Brian Wilson - Charlie Rose Interview (11.29.2005)

[Music] from our studios in New York City this is Charlie Rose We Begin this evening's broadcast with a reference to last night's broadcast my interview with Governor Mark Warner of Virginia the governor talked about the difficulty of a decision he had to make about whether to grant clemency to a man sitting on death row about to be executed here is some of what he said you've had a very tough choice coming up one of your last acts as Governor will be the question of clemency and you've got a death penalty case how are you going to handle it how do you approach something like that without asking you how are you going to decide because you wouldn't tell me if I asked what do you do Arnold Schwarzenegger has the same kind of decision as governor of California it is one of the things that make being governor that Governors have to look squarely in the eyes and make hard choices well let me tell you I've had a number of executions since I've been governor and there's no harder call to take than that call when you're called before the execution time to see if you want to intervene have you intervened I have not intervened in any case so far as governor and you're not opposed to the death penalty I believe the death penalty in certain circumstances is appropriate and we have we've carried out that that death penalty as as governor but there is no responsibility to take more serious there's nothing that's been more time reflecting on preying on in many cases um we go through a very extensive process where we review the petitions I've got a team that goes through this and then ultimately it's my decision and my choice and you're right the case said that I'm grappling with right now is one of if not the most problematic because it involves the destruction of DNA evidence prior to the case being finally adjudicated I understand very much people who feel that the death penalty should not be a sanction authorized by any state um I disagree with those folks but I respect I respect their opinion um what you have to do is if you can in a sense accept the death penalty as that ultimate rarely used sanction then my responsibility as Governor is to decide whether the court acted appropriately whether there's other evidence that has come to light or whether there is any extenuating circumstance so this is um my sense overall is we need to do all we can when we have this ultimate sanction as a possibility to make sure that everyone gets their their Fair trial and the ability to if there's exonerating evidence or exonerating circumstances to be able to make that case we turn now to my interview with Brian Wilson a great composer and singer [Music] thank you Brian Wilson is here he is a music legend as you know perhaps best known as a creative force behind the Beach Boys the family vocal group he co-founded for the band he composed arraigned and produced the most beloved and best known albums and tracks in their catalog Pet Sounds is one of the most influential LPS in rock history it is often ranked as the greatest album of all time the Grammy nominated Good Vibrations was the Beach Boys first worldwide million selling number one single is often considered to be the most revolutionary single ever produced as a solo artist Brian Wilson's most successful record is smile to date it has sold nearly one million copies worldwide and for 37 years smile was the most famous unfinished and unreleased album in rock history he has a new Christmas album which is called what I really want for Christmas I am pleased to have him back at this table welcome back hi Charlie how are you how are you doing I'm doing good now what is it about you producing a Christmas album is this something well I'll explain the story behind that my American Executive of Clive Davis oh I know him well called me and said Brian I think you should do a Christmas album yeah and I said fine so he sent over eight Christmas traditionals and I chose two Beach Boys and then I wrote two individuals new Brian Wilson songs one with Bernie Chapman writing the lyrics and the other one Jimmy Woodbridge yeah Bernie tellman who writes for oh yeah he's fantastic yeah yeah and so therefore you were off and running yeah this album yeah yeah and I mean can I read the titles in here sure uh where are they oh here they are the man with all the toys right what's that about just about a guy who has found Santa Claus at his helpers peeked in the window and saw Santa Claus there's helpers in there what I really want for Christmas that's just a uh I can't explain it little Saint Nick Deck the Halls on Christmas Day Joy to the World and Silent nights on here yeah great song Oh Silent Night sleep in Heavenly peace okay that's great sleeping Heavenly peace how about The First Noel okay one more Oh Holy Night Oh Holy Night the stars are brightly shining it is the night of our dear savior's birth yeah very good what does Christmas mean to you Christmas yep it makes me think of Jesus Christ whose Christmas is you know Christmas just because you know celebrate his birthday it should be pronounced Christmas christ that's right but uh no no I thought that uh Christmas was a time to get closer to the family and to be happy it is the great the great thing about Christmas is a to celebrate yeah to celebrate right and to