Rob Clare
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 1 No. 2, November 2009
Interview With Rob Clare
Rob Clare was educated at Oxford University, trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD), London, and worked as an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) before becoming a Staff Director at the National Theatre, working primarily with Sir Peter Hall. Becoming increasingly interested in differing approaches to acting Shakespeare, he returned to Oxford to complete a doctorate in the subject in the 1990s, and has subsequently become an internationally recognized specialist working regularly in India, Ireland, and at The Actors Center in New York. He established the MA Classical Acting course at CSSD, which he also led for its first three years. During the past decade he led annual workshops and master classes, and more recently worked as a freelance specialist verse and text coach in and alongside rehearsals for the RSC’s core company ensemble. This work led to his being sponsored by the RSC for a special Research Fellowship at Warwick University, with a view to developing an accessible and practical guide to the interpretation of Shakespearean verse for actors and directors. He also recently worked in Chicago with Steppenwolf as a specialist verse and text coach for that company’s first Shakespeare production, The Tempest, directed by Tina Landau.
I first saw Rob Clare teaching a Shakespeare class to professional actors at The Actors Center in New York. He had a senior citizen working on Juliet, two women playing Hamlet and Horatio, a very young actor taking on Sir Toby Belch—you get the idea. I was enthralled. To Rob, it was just business as usual. Occasionally, he would say, “Why don’t you try it this way?” And something breathtaking would happen.
Rob, it’s been said for so long that American actors work from the inside out and British actors from the outside in. Is there a comparable way to describe the surface differences in the two countries’ approach to the teaching of acting? What about the more profound differences?
It is indeed an old distinction, but does it any longer hold, I wonder? If indeed it ever really did? The implicit generalization was that British training focused primarily upon technique, whereas American began with the cultivation of inner truth, and the parallel assumption may have been that American actors were more oriented towards maintaining truth under the close-up scrutiny of the camera, whereas the British sought to communicate with conviction to the back of the Stalls and Dress Circle from under a proscenium arch.
You’re giving more credence to the generalization than I would have thought it deserved. Do you think it was basically a difference in priorities? Film over theatre?
Maybe so. But most British training now recognizes that actors will seek to make their living in screen work, as well as or rather than onstage; and with ever-increasing cross-reference between the two countries and their respective traditions, I suspect that the Atlantic gap has significantly narrowed—if indeed it was ever as wide as was assumed. Certainly, for as long as I have been working, there has also been a strong emphasis upon inner truth in British training, alongside a parallel insistence on the importance of mutual awareness and the value of ensemble. Books on acting theory fly to and fro across the Atlantic, just as many actors do, some specifically to be trained; and most actors from either country would recognize that technical assurance and inner truth are not mutually exclusive, but that the former is a basis for enjoying, enabling, communicating and deploying the latter. That’s certainly central to a lot of my work on Shakespeare. And the fact that people like me are invited to work in both countries is testament to what we have in common, as much as to any sense of difference. Earlier this year, I sat in a Steppenwolf rehearsal room when Tracy Letts dropped in to say hi to the company, and (somewhat mischievously, as he had not actually seen any of the rehearsal process) reminded the actors as they approached opening night to “take the air out” of the production by cutting unnecessary pauses, and to remember that the truth was in their scene partner’s eyes. And we all laughed, but who would disagree?
So you don’t feel that there are any major differences?
OK, with all that said, I do think that there may be one major—and yes, to use your earlier word, profound—difference in the attitude of British and American actors to the teaching of acting. And that is, that many American actors continue still to take classes and thus to study their craft once they are working, and even when their careers may be well-established, whereas most British actors do not. I attended an excellent conference hosted by the Actors Alliance in New York a couple of years ago, where actor after actor stood up to introduce themselves before contributing. When they did so, they all listed where they had trained, and who their teachers were or had been. British actors would be more likely to list where they had worked. The majority stop taking classes when they leave drama school, believing that any further development is to be achieved simply by doing the job. And in fact, those who do go to classes usually only do so if they cannot get a job—there is no direct equivalent of the NYC Actors Center in Britain, and the institution that bears the same name over there is frequented by actors who attend for very different reasons. The fact that American actors who are already highly skilled and experienced, and who have no obvious need to study, are nevertheless keen further to refine and develop their skills, and to exchange and receive new ideas, seems to me to be admirable and entirely healthy. And that may be one of the main reasons that I have begun to spend more of my time over here, as I too believe that I can continue to develop, and that there will always be more that I can learn about the craft that I myself teach.
But isn’t all that partly because a much higher percentage of British actors actually get to act, whereas American actors, if they want to keep their chops up, have only the classroom as an arena for work? Or is that a romantic notion of life across the pond?
