China Morning Post,
14th January 1988, Helen Wong
Michael Pennington has a distinguished reputation for his work in English theatre and television, but it took a bit part in the hugely grossing ‘Star Wars’ trilogy to start the fan mail pouring in.
He had just played Hamlet with the Royal
Shakespeare Company, recalls the silver-haired actor and co-artistic director
of the English Shakespeare Company, when he was approached to play the nervous
Imperial Army corporal Moff Jerrod, in the final part of the ‘Star Wars’ epic,
‘Return of the Jedi’.
“When you play Hamlet many people ask you serious
questions like ‘What are you going to do next? What is your next great
challenge?. These questions always made me laugh because an actor does what
presents itself at the time – no one takes these decisions really very
consciously.
“It just happened that I was asked to do it after
playing Hamlet so I did it, for fun.
“It was a very small part with Darth Vader, very
short scenes, but I get more fan mail from that – from kids in America in
particular – than for anything that I’ve ever done in the theatre ever.”
There is a touch of amazement in Pennington’s voice
at the reaching power of film. It’s not as though he’s been idle during his
years of acting. His lengthy theatre credits reveal a litany of leading classic
roles from Shakespeare to Chekhov. His television work spans a number of
quality one-off plays, while he has been a member of Britain’s leading national
companies, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Now, he and co-founder Michael Bogdanov jointly run
the two-year-old ESC, one of the few large scale touring companies taking
classical drama to English provincial theatres and overseas.
The 25-member company, in Hong Kong for this year’s
Arts Festival, has embarked on an exhausting two-year-venture – taking
Shakespeare’s War of the Roses cycle to arts festivals around the world. The
complete cycle was last staged 20 years ago in the playwright’s birthplace of
Stratford-upon-Avon.
Under the direction of Bogdanov, this seven play
series challenges the traditional approach to Shakespeare and brings his work
into the 20th century, where costumes transform actors into punks and
paratroopers.
“My opinion now about how to present Shakespeare is
rather different than what it was when I was at the RSC. That experience was
valuable to me, but that was six or seven years ago,” says Pennington, who is
portraying the demanding roles of Richard II, Prince Hal, Henry V, Edmund
Mortimer and Jack Cade for the RSC.
“My thinking has changed a lot since then, and I
think now, as Michael does, that we have to find a way to make Shakespeare more
accessible, especially to younger audiences. That’s involved me in certain
attitudes that are not particularly those of the RSC.
“You have to review your work and change
continuously, the worst thing is to stand still. The business of how to get
Shakespeare across is a lifelong interest, and you’ve got to change your
attitude to it, change your philosophy many times.”
The fascination with Shakespeare is like a drug for
Pennington – “a life-long obsession with remissions”. It started at the age of
11, after seeing a fiery performance of ‘Macbeth’, and by 21, he had seen just
about every Shakespeare play written.
“Like a good junkie I also have an aversion
therapy. There are years and years when I don’t touch Shakespeare at all,
because it’s somewhat oppressive, but the plays are simply the greatest plays
ever written – together with the plays of Chekhov and one or two others.”
Curiously, he doesn’t have any particular theatre
influences. His greatest inspiration is legendary blues singer Billie Holliday,
for her spontaneity and improvisation, but he is quick to name his favourite
screen actors as Robert de Niro and Marlon Brando.
“I saw Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’ recently on
television, and the magnetism and imaginative detail of the performance and the
concentration of thought…it was really extraordinary, a great performance. It
must be 30 years since it was made and it hasn’t dated, his performace is as
powerful now as it was then.”
At 44, there is not much more he wants in terms of
career.
“I’ve played a lot of major Shakespeare roles that
I’ve always wanted to do, I’m running my own company, I’m an actor manager,
I’ve realised certain obvious ambitions.
“The only ambitions I’m left with really are
personal ones – for a long life and contentment, and all those good things.
“In terms of theatre I think it’s a good idea to
throw away ambition, because it only causes you unhappiness. You will always
have some defeats and failures in your career, and if you’re terribly ambitious
you get terribly disappointed.
“At the moment I’m very philosophical about things.
You have to be calm. You can get very upset if you become ambitious or
competitive, very frustrated.
“An actor’s life is a hard one. It’s hard enough to
do the work without worrying about your career very much, and to earn a
living.”
His acting philosophy?
“Just get it right, tell the truth, get it right.
Entertain people.”