Renaissance Man
Plays & Players, July 1987
by Alex Renton
**thanks to Virginia Leong
Renaissance is a new company
with a mission. Kenneth Branagh, its young founder, talks to
Alex Renton about what he hopes it will achieve
Kenneth Branagh took a break
from writing replies to the "dozens and dozens" of
CVs he is receiving daily from work-hungry actors, and we discussed
what the Renaissance Theatre Company might mean to the world
in a year's time. Branagh, co-founder of this new actor's company
admitted: "For me, Renaissance will be about actors being
able to break rules."
Branagh perhaps breaks a rule
by launching Renaissance this month (Jul 9) with his own play,
Public Enemy, at the Lyric Hammersmith. But the arrogance,
or perhaps the dangers of putting himself on the prow as Renaissance
takes to the water were not an issue in mid-May, when we spoke.
Then the company was merely one typewriter in a small room in
his Camberwell flat (a virgin year-planner adorning one wall),
some promises from some of Britain's leading thinking actors,
and a press release replete with glorious good intentions.
At a starry West End launch the
bill of fare for Renaissance's first year read a little rich,
rather like a glossy hotel menu promising "International
Cuisine". Public Enemy -- the title has little to
do with Cagney, but the play seems likely to examine the Belfast
of Branagh's upbringing -- is the entrée. It will be followed
by a programme of new work, "Renaissance Nights", organised
by Branagh's co-director, David Parfitt. Then there's a two-hour
solo gallop through Napoleon Bonaparte's life. John Sessions
writing and performing. Main course will be Branagh's production
of Twelfth Night, and the savoury three Shakespeare's
directed by Judi Dench, Geraldine McEwan and Derek Jacobi. Branagh
will achieve his ambition of playing Hamlet (a job he says he
would return to Stratford for) under Jacobi's eye. This last
was not announced at the launch: that, Branagh admitted, would
be overkill.
It is a disparate programme,
and one that can't help but inspire some cynicism. But the variegated
nature of Renaissance has its advantages -- the company won't
live or die on the strength of one production or one ethic; ultimately,
says David Parfitt, "I'd like people to see Renaissance
shows because they know that whatever they get, they'll get it
well-done". Renaissance stands, we were told, for "the
rebirth of the actor" -- perhaps it also has the qualities
of Renaissance Man; it will be the polymath of companies.
As diverse as Renaissance's programme
is Branagh's career. Now 26, he hit the headlines at 23 in Adrian
Noble's RSC Henry V, an earthy interpretation of the warrior
King that had critics generally in agreement in calling it the
most exciting Stratford début for years. An "embryonic
matinée idol", said one and such phrases encouraged
comparison with the early Laurence Olivier. Branagh's move into
the role of actor-manager ("something of a dirty word"),
has reawakened ideas of a link with Olivier, but he agrees that
they are only significant for the discrepancies. Olivier was
a matinée idol long before he was a classical actor, and
indeed after he had failed to make a mark on Hollywood. Branagh
is an actor-manager far earlier than Olivier was, and before
he has made a lasting mark as a classical actor. One Hollywood
film, the recently-released comedy thriller High Season;
the title role in Graham Reid's Billy Belfast television
series; a BBC Ghosts with his future employee Judi Dench
and Romeo in his own Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Hammersmith
last year: this is the sum of his significant experience. He
has just completed nine months work on the BBC's Olivia Manning
adaptation, The Fortunes of War; much of the proceeds
of that project are now funding Renaissance. But has he not made
the leap into the business of showbiz ten years too early?
"After Fortunes of War
it seemed like the right time to take a risk, really. If I think
in purely selfish, careerist terms, this could be a year when
I take some sort of step back, or sideways. But I don't think
in those terms. I do get frightened. I wake up sweating about
what's the right thing to do. There's lot of analysis of young
actors -- I'm down as serious young classical actor at the moment,
so I'm supposed to go in a particular way. But that kind of thing
shouldn't affect you."
"I don't have a body of
work and I see this next year as a chance to get that experience.
It will provide me and, I hope, lots of other people, with a
chance to do that in a way that isn't currently available; under
our own terms, in the right environment. I do want to go through
the classical roles." Couldn't you do that at the RSC or
the NT?