It may well be that the Brits work more, as you suggest, but I think there’s more to it than that. The distinction is not absolute, of course, and you may be right about the percentages—though in the UK, too, the vast majority are out of work at any given time, and most of those who are lucky enough to be employed are not necessarily doing the kind of work that they would prefer. But actors who have no need to resort to classes just to keep their chops up, actors who are blessed with regular work, seem far more likely to go to classes here, and to continue to train and study, than they are in the UK. There seems here to be a more widespread acceptance of the idea that there may still be much to be gained, and learned, from continuing to test and explore process in class, however successful or experienced you are. I was invited to Chicago because a number of Steppenwolf ensemble members had taken my workshops in NYC, which have also included Oscar and Tony winners. A similar class in London would be unlikely to draw as many actors with Oliviers or BAFTAs, or who work regularly at the Old Vic.
Point taken, though I can’t help but feel your experience with American actors who are eager to continue studying is atypical. Ron Van Lieu said in these pages that there is a feeling in this country that “only losers go back to school.”
And certainly, a lot of British actors would concur with that.
So do you think your experience of American actors may have been colored by the fact that you come here specifically to work on Shakespeare?
I suppose that could be true, yes. Some American actors who might not ordinarily feel that they want or need to go to classes might perhaps decide that they could usefully do so, when it comes to working with Shakespeare.
Is there a quick and easy way to set American actors at ease about Shakespeare, or is it bound to feel like Everest whatever you do?
Speaking as one who climbs mountains as a hobby, there’s no quick or easy way to get up any of them, for anyone! You seek the right advice, equip yourself intelligently, get together with whatever guides or support team you need, consult good maps, exercise as appropriate, and then you begin. It’s a gradual process first of whatever acclimatization is necessary, and then of steadily pushing back your own limits, step by step, until you begin to feel sufficiently confident and strong that you can not only relax and enjoy the view, but can pick out your own route up any given climb. And with regard to this particular mountain, or rather this particular range of mountains, it would be wrong to assume that American actors are at any special disadvantage. The British are by no means all natural Sherpas, or somehow born with iambic crampons already attached, when it comes to tackling the Shakespeare range—not all of which are equivalent to Everest in any case. Shakespeare has his Catskills, too. And there is always more than one way up. And for sure, it can take time, and effort. But even the lower reaches are spectacular, and the view does get better and better as you go on. It’s worth sharing. And that’s what I try to do.
So hop over to REI, find the Pericles section, and get to it? Seriously, there is something scary about Shakespeare, especially for American actors. How do you go about taking that fear away?
Some outlets don’t have a Pericles section since that particular play didn’t make it into the First Folio, so they don’t know what to do with it. But yes, and seriously, that is indeed essentially what I’m saying. Get to it. Look, I don’t want to push the mountaineering parallel too hard, because that too can sound scary—it’s just one that makes particular sense to me personally. But it is a good one. And it’s not rocket science, is it? It’s a physical as well as a mental process, getting Shakespeare into your guts and your muscles as an actor, as well as using your brain. Then familiarity, and gradually acquired experience through practice do lead eventually to increased confidence and authority, and a corresponding diminution of whatever fear or insecurity one might initially have had, along the way.
It sounds hard, though.
For committed actors who want to work at it, and who intelligently focus and calibrate their efforts, the process of getting to that zone of increased confidence is not hard, it’s gradual. Fear and insecurity may be inhibitors, but they are not insurmountable (…climbing again!). And when it comes to Shakespeare, they are not exclusive to Americans, either. Many British actors are also intimidated by the plays—some more so than they would openly admit. We Brits are in fact brought up to be in awe of Shakespeare, actually taught to be so, through having to study selected plays as set texts, and to write admiring and appreciative essays about them, as literature, in our schools. And while this can of course lead to a genuine love of the material, more often than not the experience is merely baffling, or boring, or both. I had a very privileged education, but my own experience of reading and studying Shakespeare at school was stultifying and deadly. We were instructed to revere the plays, almost to enshrine them, and I had no notion then that I might eventually make a living by coming to grips with them as flexible, living material for more dynamic and—yes—human interpretation in the theatre. The wrong kind of reverence can inhibit creativity and exploration, and imaginative interaction, instead of supporting them. And the wrong kind of reverence is what a lot of Shakespeare study produces, on either side of the Atlantic. It can create its own problems, its own unhelpful baggage, when it then comes to bringing the plays to life. So the fact that some American actors may have spent less time reading or studying Shakespeare than their British counterparts might ultimately be to their advantage.
Do you think actors are up for working that hard these days, especially the younger ones?
