Pic from The Globe and Mail
Stratford Festival of Canada, Fall 2002: Tom McCamus
Reveling in Richard: An Interview with Tom McCamus
In 1963, the Stratford Festival made its debut with a production of Richard III, with Alec Guinness as Richard. Now, in a 50th-season production of the same play at the Avon Theatre, Tom McCamus plays the title role in his own unique style. Education Co-ordinator Tricia Cuthbertson spoke with him recently about his experience playing one of history's most infamous monarchs.
What made you decide to play the role of Richard III for the 50th season?
You simply don't get many opportunities to play an amazing role like this. When I was growing up in London...I think it was in Grade 7 or 8 -- I came with a student group to see Alan Bates perform the role. I don't remember very much of it because I was quite young, but I do remember some parts. When you see it performed, and hear about it, you know that it must be an amazing role to play. But it is not until you start working on it that you realize how great it really is. Because it's so theatrical, it's fantastic for an actor to play. There's quite a freedom with playing him, even more so than with Hamlet, for example. Hamlet is so tortured, it's not as fun. I just have a great time playing Richard.
What specifically makes it such a great role for an actor? Can you relate to Richard? Or do you just like to play the bad guy?
It's not so much about relating. He's a pretty psychotic, evil man; I am not! But sometimes when you play evil characters, it is easier to stand outside yourself and create a character that is truly not you, which is for me part of the joy of acting; just to become entirely different. When you are playing a character like Hamlet, you end up looking more within yourself to relate to his internal conflict and torture, which is, for me, not as freeing as playing evil guys. Playing a villain is like wearing a mask, and you can do whatever you want behind it, which has nothing to do with your personal self. It is fun playing the bad guy. I particularly like playing Richard as the bad guy because he revels in his own vile nature.
Shakespeare found English history to be a great source for drama. Do you feel it is important to understand and appreciate the history of England to play Shakespeare's interpretation of it? For example, did you study the Wars of the Roses?
Not study, exactly; but yes, you really do have to understand the history. Because I went and saw the Henry VI plays, now I have an actual image of the things Richard talks about. Richard III is the end of the whole history saga, where the story refers back to all the other histories, not just the Henry plays. The play represents a culmination, and you do have to understand what is being talked about and what the relationships are. You also need to understand how people of the period would deal with conflict. We are watching it now in the 21st century, but politics was much rougher back then, often involving chopping off someone's head.
Throughout the history plays you are presented with battle after battle, war after war, old kings dethroned and new kings crowned. It is from all this history that Richard begins this play, when he says, "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." He is saying that history is past and the world will start fresh. However, all he has realized about life up to that point is conflict, and I think that is in part where his ambition develops from. It is not just because he is evil. It is also because he is trying to get back to that world that he was living in, because as he says, he can't be a lover and can't be a genteel kind of person in this new world.
I can see that it would be important to understand the history of a character when you approach a role. What about the discrepancy between the historical Richard III and the character in Shakespere's text?
In actual history, Richard was a really good king. That isn't necessarily the way that Shakespeare portrays him, but one could play the character any number of ways, as long as the choices follow naturally from Shakespeare's text. That is the beauty of Shakespeare. The more I read about the actual man, the more I learned that he was smart and a brilliant tactician. There might be a way to hint at that more and then show the injustice of how people actually treated him; make him a more sympathetic character. You can play him as incredibly deceitful, some people play up the deformity as a disgusting, lumbering hunchback, and some hardly play the deformity at all. Everybody has their own idea of how he should be played. I play up the humour, for example, which is a choice many might disagree with. Who knows what Shakespere intended? I play him in a way that makes sense to me from my understanding of the script as I read it.
Whatever place you start from, it all follows from there and falls into place. Just the fact that you are playing the part is going to make it different; when you are true to your own instincts, it will be unique to you. That is why people love to do Shakespeare so much; he provides a basic framework, which is the text, but the framework allows much freedom within.
How did the choice come to you to play the humour of the character?
It is in the text. I read the play, and it makes me laugh all the time. It is not something you have to force on it; it is there. Also, the character Richard is talking directly to the audience. There is a character in medieval morality plays called Vice, who talks to the audience with a sense of humour, and that type of character is whom Richard III is modelled on. There are different ways you can play the humour; you can be more intense and over-dramatize the evil, but I play it more like he is a buffoon, which means that he is not taken seriously and can more easily manipulate without being detected. And, quite simply, it is also a lot of fun.
At the beginning of the play, there is a definite sense of liking the character despite oneself. Familiar with the plot, the audience knows where the play goes. However, one can't help appreciating at the same time how he deceives and manipulates people, making it appear so simple. But as the play develops, he starts appearing more vile and even more pathetic.
Through humour, the character becomes more likeable, though he is evil. It is a part of his charm. As an actor, this allows me somewhere to go with the character. It is interesting for the audience to experience a change in attitude about the character as he develops through the play. They may be amused by him in the beginning, but later they realize how evil he really is, then eventually grow to hate him and consequently celebrate his demise.
While considering how to develop the character, do you also consider his starting point? That is, what is your though-line into the character? How do you begin to deconstruct his character to understand his motives?
At the beginning of the process you do form an idea of the character that makes sense to you and consider the kind of thing that would have happened to him. With understanding Richard, it helps to consider what his life must have been like growing up and the way he must have been treated as a result of his deformity. At the beginning of the play, it is one of the first things he talks about. So this guy is crippled and was perhaps the butt of everyone's jokes when he was growing up, and especially when he was young. All the people that he was around, including his older brothers, would have dismissed him. Maybe he had some fascination with a woman and she dismissed him too. Nobody would ever take him seriously at all; that is part of why he is successful at what he does, and becomes a king; nobody would suspect him because he is seen as kind of a fool. The women are better at understanding that he is more dangerous than he appears.
