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Talking of Shakespeare
 Shakespeare has taken Gareth Armstrong to over thirty countries worldwide as actor, director, and teacher. Most recently he has played the title roles in Richard III and Macbeth as well as his "highly acclaimed" (the Guardian) performance as Shylock in Salisbury Playhouse's The Merchant of Venice. Gareth Armstrong performed in India in October last year. On popular demand and on special invitation from the British Council, Gareth returns to south India. He will present a talk, Hand in Hand to Hell, in Chennai before moving on to Pondicherry and Coimbatore to perform Shylock.
About his talk, Hand in Hand to Hell:
This presentation explores the breadth of Shakespeare's genius in the two remarkable plays - Richard III and Macbeth. The first, a thrilling, audacious historical melodrama, the second, a cathartic sublimely poetic tragedy.
Richard and Macbeth have also been defining roles in the careers of leading actors, and have a rich legacy of triumph and disaster. Regicide, infanticide, sleepless nights and angry ghosts: just some of the things that this awesome duo have in common. They were also first played by the same actor, Shakespeare's leading man, Richard
Burbage.
Combining major speeches and soliloquies from both plays with textual insights, historical speculation and theatrical anecdotage, this lecture/performance illuminates these works from the unique standpoint of the performer.
 Says Gareth: "The plays are striking not only for the growth in Shakespeare's artistry, but for the demands and expectations that these eponymous roles make on their actors. How much was the playwright influenced by the player, and how much were both affected by their twenty years of creative partnership and the expectations of that most important element, their audience? Having inhabited the skins of these mass-murdering ogres, I aim to examine their motives, their personalities and their language in an illustrative and entertaining way, and to reveal why Shakespeare dubbed them both 'hell-hounds'."
About Shylock:
"When I first played Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, I had no idea how much the character would take over my life and how strongly I would come to identify with him and his people. Earlier in the same year, I had played both Richard III and Macbeth, eponymous characters who totally dominate their plays. Shylock is not even the Merchant of the title, he is only in five of the play's twenty scenes and has barely a quarter of the lines given to the evil King Richard. Yet, Shylock turned out to be the most intriguing and most complex part I had ever played. I wrote a play to explore my reactions to this phenomenon and to share with an audience something of what I had learned of the character and his legacy," says Gareth Armstrong.
"In the entire Shakespeare canon there are only two Jewish men: Shylock and his sole ally, another Venetian moneylender called Tubal. I use Tubal as my narrator, and as Shakespeare has chosen to give him only eight lines in The Merchant, he grasps the opportunity to step centrestage and regale the audience with his take on life as a small part player, a Jew, and the friend of one of fiction's most troublesome creations. There is history, drama, and I hope laughter on the journey that Tubal takes," says
Gareth.
Dates and cities for your diary:
In Chennai:
December 8, 6.30 p.m., British Council, 737 Anna Salai, Chennai 2: Talk by Gareth Armstrong - Hand in Hand to Hell.
In Auroville presented by the British Council & Kala Khoj:
December 10, 7.30 p.m., Sree Aurobindo Auditorium, Bharat Nivas,
Auroville.
Shylock performance.
In Coimbatore: presented by the British Council and Association of British Scholars:
December 14, 7.00 p.m., Hotel Residency, Avinashi Road, Coimbatore
18.
RR
Published on 7th
Dec, 2003
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