and to be close to family have a chance to say to family come together around the heart right and listen to music that you're hearing all your life right now we have a new contribution to what we can hear right is do you agree that Good Vibrations was the most revolutionary I think so I have to agree with what people when they tell me that um it took us six weeks to record it you know it was done in sections like you know like it was they were like I don't know how many sections six ten whatever sex sections you know we've got one part in one Studio another state we use five different Studios for the same record yeah so we've got a unique unique sound out of it right plus we got some Sales Plus made people happy can't beat that but why was it revolutionary because it was done in a subtler kind of way and it was just brilliantly constructed you know when people say to you Brian Wilson he's a genius yes what do you say I say well Brian Wilson is a genius man Brian am I a genius maybe I am a genius you know maybe so yeah there is a certain certain part of you that is more creative than than most of us well a gift you do yeah what is it is it it is music it is it is do you see it differently you think I mean how do you mean Charlie how do you mean well I mean does music resonate with you did it resonate with you earlier did did the capacity to see the possibilities of how sounds come together I saw in the future a vision of Music in a dream I had one night and I I foresaw the future and it was way way way farther than eight now even you know yeah I heard all kinds of celestial Heavenly sounds you know it just blew my mind yeah I think eventually we're heading for heaven I think so you had are you heading for heaven yeah all of us have a chance yes today what brings you the most Joy today creating music yeah actually creating music singing at the piano you know uh running it taking laps at a park I go to I run I'm trying to get in good shape things like that could you have written More lyrics could I have no just not what you do no I can write lyrics but but the collaborators write Better lyrics and people like Bernie and Jimmy people like they're better than me at that kind of thing yeah are you either you think you're born to do one of the other compose or write lyrics I think I was born to compose music and now and then some lyrics but mostly music yeah mostly music what do you do how do you hear music tell me the process for you I hear music in my in my head I can hear music in my head but I can't hear a whole Arrangement my hand I can hear a Melody you don't like a melody yeah I can hear like I can hear that in my head but if it's like all kinds of voices and instruments I can't can't conceive of it in my head not smart enough I guess I'm smart enough you were smart enough I just don't know how to be Phil Spector but yeah but what would a Phil Spector do what to the music I mean Phil Spector would be somebody who would be able to do you take the music and he would he would mold it like this different instruments and different like voices and you know violins and and he's like an arranger man he's a producer yeah but he molds his records he makes them he makes them he fabricates them it's like it's like a Rolls Royce he he constructs the Rolls-Royce of the music business he's considered the Rolls-Royce of of the music business yeah because he can do all those oh yeah oh he can do anything yeah now who does it for you now who just what what Phil Spector has done you do it for yourself yeah yeah you produce in a sense your own yes I do yeah smile and the success of smile right was that the most satisfying thing for you musically the fact that this thing that you had worked on for so hard and for so many years when it finally came into fruition it was viewed Rolling Stone magazine gave it five stars uh everybody raved about it the criticism was overwhelming well did I haven't told you this yet I'm going to tell you now though we uh premiered it in London in 2004 right and people at the end of the of the concert people stood up and clapped for for almost 10 minutes almost 10 minutes came that's a long-standing Ovation it's a very long standing ovation 10 minutes you have to admit that you know you bring tears to your eyes no not tears is just private joy to me I am so proud Charlie I was so nervous to do that show I was so nervous to do that dog on smile show in London Tonight I almost had to go to the bathroom and do my thing did you but you were confident that you had the thing that you wanted to create right and what you were going to perform that night yes was what you had dreamed of doing it had come together you had confidence in it yet you were still nervous you know I was still nervous is it the greatest thing you've ever done smile yeah oh yeah but by far by far yeah why because it's got a first movement the second movement and a third move it's a three movement rock opera we call it a happy teenage Symphony to God I know you do and but no but that's how that's how we constructed it it was just produced at that level yeah and and more of your Genius is there than any other thing you've done I would say my genius showed a little bit on Somalia it was fun we've talked about this before why did it take so long I mean why are we leaving on the shelf for so long because because