"The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt very at home. I just felt very at ease and happy to be there. But the first time I performed to be or not to be on stage, there was a sense of aren't bells supposed to ring here? Isn't there supposed to be a klaxon? I come to to be in a slightly different way each night so hopefully the audience haven't seen it done that way before."
"I was a street performer for years, so I know how to talk to an audience, they performed to the people, not at them. Actors got into this fourth-wall thing in the 1800s, it wasn't there in Elizabethan times. Actors go, oh, da da da da and they look up to the skies whereas I will talk to the audience and bring them in. They are part of my brain, they are part of Hamlet's brain."
"I think George Lazenby did a good job as James Bond. Some people think he didn't, but I think On Her Majesty's Secret Service really works. Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg did a great job, and the whole bloody thing is great. It's the first one I ever saw, with my brother on a school trip, and I loved it. I've loved Bond ever since. It's unfortunate Lazenby didn't do more, but that was a good one."
The performer felt unexpectedly at home while rehearsing Hamlet and experienced ease rather than fear. The first public delivery of 'to be or not to be' felt strange, as if bells or a klaxon were expected. The performer varies the 'to be' delivery each night to keep it fresh for audiences. Years as a street performer shaped a direct, participatory approach to audiences, reflecting Elizabethan performance practices before the fourth wall. The performer favors George Lazenby's portrayal in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Selected standup routines endure, with the Death Star Canteen remixed on the Remix tour.
#one-woman-hamlet #audience-engagement #elizabethan-performance #james-bond-george-lazenby #standup-remix
Read at www.theguardian.com
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