OK, the danger is that I’m making it all sound deadly serious, as if it’s a puritanical grind—a mission, or an assault course, to be undertaken only by zealots or the super-fit. But it’s not, it’s fun, it’s discovery, invention, light and laughter as much as blood, sweat or tears. Let’s forget climbing mountains. The craft of working on Shakespeare can also be like gradually making for yourself a really good trampoline. Once you’ve put it together, and it’s tight, and you get used to it, you can get up onto it and get really individually creative, and then you can go higher and turn somersaults and do back flips and have way more fun with the texts than you could if you were taking off from the ground. And at the same time, all that technical stuff, all that craft, can be illustrated and understood in terms of what we already know to be effective actors’ process, in developing truth, complexity, real spontaneity, conviction and inner life within an ensemble environment. For the actor, it can’t be about fitting yourself into some preexisting template, or ticking required technical boxes. It has to be about ownership, individual and collective, originality, and bringing the texts to new life, rather than merely trying to live up to them. And Shakespeare was an actor who knew how to write for actors, and how to invite them to make his texts their own.
Tell us a bit about your own training. Anyone inspirational who helped you build your trampoline?
Yes indeed, a long list, though not all of them specifically with regard to Shakespeare. Before I even went to drama school, an English literature teacher called David Wylde who ran the dramatic society at my high school, and then at university a director called Justin Gregson who didn’t make it within the business because of chronic ill health. Those two made me realize that I could be a professional actor. Then when I was in training at Central, in London, a teacher called David Terence, and the actor-director Mark Wing-Davey who now runs the graduate programme at NYU Tisch. My friend the cellist Steven Isserlis, with whom I shared a flat, who showed me what personal discipline meant. Working at the RSC and the National, there were several actors whom I greatly admired and from whom I learned a great deal, watching and working with them – Derek Jacobi, Bob Peck, Sara Kestelman, Michael Bryant, Pete Postlethwaite, and of course Judi Dench. Tony Church, who also ran the Guildhall School, and my great friend Tim Pigott-Smith. A huge and continuing influence is Cis Berry, the foremost among a number of inspiring voice teachers. Among directors, Terry Hands, Ronald Eyre and James Maxwell, another actor-director who was one of the founders of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, which is one of the truly great spaces, and an inspiration in itself. Most recently Michael Boyd, who now directs the RSC, and Tina Landau at Steppenwolf. And of course Sir Peter Hall, whose personal crusade on behalf of verse-speaking first inspired me to dig deeper into the subject for myself, and to begin to develop and refine my own strategies for helping actors to see Shakespeare’s texts, and especially the verse, as an unparalleled series of creative opportunities and invitations, rather than as artistic stricture or instruction.
Do you have a favorite performance? A favorite moment in that performance?
Another list, some of them Shakespeare, often of actors in combination, and many of them from among my first encounters with top class theatre. Nigel Hawthorne and Alison Steadman as Vanya and Sonya, with Ian Holm as Astrov; Bob Peck in Bond’s Lear, and especially on tour in Berlin, five years before the wall came down; Pete Postlethwaite, who was playing an unnamed soldier, watching a tiny insect that he spotted dancing in the light one night at the RSC’s Other Place, during a performance of the same play; Kenneth Cranham and Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker, and especially Cranham’s description of the electric shock treatment; Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera and Joel Grey in Chicago; Derek Jacobi as Cyrano, and particularly in the ‘hate’ tirade; Michael Gambon and Tony Sher as Lear and the Fool; Tom Bell signaling his love to Ian McKellen, just before his death in Bent; Tim Pigott-Smith as Leontes, and his brilliantly individual interpretation of one particularly intractable passage in The Winter’s Tale; Judi Dench as Cleopatra, and at the end of David Edgar’s Entertaining Strangers; Tom Courtenay as Lear at the Royal Exchange, broken-hearted over Cordelia’s body; Katy Stephens playing Queen Margaret to Jonathan Slinger’s Richard III in the recent RSC Histories cycle; Peter Gerety delivering Richard’s first monologue while eating a bunch of grapes, during an Actors Center workshop; Neil Pearson when still a student in his final year at Central, playing Ariel as a fish on the end of a long fishing-line that was also an umbilical cord; Lois Smith and Frank Galati in the recent Steppenwolf Tempest; all three central performances by the inmate actors whom I directed in a short drama called Bullfrog, that was devised, developed, rehearsed then filmed within a working prison, and subsequently broadcast on British television. And everything that my daughter Amy has ever done. Or will do.
You make my mouth water. Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you rather wish I had?
Is there anything I’ve said that you rather wish I hadn’t?
I am grateful for every thoughtful word. Thank you for your time.
It was a pleasure, thank you too.