I never wanted to finish it I just didn't want to I had no real overwhelming reason why not to do it but I just didn't and no so what made it the right time to do in 2004. uh well my wife and I and my pronunciations got together one day for lunch and they said Brian we think it's time to do smile on in concerts and then recorded it as an album and I said I'm all for it so I called up my man I parked my friend he came over and we created a third movement for it right yeah and then we took it to London like I said before then we took it to the studio and took us a month one month only to do the whole album yeah you were great at live eight too right you were terrific some say you were the star of live eight well I don't know about star live either I really remember it pretty good yeah I mean this was in Glasgow where were you I think it was Berlin you in Berlin yeah but you really that people the praise for you coming out of that oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah what is it magic for you when you perform is it magic yeah the band that plays behind me yeah is Magic yeah all of that you never lose it 18 I I don't see 18 or 19 piece Orchestra total Orchestra right including strings and horns right and I'm telling you Charlie I'm telling you they're the best they are the best that I've ever worked with how about Johnny Cash Johnny Cash I never never liked I never liked him as a musically no I never did Walk the Line no I never liked it Folsom said no I never liked him the music his music I like but his voice kind of bothered me did I be honest with you yeah no I'm it's I'm fascinated by it but what was it that bothered you about it you think because of you I walked a lot it's just he had a strange voice you know whose voice do you love whose voice do I love love oh um my daughters really yeah is she gonna be the same she might sure you wanted to be I want yeah would you like for them your children to be in the music world yeah yeah better introduce him to Clyde Davis very quick right it's great to have you here thank you I know it's great to see you what what's coming up for you beyond this release of this Christmas yeah for me yeah well um more more more trying to write songs for my rock and roll next year I'm going to make it what's the album going to be it's going to be a rock and roll album with with very very very energetic and fast-moving groovy down the pipe rock and roll it's gonna be right down the pipe rock and roll type trip do you do you does it make you sad that the that the Beach Boys uh ended did it make me sad yeah yeah a little bit my brothers died too my brother's died yeah I was a little saddened by it yeah what was the joy of that for you what was it great the joy of breaking up no the joy of being there having the beach boy being part of the Beach Boys oh I was proud as hell I mean I really was proud to be a beach boy I really was they're very good group they were in their time they were probably one of the better groups in the whole business it sure were the um Neil Diamond yeah what's the what's the relationship with Neil Diamond in his new album well I don't really know him I don't have a relationship with him yeah but I made him some background vocals for one of the songs called Delirious love I know I know and we did it on the Jay Leno show I don't know if you saw it I didn't see it but I don't know about it yeah yeah anyway so that's that that was that but what but the point is is that somebody approached him with the idea that you know be great to have you do something for the album and I think he said God that would be wonderful but he'd never do it well I surprised him he called me up and he goes Brian I'm so blown out over those vocals you did he goes they're so Angelic they're Angelic I said thank you uh Neil thank you thank you he thought I was Angelic are you Angelic yeah yeah you are a little bit Angelic yes yes so are you going to do more of that kind of thing I mean other singers you might I wonder if I'm asked yeah only if I'm asked to do it yeah but don't you think you'd be asking people knew that you'd be receptive I think Neil called so that's one you know you like his voice yeah yeah I've always liked Neil Diamond's voice always always liked it what who do you like the other kinds of musicians that you have great admiration for uh in term either as composers okay I'll run it down for you Paul McCartney yeah John Lennon right Bill Specter right Burt Bacharach Motown like that this is Jimmy Webb Jimmy Webb Elton John the Rolling Stones I mean I grew up the Beatles I can go on forever and I said what's interesting about this is the fact that you name the people that have had longevity right these are the people that everybody else would say they'd be high on my list too which says for you with your your creativity and your musicologist your musicologist whatever the right word is right you know musician musicians right puts it together is there anything that you had smile and you live with a smile right anything else that you have lived with wanting to do that you have not yet done like I said my rock and roll album that's it that's that's my big that's my biggie for the year yeah I uh can't tell you enough about it Charlie there's no way Charlie Charlie Charlie I'm telling you it's it's going to happen it's gonna