It's a popular question. "The
simple fact is that I left the RSC when my contract ended, and
they haven't asked me to go back. The National Theatre haven't
asked me to go there. Terry Hands asked me at the beginning of
1985 when I would like to go back, and I said 'Well, actually,
Terry, I want to form a company.' We talked about doing it within
the framework of the RSC, but it didn't come to pass. Anyway
'how can we give a company to a 25 year old who's done one season
at Stratford?'. I quite understand that."
At the Lyric Hammersmith last
year, Branagh directed himself in a sparse, text-oriented Romeo
and Juliet that got considerable acclaim, and Renaissance
on the road. "We'd demystified the administrative side,
and a clutch of projects came up that we felt we wanted to do.
At the Lyric I learnt what a director and designer can do when
they are working well together; an understanding I never had
when I was just an actor. I learnt a very great deal. I realised
what is possible. And writing, directing, administrating are
natural extensions of the core of my ambition, acting."
Actors, he says, are valuable participants in these processes
-- "though that doesn't mean directing by committee."
Branagh is in writer and actor
mode for the first production. Public Enemy will be directed
by a friend of his RADA days, Malcolm McKay, who directed him
there in the final term Hamlet. McKay is author of TV
plays and Airbase, a story of life inside the British
USAF self-directed at the Arts in 1985. Geoff Rose is the designer,
a role Branagh hopes he will take again for Renaissance. No blandishments
can persuade Branagh to give any clues about the nature of this,
his second publicly produced play. Nerves, and a desire to retain
the surprise element, mean that he will release no press billing
of the play -- it will open unannounced at the Lyric. "That
might make your evening in the theatre more interesting,"
he smiles. He is concerned about the "Who does he think
he is" factor, and promoting his own play on top of everything
else, will, he reckons, exacerbate that. "It's just a new
play -- If it flops I'll be a wreck, but I'll get up. Rehearsals
for The Life of Napoleon start four days after we open."
He takes the lead in Public
Enemy, but won't appear in Twelfth Night, which boasts
a Malvolio from Richard Briers. This treat is due for the Riverside
in November, in a production "in which the design will be
important", a surprise, perhaps, for those who have numbered
Branagh, with Kick Theatre's Deborah Warner, among a new breed
of Shakespearean directors for whom design is not a first priority.
If Renaissance needs an identity,
it may find it in February next year when Judi Dench opens the
season of name actor-directed Shakespeares in Birmingham Rep's
studio with Much Ado. This, the sexiest publicity proposition
on the ticket, came about, Branagh says, "because I knew
that generation of actors to be dying to direct. For an actor
it will be very exciting for the sense of direct contact with
their doing those roles. The principle aim is not to turn them
into instant directors, in the conventional sense, but to share
their experience in controlled conditions." The actors chose
the plays themselves: Geraldine McEwan takes on As You Like
It "partly because Rosalind is one of the few parts
she has never done". One company will be used for all three
plays, and they will tour after July. Actors in the company will
be given an opportunity to put on their own work during the season,
and Branagh hopes to have some funds for "at least token"
commissioning.
The financing of Renaissance
is traditional; it is no actors' co-op. If things don't work
out Branagh and Parfitt face the annihilation of their bank accounts.
They are sanguine about this prospect: "you don't do what
we're doing to make money." Angels and co-production deals
have got this year's work on the road, and they hope for some
sponsorship for the Birmingham Rep season. Although Branagh initially
stated that the company wouldn't approach the Arts Council "until
we've proved ourselves", the Arts Council has now, historically,
approached them for discussions about funding the Birmingham
season's tour. But if Renaissance survives this year, they hope
it will survive many more; David Parfitt is considering going
into direction and administration permanently.
Branagh can take the flop, if
it happens. "After a year, I'll only be 27. I might go to
Australia for three years, come back and be an actor again. I'd
be much more popular because I'd have all this 'Oh, the young
God of theatre, got too big for his boots, had a terrible fall,
but makes his comeback!' A Rocky story -- great publicity."
Parfitt and Branagh laugh, and
you get a sense of boys who have gleefully built their own toybox.
But there's a whiff of young crusaders, too; of Prince Hals.
They are wary of this: "There isn't really a crusading element
in what we do except in relation to ourselves; we're determined
to find out whether the sort of work we do and the way we do
it is the right way; or just a little vacuum of ego". But
there's dragon slaying in mind. Branagh says, "I laughed
when I thought 'it's a bit like a Thirties war picture' -- we
have a very British idea about how this should be done. It's
not just what we achieve, but the way in which we do it. Nothing
twee or precious, but things need to be done justly, and honourably."
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