sound track of the film of Robert
Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons," and consisted of a single word. The
moment occurs when Sir Thomas More is asked whether he is prepared to
recommend one of his attendants, Richard Rich, for promotion. After a
pause, Scofield/Sir Thomas replies: "No." But the word, spoken on tape,
with all its hesitations and lingering intonations, is much more than a
simple refusal (though in the end, it holds no hint of uncertainty).
There are so many levels of meaning - of shifting thoughts, of warnings,
of remembered doubts, even of ironic humor - that it perfectly allowed
me to illustrate to my class how the most ordinary and seemingly
insignificant word on the page can illuminate character and add shades
of meaning that few silent readers of the script would be able to discern.
My second example came from the opening scene of that wonderful "King
Lear" (Stratford, 1971) which, as Nightingale rightly observes, is
considered by many to be the greatest interpretation of the role of all
time. I was lucky enough to see the production several times; and I
listened with delighted admiration to the sound patterns of this strong
and defiant old king, recognizing how the rising intonation at the end
of his sentences gave innate authority to the character's slightest
wish. "Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester." "Give me
the map there." Try it for yourself. Speak the lines with an upward
emphasis at the end, and hear the note of command. The tone perfectly
reinforces what the disguised Kent sees in Lear's face and demeanor when
he offers himself as a support to the cast-out king in 1.4:
Lear: What wouldst thou?
Kent: Service.
Lear: Who wouldst thou serve?
Kent: You.
Lear: Dost thou know me, fellow?
Kent: No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain
call master.
Lear: What's that?
Kent: Authority.
Given the unforgettable quality of Scofield's voice, never did Kent's
assessment seem more true: and Lear's progressive crumbling, when it
came, was all the more poignant.
I have always admired Paul Scofield's performances on stage and screen.
As a friend and colleague of my husband's (Marvin sat in on his
"Macbeth" rehearsals during the writing of "The Masks of Macbeth"), he
was always considerate, a true "gentleman." He will be sadly missed,
especially on the Shakespearean stage.
Mary Rosenberg
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>
DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.
|
