Modern Hamlets & Soliloquies: An Expanded Edition

6. ANTON LESSER: A Noble Mind

6 ANTON LESSER A Noble Mind British actor Anton Lesser has performed extensively on the London stage, with approximately half of his stage credits in classical roles from Shakespeare to Chekov. For the Royal Shakespeare Company he has played Richard III, Romeo, and Troilus. He has numerous credits in British television, and over the last few years he has worked with award-winning American playwright Richard Nelson, playing the lead roles in three British premieres: Principia Scriptoriae, Some Americans Abroad, and Two Shakespearean Actors. In I982, at the age of thirty, Lesser played Hamlet under the direction of Jonathan Miller, with whom he had worked earlier in his career, playing both Troilus and Edgar in the Time-Life BBC "Shakespeare Plays" series. This was Miller's third Hamlet in twelve years. An old hand at Shakespeare, Miller was famous (or infamous) for bold strokes of imagination and iconoclastic interpretations, often using classical painters as sources of inspiration for his production designs. He occasionally directed for the large Shakespearean companies in England but preferred to be unfettered in style and unrestricted by institutions.! Lesser's Hamlet was originally staged at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden and opened on August I7, I982. It then transferred to the much larger Piccadilly Theatre on September 22, where it continued to play for ten more weeks. The austere set, consisting of simple, spare furniture (such as a plywood throne and a bench) was on a three-foot raised platform of gray boards backed by a black-curtained wall. The actors wore costumes of varying shades of gray (Hamlet's was the dark121 est) with buttons, tight bodices, and farthingales, somewhat reminiscent of the clothing in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. This was clearly a neutral country of some kind and a smaller, more domestic notion of Denmark. Other Miller touches included a medically graphic mad scene by Ophelia, whose clinical insanity offended some critics and drew horrified responses from others. Benedict Nightingale described Miller's style: "In his undeniably skilled hands, the Shakespeare production became spare-parts surgery. Plays come off the table the same but different. A new heart here, an extra arm or leg there, a brain transplant over there-anything seemed possible in Dr. Miller's operating theatre."2 The character conception of Hamlet was in tune with other modern productions. Lesser's was a youthful Hamlet, sullen, sly, fond of adolescent jokes, and prone to tears, who managed to mature as the shocks of experience washed over him. Obviously, Miller had envisioned an antiromantic interpretation: "I have always been interested in the idea of Hamlet as a rather unattractive character ... volatile, dirty-minded and immature."3 Most critics recognized in Lesser, stubble-chinned and small of stature, abundant intelligence and a charismatic energy: "an actor who holds the spotlight of our attention simply by being on the stage,"4 "he has the great actor's ability to give familiar words a freshness and make us hear them as if for the first time ... his stage presence is undeniable and often transfixing."5 However, there were a couple of heavy-handed negative reviews which focused on Hamlet's callow unprinceliness. Moreover, he had clearly squared off with his new stepfather. A reviewer from the Daily Mail commented : "This is the first Hamlet I've seen which asks why Claudius cannot bring himself to kill Hamlet, instead of the other way round. It is a good question, but would any director other than Jonathan Miller have thought of it?"6 Lesser explains how the idea came about: This was a young Hamlet, yes. There were scenes when I was actually sobbing. He was very funny at times that are not textually required , a lightness that was useful. I didn't consciously think, "I'm going to play him quite young." I just tried to let the text come through me as I was then, at age thirty. I can't remember Jonathan being uncompromising about concepts-saying, for example, "I really feel in this scene, this is what's happening and therefore we 122 : Anton Lesser should go in that direction." But he often said, "What about this ... let's try so-and-so"-which is a much more enjoyable way of working . He would then arrive at an idea. He always began with an openness and then said, "This is how it's going to be." I wouldn't have...