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Film vs TheatreDateline: 9th May, 1999 "We are basically puppets, walking around, hitting marks, saying lines." So Liam Neeson described actors in film, on the day he announced his decision to give up the silver screen in favour of theatre. The relationship between film (and TV) and theatre people is quite often an uneasy one, and it is a rare bird who can make a success of both. The two disciplines are quite distinct, requiring totally different skills. Many would say that Drama training has gone too far towards satisfying the needs of film, leaving young actors unprepared for, in particular, the great classical roles. Sir John Drummond (see last week's feature) certainly believes this. "They are playing minor roles in The Bill," he told The Stage in an interview, "but they are unable to be kings, queens and emperors on stage. You go to the recent production of Macbeth, and it was sad to see that they cannot embody these roles." There's a letter in last week's Stage in which the writer remarks that many of those performing in classic drama "appear as though they have just walked out of Albert Square (which they probably have)". What that particular writer is bemoaning is the "loss of the classical and heroic tradition", but he may just as well have been lamenting over the lack of stage technique which seems to be characteristic of many actors, and not just the youngest ones. Remember the shock when Alan Rickman, so subtle an actor on screen, proved unable to project and had to be miked up in Antony and Cleopatra? or when it was revealed that Trevor Nunn had had a sound reinforcement system installed and RNT actors were all wearing radio mics? But of course it's not just a matter of the voice, it's the body too. In the intimate setting of a studio theatre it is quite possible to use gesture and body language in a totally naturalistic way, as on film or video-tape, but, once the actor moves into a large auditorium, that naturalism can look like little twitches and tics! Watch a filmed version of a stage play and everything looks over the top and false: watch an actor giving a film performance onstage and you have a flat and inaudible embarrassment. The film actor works in short bursts: a scene is rehearsed, then played - and played again until it is absolutely right. That scene may only be fifteen seconds long and consist of a look, a single movement, a gesture, or just one word. If he needs to move from one place to another, then he has to arrive precisely on his "mark", not a few inches in front or a few inches behind, but exactly. His scenes will almost certainly be shot out of order: if there are two scenes in one location (this is a vast over-simplification, by the way!), then they will be shot at the same time, even though one may be at the beginning of the film and one at the end. He may spend a lot of a shooting day sitting around, waiting for his next scene. If he isn't one of the main characters, he may very well not really know what the whole film is about until he sees the finished version - and then, if his part is a small one, he might find he's been cut out completely! The stage actor, however, is involved in the whole thing from start (the first read-through) to finish (the last performance). If he makes a mistake, then it could be seen by the audience and will most certainly be noticed by his fellow actors. And once a scene is over, it isn't finished: he has to do it five or six nights a week, and possibly a matinee or two as well. If he's on a tour, or the play is in repertory, or has a long run, then he could be repeating it for weeks, months or even, in some admittedly rare cases, years! It is this that many film actors can't stand, or even can't handle. Anthony Hopkins is one who hates "that awful feeling you have before you go onstage, that dull dread in the stomach, just like a deadness in the centre. I feel very trapped in the theatre; I can't bear to repeat things. The second night of a play I think, Oh, God - I did this last night! It's pathetic, going up onstage wanting people to love you. It's the part of my self I like least, that need for audience approval. I don't like audiences gawking at me - 500 pairs of eyes watching me. I like the impersonality of filmmaking." (Vanity Fair (USA), October 1996) Hopkins may hate it, but the buzz that comes from facing an audience is, for some actors, their whole reason for being in theatre. Neeson obviously thinks so. In fact, he doesn't believe that film is an actor's medium at all. "Film is a director's medium," he says. "It has nothing to do with actors." Hopkins would seem to disagree. He hates theatre directors: "Unbelievable Hitlers," he calls them in the same interview. "They especially love to rip into women and destroy them; that's how they get their jollies. It used to make me sick with disgust. I just said, 'Fuck you.' I wouldn't put up with any of that crap from any of them. I've reduced two directors to tears. I go like a wolfhound: 'Don't you ever push me, you son of a bitch! You get angry because I dare to question your direction?' I had enough of being bullied when I was a child, so anyone who tries that on me now is in for it." (Perhaps this explains Felix Barker's 1973 review in the Evening News of Hopkin's performance in Macbeth: "This cocky genial fellow sometimes sweats apprehensively and occasionally bellows, but frequently he gives the impression that he is a Rotarian pork butcher about to tell the stalls a dirty story." I suspect that wasn't the director's interpretation!) There are those who can cross over. We have recently seen a perfect example in Kevin Spacey's performance in the Almeida's production of The Iceman Cometh, but I suspect the reaction to Nicole Kidman's performance in The Blue Room is more typical - a kind of amazement that she can actually do it at all! Articles Indices: |
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