happen we're gonna make it out a rock and roll album and then you'll take it on the road um that's very possible yeah very possible so after all the things that you have been through yeah it worked out okay so far let's put that knock on wood so far it's worked out okay well when the rock and roll album comes out yeah will you come here you know I will Charlie you know I will because I promise I'd let you out of here so you could go meet your dinner party no no we're not We're Not Gonna I was kidding you Bob I thought you had to go to no we're gonna go right now right now all right great to have you here thank you Charlie when the rock and roll album comes out you'll come back here I will come back and we'll listen to it all right Johnny thank you for joining us we'll be right back stay with us [Music] Michael Boyd is here he is the artistic director of the royal Shakespeare company in the United Kingdom in April of 2006 the RSC will host a year-long festival called the complete works it will Mark the first time that all 37 plays song sign into long poems written by William Shakespeare will be performed together I am pleased to welcome Michael Boyd to this table for the first time as I said that you said it I said this is huge you say it's going to be fun really that's the primary fundamental reason we're doing it is to give pleasure we believe that having our national and international knees up for certainly my favorite artist uh is is something that will put a smile on people's faces um even if it's a smile from a distance so people are just glad that it's happening but hopefully obviously more make people come and this has never been done before no as far as we know um it may be that someone will come out of the woodwork and say we've we've done this and that's fine and I'll be very happy about that because certainly the first time we've done anything as ambitious as this when you arrived at the Royal Shakespeare what condition was it I think it had lost some of its confidence uh I think it had lost confidence in its its philosophy it was formed in 5960 on the inspiration of European Ensemble Theater Peter Hall went across and was hugely inspired by what artists were doing who stayed together kind of for a lifetime and dedicated themselves to the art of theater making and he saw that in contrast to the higher and fire of most British and American Theater and he thought he wondered what would it be like if we extend the summer season of Shakespeare repertoire that had been done at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater before and turned it into a real Workshop um that actors are going to commit themselves to for for years for a period of years um so that it becomes a moment in their life that they will never forget and I think that the the Zeitgeist of the 80s and the 90s nibbled away at that idealism agents nibbled away at the actor's idealism in committing themselves to a lifetime project and I think eventually the RSC slightly lost confidence in it um the company was also quite poor we were three million in deficit yeah um I think the morale was a wee bit low and we didn't have a regular arrangement for for performing in London and so why did you come that's the best time to come um when when a an organization is is not firing on all cylinders because that's the only time that an organization as large as the RSC will accept change if it's doing fine it may be headed in the wrong direction but people won't accept change and the name broke don't fix it they say yeah and the RAC wasn't broke but it was it was hurt and it was wounded and morale was low and look at this quote you said the main thing I've done is Bash about with a machete to create a clearing I'm I was feeling the flamboyant um yeah there's some of the old presumptions about the RSC that I felt I had to um I had to clear away like well I I think there was an assumption that you had to constantly be in search of um high-profile artists um uh to do the work the the Royal Shakespeare company is famous for Collective theater making and I I wanted to re-celebrate that so I I had to cut away at some of those assumptions uh actually a wastage was I think what I was talking about there was money yeah um just uh you know we travel steerage now we didn't always travel steerage uh things like that where if we want the freedom to be uh wildly irresponsible artists we have to be terribly responsible budget holders interesting what about Adrian Noble he's uh he was uh he he's the reason I came to Stratford in the first place he hired me from Glasgow where I'd run a theater for 11 years what kind of theater was it I uh as a theater that I founded it was a church in the East End of Glasgow uh very near Glasgow cross where various executions took place it was uh opposite a tattoo artist um and we converted this church and um turned it into a theater first of all it became the most popular bar in town with a theater attached because we didn't have any money and we did we we put theater on through the bar then eventually we began to get government funding and private funding and so on and we ended up after I would say maybe about five years moving in quite creative directions attracting International money we never really became fantastically Rich there um but we did attract a lot of uh Festival funding so a show