Barry
Sullivan (1824-1891) made his name at Drury Lane playing Hamlet, Macbeth,
and Richelieu, earning the title of "the leading legitimate actor of the
British stage" from the London Times and the admiration of George Bernard
Shaw who considered him the greatest tragedian in Britain, far outclassing Henry
Irving (whose dominance eclipsed Sullvan's brief tenure as the country's leading
tragedian). He opened the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre as Benedick (and donated
a hundred guineas to its construction), but he was considered to be at his best
as Richard III (which he claimed to have played 3,500 times), which he played
in London, Australia and the United States. Robet M. Sillard wrote in Barry Sullivan and his Contemporaries that "Shakespeare says 'There is a divinty which shapes our ends'; if Sullivan had the shaping of the close of his professional life, which he had not, he could not have desired anything better than his own last performance as Richard the Third, or the fervent and unbounded expression of the attachment of his last audience."
After
being enjoyed by the public but knocked about by the critics for his performances
as Romeo/Mercutio at the New Theatre and Hamlet at the Old Vic (about which
James Agate wrote "Mr. Olivier does not speak poetry badly. He does not
speak it at all."), Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) finally enjoyed
an unqualified triumph in his second appearance at the Vic, as Sir Toby Belch
in Twelfth Night. Frequently at his best in character roles like Richard
III, Justice Shallow, and Othello when his genius at makeup could be given its
full scope (and so influential to other actors that Olivier's later co-director
at the Old Vic, Ralph Richardson, had to admonish company members "Before
you go onstage, look in the mirror and ask yourself: Is it human?"), Olivier's
lusty Sir Toby - full of acrobatic business that unashamedly played to the galleries
- was heaped with praise and acclaimed as an embryonic Falstaff (a role Olivier
was never to play). Olivier was a gifted comic actor who had legendary successes
in comedies like The Critic, School for Scandal, and Love for Love
(not to mention the comic inventiveness he gave to his Richard III), but Sir
Toby was surprisingly his only successful attempt at a major Shakespearean comic
role (his 1955 Malvolio was one of his few failures, and his 1971 Shylock was
played for tragic effect). The production was also a success for Alec Guinness
(pictured with Olivier), who as Sir Andrew Aguecheek played his first major
Shakespearean role, but it was Olivier's show all the way and laid the first
stones on the path to greatness.
Although
most of the notices for Peter Brooks' historic production of A Midsummer
Night's Dream went to Peter Brook, the cast of the legendary staging set
in a circus atmosphere included some actors that would go on to become international
names like Patrick Stewart and Ben Kingsley. The actor who stood out amongst
the ensemble was Alan Howard, who doubled as Oberon and Theseus, a dual
casting that is common now but was unprecedented when Brooks' Midsummer
debuted for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1970 and
would go on to tour throughout the world until 1979. In addition to doubling
two of the longest roles in Shakespearean comedy, Howard (along with John Kane
as Puck) had to learn to perform such circus stunts as balancing on a trapeze
while delivering the demanding poetry spoken by Oberon. Peter Roberts wrote
in Plays and Players, "Alan Howard, whether as the Athenian Duke
or his alter ego, the fairy lord, Oberon, stands at the centre of this production.
And he does so with an unassertive authority richly exploiting the ironical
overtones in the closing scene and its return from Oberon to Theseus in a way
that is particularly gratifying for those who thought him last year's most promising
actor."
Howard
would go on to become one of the most committed company actors in history while
still enjoying remarkable personal successes as Hamlet (1970), Prince Hal and
Henry V (1976), Coriolanus (1978), Richard II and Richard III (1980) and the
Shakespeare pastiche The Hollow Crown (2005) (pictured), as well as non-Shakespearean
roles in plays like in Wild Oats, Good, and Pygmalion. But he
is probably most familar to the general public as the voice of the evil Sauron
in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Paul
Scofield (1922-2008) considered Timon of Athens one of his most fascinating
roles when he played the part in John Schlesinger's 1965 production of the rarely
produced tragedy at Stratford-upon-Avon, taking the assignment after John Gielgud
turned it down. Gielgud regarded the play as "an indifferent version of
Lear," which Scofield had played in a legendary production for the
RSC in 1962. Some critics felt that Scofield's Timon had a passion and power
that his Lear lacked, and his powerful performance caused many to reconsider
what was previously regarded as an impenetrable and pessimistic play (actor
Robert Speaight thought that "the excess of his misanthropy was a measure
of his growth"), winning Scofield the Plays and Players London Theatre
Critics Award. The London Times wrote "His way of handling verse
often suggests a man struggling to lift a heavy weight, or being carried along
by it momentum; and this part gives stupendous exercise to his technique."
And Bernard Levin of the Daily Mail opined "Not since the famous
Olivier-Brook Titus Andronicus has a long underrated play revealed such
unexpected depths."
Emma
Thompson's Shakespearean phase came during her seven-year marriage to actor/director
Kenneth Branagh, when he cast her as Princess Katherine in his film of Henry
V and as Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream and (in an appallingly
self-indulgent and ineffective performance) as a hunchbacked Fool in King
Lear. Her one great Shakespearean triumph was her dazzling and gorgeous
Beatrice in her then-husband's film of Much Ado About Nothing. Featuring
only a serviceable performance by Branagh as Benedick and laughably inadequate
ones by Michael Keaton as Dogberry and Keanu Reeves as Don John, Thompson is
the radiant star of the film, providing an insightful and clever performance
that never fails to charm. The New York Times said of her Beatrice "Ms.
