Lynn Redgrave touched a universal audience chord when she penned one woman show Shakespeare for My Father for her own father Sir Michael Redgrave.
Sir Michael Redgrave, was considered one of the greatest Shakespearean actors in British theatre. In 1991, Lynn Redgrave was invited to Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library to read Shakespeare’s works. It was this invitation that sparked Redgrave to write a one woman show dedicated to her father. She used characters and scenes from Shakespeare, famed theatre figures and friends of the Redgrave family to search for answers and peace of mind in a clever, familial way. Like many, Lynn Redgrave was a child who grew up without a father figure. She was the youngest of the famed Redgrave acting clan which includes older sister Vanessa Redgrave, and older brother Corin Redgrave.
Premiering, in 1993 at the Cerritos Centre for Performing Arts, California, Shakespeare for My Father became an instant success, a critical Broadway darling, and for the next three years toured across the country and around the world including Australia, England, and Canada.
In a 1993 phone interview, I spoke to Lynn Redgrave from California a week before the world premiere of Shakespeare for My Father. In the following five part series Redgrave candidly chats about her first one woman show (she has since done the award-winning Nightingale) theatre royale parents Sir Micheal Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, her early screen days, and her undying love for all things theatre.
This is your first one woman show. How do you feel about it?
Lynn Redgrave – “ I have not done this very often so far. I've done just small embryonic versions of this running about one hour and a quarter at NYU in New York and the Folger Shakespeare Llibrary in Washington. This is now a full length (two hour) show. There’s nobody else to come on and bail you out, that’s for sure. It gets a little lonely backstage, but otherwise it depends on the piece. It takes a lot out of you, yes, of course it does, because the energy has to go all evening without respite from other people. But on the other hand if you create something yourself which I have in this case, of course that brings with it, its exhilaration and its own rewards."
This is so different from your usual theatre fare and you have upped the performance ante by writing in Shakespearean roles for yourself..
“You prepare and prepare and prepare. I have been working everyday on it, fine tuning it for the opening which is in a week on Friday and then I set off across the country.
Do you see Nanny standing in front of you or Richard Burton. Do you imagine them in front of you? . How do you do it?
"I play many characters apart from myself, I do play about 20 different characters from Shakespeare and also from my own life. Yes, I do play Richard Burton and Nanny and Lawrence Olivier and everybody who comes along. In a funny sort of way, particularly in the Shakespeare scenes where I play more than one character, such as the willow cabin scene from Twelfth Night where I play both Olivia and Viola, then Olivia and Malvolio, and Malvolio and Viola... I don’t know. I’m not quite sure how I do it. I believe and I suppose I ask the audience to take a leap of faith and see them too. They seem quite clear to me. I look forward to those scenes because I feel like I’ve got company on stage but in fact, it’s all played by me but it feels like quite a companionable place to be.”
Is this the most difficult piece in your repertoire to date? It is directed by your husband John Clark.
“Yes it is. I don’t know whether it is the most difficult. Obviously I am well suited to it. I cast myself in it and I wrote it for myself along with my marvelous co-writer Shakespeare of course. I suppose it is the biggest challenge in that the buck really does stop with me. I have never been able to say that before and sometimes I’ve… like all actors…we’ve gone –‘if only the director hadn’t done that, we’d of have had a wonderful show’.. or … ‘if only that actor hadn’t done that in that scene, it would have been a hit.’ Or ‘If only the playwright had written a better second half’ ..
I can’t lay the blame anywhere for this show and so that is quite nerve racking and exhilarating. There are days when I am on my knees and humbled by the whole thing and other days when I am leaping off the top of the rafters with excitement. The proof of all the pudding will be when I really get it up and running in front of an audience as opposed to the short versions I have done previously and I expect I shall learn more along the way.”