that maybe was going to go abroad would get money from abroad and that would enable us to do it at home but it proved that you knew how to build a theater yes I think uh I think I'm the first artistic director of the RSC that's run a theater company before the first artistic rib of a runner Theater Company it it it it it was a shock for me running the RSC so it must have been a tremendous shot but for us all right you've done for other people to be suddenly looking after nearly 600 people how long have you loved Shakespeare I I loved him at school yeah I loved him at school um I I I I don't I don't remember going through I do remember a traveling group of players coming to my school when I was probably about 12 and thinking they were really sad um with their tired wee costumes and I thought it was very old-fashioned and boring and nothing to do with anything I think I first started to enjoy it with on a record actually it was Paul Schofield doing King Lear on record and there was part of me was going hold on a mum this is a bit lardy old-fashioned uh but at the same time I was drawn in by the power and the beauty of the words there was a kind of vertiginous quality about the razor by the play um but uh but I think that was the first time the city the the the the the bit with um Edgar and Gloucester on the cliff um where Edgar is describing this this non-existent drop to the beach uh that gloucester's gonna put he's going to pretend that John gloucester's jumping to um the sheer power of that poetry I I felt vertigo have vertigo and that poetry induced it in me as I was just listening to that record so I suppose that would be the moment you were in in Russia and you're in the Soviet Union what brought you to the Soviet Union my um my Russian teacher at school uh where was which was in Edinburgh right um went over to the Soviet Union quite a lot and was saying that there was a very exciting post-revolutionary movement in in Russian Theater which Stalin sat on repressed brutally um and which now was beginning to find all the experiments of that time were beginning to find their way back into the theater very quietly very under the radar but it was happening and it was very very interesting and then at University at Edinburgh University I got very interested in people like Mayer Holt and uh the the kind of Legacy posts stanislavski um the idea of theater as a total thing that it wasn't just about words and performance it was it was emotions writ large on stage with a kind of stage poetry not just an actor saying lines not just character and not just realism that it could move Beyond realism to something that expressed I suppose that which we we can't express in words um a friend of mine is a composer called Craig Armstrong and his first solo album was called the space between us and it's it's that space that's not definable by words um and there's something about what can happen on stage between characters that emotional chemistry expressed physically Larger than Life on stage that really interested me anyway I applied for a British Council Fellowship to go to the Soviet Union they it was very difficult at that time ballerinas were fine violinists were fine anyone who didn't use words a theater director who uses words was was a bit dodgy and it took a while for the ministry of culture to say okay in fact it didn't happen until the uh the Malaya Broner theater came to the Edinburgh Festival yeah and I was interviewing anatoliafros for a magazine that he was asked and I said I'm planning to come to the Soviet Union I'm waiting for my Visa and for the ministry of culture to come through and he said where are you going and I said to The Sovereign and that was the way it got done um that was the way I managed to actually get there um and ever since I suppose that that period raised the ceiling of my ambitions about theater the tremendously strong belief in that country in what I do for a living in our countries um we're a bit ignorant about what a director does he's sort of sits in a chair with director written on the back and and tells bosses people around hires the actors is in in England particularly is quite scholarly figure who interprets the text but the idea of a director as being an artist in their own right is quite alien to our culture um and so it bred that Hubris in me to believe that I could take my art form seriously yeah it also um stopped me ever believing that theater wasn't a popular art form outside every Tube Station every subway station in Moscow um there were little kiosks where people would buy their theater tickets um and every theater show was full times have changed since you know the the fall of Communism however how have they changed [Music] um the theater was the only place as in Shakespeare's time where the truth could get under the radar books you could refuse to publish films you could snip out the bits you didn't want um uh all the recorded media were never going to be the most Lively media theater had its KGB officer in the rehearsal room but you the the KGO poor KGB officer was big was bullied and you could always slip through and Shakespeare had the Lord Chamberlain's man in his rehearsal room and he slipped through the radar um so it it uh it it brought it it gave me a particular I re I was able to see that Shakespeare was writing under censorship