Thompson is enchanting. Looking gloriously tanned and windblown, wearing the
kinds of gauzy slip-ons that today would be for apres-swim in Majorca, she moves
through the film like an especially desirable, unstoppable life force. Her submission
to Benedick is as moving as his submission to her."
Henry
Irving had already established himself as the Hamlet of his generation when
he invited Ellen Terry (1849-1928) to be his leading lady at the Lyceum
Theatre and play Ophelia in a London revival of the staging, which Irving was
then trying out in Birmingham."When
he engaged me to play Ophelia in 1878," wrote Terry with characteristic
modesty in her memoirs, "he asked me to go down to Birmingham to see the
play, and that night I saw what I shall always consider the perfection
of acting. It had been wonderful in 1874. In 1878 it was far more wonderful.
It has been said that when he had the 'advantage' of my Ophelia, his Hamlet
'improved.' I don't think so. He was always quite independent of the people
with whom he acted." Audiences disagreed, for though Irving's 1874 Hamlet
ran an unprecedented 200 nights, critics were unanimous in the opinion that
the addition of Terry to the cast transformed the production into the definitive
staging of the play. John Knight wrote that she was "picturesque, tender,
and womanly throughout." She continued playing Ophelia for ten years, beginning
a love affair with London audiences that has never been approached by any other
actress. George Bernard Shaw wrote "Ellen Terry is the most beautiful name
in the world; it rings like a chime through the last quarter of the nineteenth
century,"
In preparation for Ophelia,
Terry "went to the madhouse to study wits astray. I was disheartened at
first. There was no beauty, no nature, no pity in most of the lunatics. Strange
as it may sound, they were too theatrical to teach me anything. Then,
just as I was going away, I noticed a young girl gazing at the wall. I went
between her and the wall to see her face. It was quite vacant, but the body
expressed that she was waiting, waiting. Suddenly she threw up her hands and
sped across the room like a swallow. I never forgot it. She was very thin, very
pathetic, very young, and the movement was as poignant as it was beautiful."
Terry was able to bring that poignancy to her historic Ophelia and virtually
every other role she played.
Mark
Rylance is one of the most accomplished Shakespearean actors
of the period encompassing the last quarter of the 20th century and the
first quarter of the 21st. He rose to prominance in the title tole in
Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988 and played Romeo
and an Olivier Award-winning Benedick (as well as playing Ferdinand in
Prospero's Books, the muddled film of The Tempest which
proved to be John Gielgud's final Shakespearean performance) before finding
true renown as the artistic director of London's Old Globe Theatre in
1995. In the ten years that he filled that post in the lavish recreation
of Shakespeare's theatre erected closely to where the original first stood,
Rylance was responsible for a number of memorable Shakespearean revivals
and played many of the leading roles himself.
His
greatest achievement at the Globe was an all-male staging of Twelfth
Night in which Rylance played Olivia. The production itself was somewhat
overrated; a pleasing, if conventional, depiction of Shakespeare's play
which was acclaimed for the gimmick of having male actors in the female
roles. Critics praised the staging for recreating the convention of Shakespeare's
era in which the enitre cast was male, although in the Bard's time the
female parts were played by boys and not middle-aged men. The acting was
a mixed bag; the usually wonderful Stephen Fry lacked menace as an uninspired
Malvolio, but the performances were for the most part remarkably effective
and Rylance was astonishing as Olivia, bringing to the role a depth of
feeling and comedic inventiveness that had never been drawn from the part
before. The production had many exquisite touches but only when Rylance
was onstage could the audience completely forget that they were seeing
a play about relatable human beings and not a curiosity of cross-gender
casting. Rylance was nominated for an Olivier Award for his Olivia and
when the production was brought to Broadway in 2012, he won the Tony Award
for Best Supporting Actor in a Play. The staging received universal raves
in New York (which ran in repertory with an all-male Richard III with
Rylance in the title role), especially for Ryland's Olivia. Charles Spencer
in The Telegraph wrote that "As the grieving Olivia, even the way
he moves make you laugh. He seems to glide across the stage as if on castors,
at times executing what looks like a nifty three-point turn. It is wonderful
to see this sad but also absurd figure waking to the wonder of love, entirely
unaware that the youth he falls for is actually a woman in disguise, a
deception given added piquancy in this 'original practices' production
by the fact that, as in Richard III, all the female characters
are played, superbly, by men." Ben Brantley in the New York Times
said simply that Rylance’s Olivia was "the best I’ve
ever seen."
Rylance and Derek Jacobi inspired
controversy in 2007 when they unveiled a Declaration of Reasonable Doubt
on the authorship of Shakespeare's work. It was an Internet petition signed
by over 3,000 people which named twenty prominent figures from the 19th
and 20th centuries whom the coalition claimed were doubters, including
Mark Twain, John Gielgud and Charlie Chaplin. The theory that someone
other than Shakespeare wrote the plays has been around for centuries and
has been derided by the overwhelming majority of academics as having no
support in serious scolarship. But it made for a fun headline and was
well in keeping with Rylance's reputation as a master showman.