Derek Jacobi’s pictures on the Folger Library’s website

Please note that this posts only includes episodes on contemporary actors. There will be a separate post on actors and stagings in the past.

British actors

I have come to think that British stage actors can understand Elizabethan drama as well as any scholar, and, often, convey to the audience what they have gleaned much more clearly.

All the episodes of the Folger’s Shakespeare podcast consisting in interviews to British actors are, therefore, not just a real treat with fantastic anecdotes – can you imagine Laurence Olivier in high heels, aged 65, coming out of a window and walking along the top of a wall? – it’s a complete course on Shakespeare’s work, with fun added.

Here is the list of the actors. It includes some who are not British but have acted mostly on the British stage. It’s more or less in alphabetical order.

I am not going to add the links to episodes on single artists, as all you need to do is write the names in the search box on the Folger’s home page: https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/

Stephen Berkoff, whom I knew as King Olaf in Vikings

Ben Crystal, who specializes in acting with original (i.e. Early Modern English) pronunciation. He is interviewed with his father, the linguist, David Crystal.

Judy Dench

Olivia Hussey, whose interview revolves almost entirely on Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

Eddie Izzard, who is also known for his activism.

Glenda Jackson and Harriet Walker: both interviews touch the choice they made, to move on to male roles in the plays.

Paterson Joseph, who starred in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s first all black Julius Caesar in 2012.

Adrian Lester, who during an American tour showed a young Keith Hamilton Cobb (see below) that a black actor can be an astounding Hamlet.

Phillida LLoyd is interviewed on the All-Female Shakespeare experience. I have just discovered there is a boxed set of the performances, which include Julius Caesar with Harriet Lewis, but I am always wary of filmed drama.

Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi, with two episodes each.

Patrick Page, who is interviewed on his show All the devils are out.

Antony Sher, the South-African actor.

Patrick Stewart – one of the interviews that struck me most: the actor describes his childhood in a working class family in Yorkshire, and his discovery of Shakespeare’s plays as a boy. He recalls how, when he heard his older brother read Hamlet’s soliloquy, he mistook the mortal coil for mortal coal.

From Shakespeare Unlimited

The guest in episode How Shakespeare Changed my life https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/how-shakespeare-changed-my-life-melinda-hall/ is actor/director Melinda Hall, who in her turn had interviewed both British and American actors Ben Kingsley, Liev Schreiber, James Earl Jones and Stacy Keach and several others.

American actors

Actresses on Shakespeare is an interview to the American artists who staged an all female Richard III. By the way, if the people at Folger still use “actress”, so can I. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/actresses-on-shakespeare/

Debra Ann Bird is interviewed on her show Becoming Othello, which she staged after playing the Moor in three different productions.

Keith Hamilton Cobb, another African American actor, is interviewed on his experience as an actor, and the play he wrote about it, American Moor, which is worth reading, by the way.

John and Robin Lithgow are interviewed with Tony Dallas, the director, in https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/antioch-shakespeare-festival/. The episode covers not only their work, but that of Arthur Lithgow and Meredith Dallas, founders of the Antioch Festival. Highly enjoyable.

Latinx voices is an interview to two bilingual American actresses and vocal coaches, Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa.

Michael Patrick Thornton talks about how he used Shakespeare, or more precisely, his iambic pentamenters, to learn to breathe reagularly again and speak fluently after suffering two strokes. He also discusses what it was like to be back in the acting world when one is in a wheelchair.

Finally, Auditioning for Shakespeare is an interview to Laura Wayth, an American drama professor who confesses she has never read any Shakespeare, while she has heard the plays over and over again, and has co-authored a book aimed at American actors on how to get cast in them.

https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/shakespeare-unlimited-episode-39/

That is all for today.

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