yeah having having spent a year but to take me from that idea to theater in London today Stratford wherever in England and fear that you know whatever you know about theater in New York today you know is it serving that kind of role is it a powerful engine um of our culture today I think the theater is waking up to the fact again that in these two liberal democracies um that there is a gap there is a gap not served by necessarily um or other art forms uh not even the novel not um that the act of gathering together and achieving either achieving or failing to achieve a kind of consensus in the same room as a group of people tattling issues and arguing it out on stage in front of you this is quite a powerful forum and I think we are taking our responsibilities politically and socially perhaps a bit more robustly now than than the theater has okay let's take it to a contemporary issue you know the Blair Administration support of the war in Iraq yeah I mean how how do we see that well as of on stage and we are about to take into London a play by um the northern Irish playwright Frank McGinnis a fellow Northern Irishman um who wrote a wonderful play called the Sons of Elsa marched towards the psalm uh which is about the Gunpowder Plot uh the Catholic gun powder plot and which because now is the 400th anniversary of that and it it tilts that story of how the British Parliament was threatened with being exploded and Mass Mayhem and murder and uh looks at what the Protestant government was doing to the Catholic population post-reformation in Shakespeare's time and looks at the The Dilemma faced uh by uh the dissidents of the time by the government of the time and it very clearly speaks for for now in terms of the threat that uh Terror has that Terror has and uh where it comes from and uh recently at the National Theater Nick heitner did a production of Henry V where he he set it very directly in the in the Iraq War um I'm about to do Henry V in a couple of years time I don't know where we'll be by then but it will definitely what's happening in the world will definitely feed into our rehearsal I want to come back to this idea about the appreciation of the director as an artistic person tell me how you see the direction what it is the director does fills that definition I think there's a lot that we do that is interpretative that is therapeutic interpretive of text interpretive text yes um that is therapeutic in terms of trying to do what you do in an interview which is bring up the best in your guests as a director have to bring out the best in my actors I have to make sure that all of them is coming out um there's some moment in amongst all that where I do have the ambition to make something beautiful and Powerful happen on stage and it's not about being a puppeteer um it's about just nudging an actor to think about moving around another actor and realizing that that moment of maintaining the tension between those two people could be as strong as a long shot by Antonio in a film where he moves outside the room around the courtyard back in through the bars and and there's great tension being brought in that that we're capable of of training people to make better work but also we're sculptors actually ourselves that we make sculptures on stage that there is such a thing as spatial stage poetry if you like now you you indulge in that uh at the expense of character or narrative or entertainment and you are not making good work but it's you entertain or you tell stories or you create good characters and you don't try and do that and I think you're the more prosaic for it and you're you're not exploiting your art form to the full that's all I'm saying how often any is it is it most of the time do you hit where you want it to be where the artistic Vision you have plays out in terms of what the audience sees is it most of the time moments moments uh it's not I don't know it's within and within a play I don't have an artistic Vision in advance and then you know carry carry that out it's more like a process of stalking a beast it's trying to it's trying to sniff it in the wind and then Garner the resources of the show um in the service of the stalking of whatever that Beast might be and you might not even know what Beast it is give me what the Beast is the Beast is a sort of is the magic that it's the most Vivid it's the or say with say with uh Hamlet it's what actually it's what did what was Shakespeare after yeah what's the production Shakespeare wanted is is one way of describing the Beast except and you know it's a terrible question to ask yourself because who knows but you've got to do your best guessing in advance you've got to do your scholarship in advance you've got to dig down in the culture of Shakespeare's time you've got to realize that Polonius when he says to thine own self be true and thou accounts not then be forced to any man is talking as Chief hypocrite in the play and that's not to be taken at face value you've got to realize that Hamlet is a very very dangerous man um and then Claudius is also a very dangerous man um and you piece together the the extent to which Shakespeare is writing about the court of his own of his own country you know Denmark is the safety valve put it over in Denmark and nobody will put me in prison um but he's writing about his own times about