In terms of your understanding of the character, why does Richard want to be king?
It has to do with power. Why does anyone want to achieve those things? Why would you want to be Prime Minister, or President of the United States? People do. I think it always has something to do with wanting to be in control and making the world run the way you want it to run. Imagine that threat you give as a kid when you say, "One day I'll get you all back." So perhaps he wants to "to get back at" everybody who was nasty to him, and as king put them on a lower level than himself. And that would have been something he decided a long time ago.
It is so much a part of his personality now that he doesn't even have to think about it; he just does it. His desire to rule must come from his fear, and his bravado and ambition help him to rise above the pain that is deeply buried. Just like a serial killer, he does not have a lot of emotions about who he kills, other than at the very end during the nightmare speech when his conscience comes back on him. But before that he doesn't have to deal with his conscience because it is so far from the surface.
When he does become king, what happens to his character then?
Becoming king does not erase all of that history. Once he finally reaches his goal and has the power, all of his fear and angst have a chance to rise to the surface. He never really becomes satisfied. He then wants to be higher, and he starts talking about God and starts comparing himself with deity. He says, "The Heavens hear these tell-tale women rail on the lords anointed." And so he is always trying to get higher and higher becuase, being king, he still can never be rid of the feeling that made him want to be king in the first place.
What about his character makes him so good at manipulating people to get what he wants?
He'll say whatever he needs to turn a situation around to his favour. He has a quick mind and brilliant wit. Pathological liars are like that; they are fantastic at thinking on the spot and weaving information to create and support the lie. And that takes a huge amount of energy to do, and I think that he is that kind of person. So, you don't really know who he is. I don't think you can really know what he actually thinks or believes, because he doesn't consciously know either. The closest we get to him is when he talks to the audience and basically just explains his intentions. But nothing comes from the heart, again, with the exception of the nightmare speech where he finally has a battle of conscience; he thinks he shouldn't be afraid but nonetheless is trying to figure out why he is, which shows an awful lot of denial.
We become increasingly aware of his buried pain and fear as the play progresses. Does Richard have a turning point when he begins to fall apart? Or are there a number of significant moments when we are given insight into Richard's underlying emotional issues?
He becomes more disturbed from the time he received the crown. The coronation scene is significant. I play a moment when Richard trips as he is walking to the throne. When he sits down, at first he is excited and he likes it, and then it changes really quickly as he suddenly realizes that he got what he wanted and it is not what he expected. This is a turning point after which he becomes more and more vulgar, more and more desperate and evil.
Also in the fight scene, when he falls on his back and all of a sudden he is aware that all of these people are around looking at him and he is afraid that they are laughting at him. He talks to the audience all the way through the play as if they are his pals, and then at that moment he thinks the audience is laughing at him too, and so suddenly becomes paranoid. Although he got what he wanted with the crown and the power, it is in that moment he realizes that nothing has really changed.
Having come to understand the character's psychology, you must make specific choices about your actual performance and play them out. For example, you are right-handed, but play the deformity on your right-hand side, so consequently must do all the swordplay with your left hand. Is that dangerous?
Yes, a bit of a mistake! A long time ago, I played a character with cerebral palsy on his right side and decided to use the same mannerism for Richard's deformity, with a slight twitch. Many people who play Richard have to have surgery afterwards because they play his deformity in a way their body is not used to. To avoid that, I thought that I would do an echo of what I had done before and use a bit of my body memory. This choice meant that Richard would be left-handed, which I though that would be appropriate symbolism for the evil character. However, it is difficult to do and was difficult to learn. Considering that I play Richard as a kind of awkward guy who trips and falls, it is a surprise that he can be as good a fighter as he is. He still uses his right hand by tying a knife to it. He is unpredictable, and it is the unpredictability of him that allows him to survive.
You mention physical memory. Is there ever any concern that your body will hold on to that mannerism? You play in this position for five to six months; does it start to work its way into your natural mannerism?
I don't think so. You drop it, because you do the show only four times a week. It's harder in rehearsal, when you are working for eight hours every day. During this performance run, I am more afraid that I am going to forget the mannerism entirely in the middle of the performance! Some people are concerned about taking the character home with you, but I am not a Method actor. Though I was sitting in the park the other day thinking that, playing two evil guys in one season, I might be experiencing some frustration and evil stuff deep, deep down!
I would like to go back to the beginning of the play. It is a wonderful effect for the audience to see the image of Richard sitting in the tree and hear those famous first lines coming intensely from out of nowhere.
Martha [Henry] is a fantastic director, because she doesn't tell you, "This is how it is going to be done." Instead, she takes all the bits that the whole cast comes up with and blends it all into something wonderful. Well, my idea was to be up in the tree at the start of the play. The design concept, includng the tree, is to symbolize that Richard is gnarled and close to nature, and I thought that was great. And so he starts in the tree and ends in the tree being hung. The challenge this choice creates is that it is difficult to be heard from that far upstage, and I would have to scream. That could have been a choice, and we played with that at the beginning of rehearsals, but Martha thought that it should have an intimate feeling. And so the audience does not see him or hear him speak naturally until he says, "But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks...." It is always tricky using a microphone, because it sets a particular sound and tone. But I think it is done delicately and is something that you wouldn't expect.
© Stratford Festival.ca
The Non-MX Interviews Index
Return to The Mutant X Warehouse