very very dangerous times where Civil War is constantly threatened and discrimination is Rife and and then you you find the look you find the team of actors and you go in search um and what you're looking for is something dangerous something lyrical something that takes on mortality um you bring everyone's you you bring your your own and hamlets memory of your father to Bear you you bring relationships that that everyone's had to bear on Hamlet's relationship with Ophelia and you go in search and yes there are moments in the theater where yeah I do feel that's absolutely it but but very rarely a whole show do I feel yes good we've done that um I kind of I think that's best left up to other people really the audience ultimately um and I never feel I've done it in rehearsals I always I think Scott says he says he doesn't never finishes the film he's dragged off the set yeah he does and and I think that's that's a I would subscribe to that view I never feel I've the curtains yeah the curtain was opening so I had to be there yeah and you thought you've thought about this a lot I'm sure I mean why Shakespeare why what makes Shakespeare and why was Shakespeare Shakespeare he was as I say he was born into a time of extraordinary uh crisis the passing of the Middle Ages of faith and the birth of a new age of skepticism uh a Mercantile age he was born particularly in England at a time of a a a brutal and very very fast revolution of the sacking of all the Catholic churches the removal of the Virgin Mary the destruction of all images in Stratford we have the church where Shakespeare is buried Holy Trinity um you can still see the scars of that decision to take away all those graven images um and he was himself from a a Catholic background and he he managed to deal with crisis and not get into jail like Thomas Kidd Ben Johnson most of his contemporaries got into terrible trouble Christopher Marlow was assassinated how did Shakespeare survive that's one of the things that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare he survived he and one of the main ways that he both survived and became so good was that unlike say Christopher Marlo or Ben Johnson who couldn't keep the author out of it couldn't keep the editorial out of their plays Shakespeare hid the editorial in dialogue and the truth lies like something out of The Da Vinci Code somewhere in between two characters and the play happens there mysteriously but with Clarity and with great power and his ability to dramatize the split whether it's the split between being a country boy in Stratford or and the court in London whether it's the split between Catholic and Protestant whether it's the split uh as I say between the age of faith and the age of rationalism and mercantilism whether it's the split between the old Anglo-Saxon and the and and the Latin of the language of power he sets them up gets them talking to each other and he never judges either side if there's a judgment because if he did people would know what his editorial was and they could silence him the editorial if it's there is so wrapped up in the nature of his writing that it becomes good art in that it's indivisible from its form whereas a contemporary Van Johnson wrote beautifully but it was an essay Christopher Marlowe wrote stunningly but it was a series of monologues um Eminem and Jay-Z are brilliant highly metrical rhyming relevant passionate writers they're monologues they're not at their their editorials they're not capable in the way that Shakespeare was of creating this it's not a hologram it's something much more profound than that it's something that actually almost approaches the condition of life in between the Opposites of Shakespeare's existence both as a person and as an artist I would say it is that duality in Shakespeare that is the fundamental DNA of his greatness why do you think we've never had anyone come close to approaching him I mean a lot of those factors have been present well when I was in the Soviet Union you would think that maybe there might be someone there who was trying to codify the truth right and and catch it in that special Amber of drama right um but they didn't um the other there were there were other things that that Shakespeare had going for him he also lived on the cusp of an oral culture and a printed culture so even his style his poetry the reason his poetry is like what it is arises out of necessity in the same way the disambiguity arises out of a political necessity if you like um his style arises out of mnemonic it's not a literary culture people a lot of people can't read and it meter is to make it more memorable rhyme is to make it more memorable different meters are to make you conjure up different emotions different ideas different modes different rhyme schemes similarly say different messages um it's as a mnemonic um so the vividness and the muscularity of that language is partly a result of living and once you have print yeah you're in a different world altogether and we you know from that moment on that was forever do you have a sense of what what kind of actors perform Shakespeare best actors with big hearts big hearts big hearts um Shakespeare does terrible things to Rosalind to Hamlet and to King Lear yes um King Lear is is the modern job in a way it's a terrible thing you know but in In some cultures I think we know more about King Lear than we do about job we can talk about suffering through King Lear almost more easily than we can through Shakespeare rather than the Bible yeah it's an it's an odd one um but big hearts yes I think that's all big hearts big mouths to get round that big language Russians and Italians think the English particularly the English English um don't know how to open their mouths and it's Shakespeare knew how to get you opening your mouth um an expressive we're very good at loving the Russians and the Italians for their expansiveness and and Shakespeare was that man um with his verse strong just physically strong because Shakespeare is very demanding um you have to endure yeah bright sharp sharp as needles good Shakespearean actors uh there's a lot of there's a lot of seeming hurdles to jump over and the easier you can jump over them and not be bothered about the fact that his 17th century English as opposed to contemporary English the easier that is the better uh it's easy to say Shakespeare it's very easy to say uh and actors with great Charisma because Shakespeare doesn't there's nobody in a Shakespeare play who who's small who's small in spirit um so you have to measure up to the character and you can't fill those shoes of the character you can't be in a Shakespearean play well no you shouldn't be you shouldn't be and you hope to accomplish by doing this thing that you're going to do in 2006 this Festival I hope we we learn more about Shakespeare there's a there's a very moving and Powerful dialogue between the older Shakespeare and the young Shakespeare The Angry Young Shakespeare and the still angry but maybe a bit wiser older Shakespeare um goes like well it's very interesting there's a very early piece uh Henry VI has a a crazed almost purgatorial Rebel in Jack Cade the one who famously says let's kill all the lawyers yeah um and in the temp and he has a vision of a society where there's no trade where the financial district is is turned into grass where his horse can eat it's almost a sort of a hippie utopian Vision where all the trappings of contemporary Society money goes all the rest of it um and it's seen as quite a frightening Vision in that play in the Tempest towards the very end of Shakespeare's career there's an old courtier who works against the cynical brutal powermongers who arrives on the island of the Tempest and propounds almost word for word the same vision that Jack Cade the frightening revolutionary put forward but this time it's it's presented positively by Shakespeare as a utopian thing and for the audience think about this think about it seriously because it's coming out of the mouth of gonzago the oldest courtier in this very corrupt Court who has not been corrupted and he's saying this as he approaches thoughts of mortality think about it he's saying he's saying and these are two these are two very similar but very different Shakespeare's um there's the Shakespeare who was paid by the government and the Shakespeare who wasn't paid by the government it's interesting to hear them talk to each other um halfway through the history cycle that I'm about to embark on of eight plays talking about the history of England um Shakespeare's Patron Lord strange died mysteriously possibly assassinated and Shakespeare's company who had been quite controversial were hired by the government as opposed to Lord strange was one of the leading dissident aristocrats suddenly they find themselves being taken into the court very flattering good for the bank balance but also quite controlling and seeing how Shakespeare dealt working from inside the system like a Gorbachev or something and working outside the system how how that how they talk to each other that's very and so just personally every time I read a new Shakespeare player or work on a new uh on a new play I learn more about the ones I thought I knew already and I want to invite people in a new one to you in other words to to do to step stage yeah um learning about an older one yeah it teaches me something about working on Hamlet taught me lots about him in summerlin's dream that I may have done a few a few years ago um working on the Tempest as I say taught me quite a lot about the Henry VI plays um and I think through learning about Shakespeare um looking into the mirror that Shakespeare holds up to us in this time the we're in of a kind of post-millennial anxiety about Authority about moral Authority about Spiritual Authority about political Authority uh I hope that painting on this huge canvas holding up this very big mirror to think about over a year to take a long look in that mirror I think I think it's a good time to do that I think it's a I I feel good about making that invitation to people to come and come and join with us on that thank you for coming thank you for having great to have you here Michael Boyd is the artistic director of the royal Shakespeare company uh the complete works Festival that he has just eloquently defined in given reason for being begins in April of 2006 and runs for a year 12 months thank you for joining us see you next time [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Hawthorne Harmony

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Id: lQbJkZ9pu2I

Length: 53min 33sec (3213 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023