On October 16th, Gregory Doran, the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of Richard II gave a talk on the play. An audio recording of the talk has now been uploaded to the RSC's Soundcloud.
Greg Doran spoke about his working relationship with the production's star David Tennant, and what the actor brings to the production.
“I knew what a skilled technician he was," he said. "I’d seen him in this [the RSC] company playing both Touchstone in As You Like It and Romeo, and I thought if you can play Touchstone and get the laughs and play Romeo you’ve got a Hamlet in there somewhere. But partly…it’s impossible for David to be anything other than contemporary, and yet he has astonishing facility with the language. He can breathe it as if it’s not 400 years old, and I think he makes the plays shiver into life. He has great versatility. What I loved about his Hamlet was in a way the key line was for us when Hamlet says, “I have of late, and yet I know not why, lost all my mirth,” which must mean that at one point Hamlet had a sense of humour and wasn’t always congenitally the gloomy Dane. That’s a great skill to be able to find the variety within the line.”
Greg also confirms that the recorded version of the play will be released on DVD.
Listen to the full recording of the talk here:
David Tennant stars in the title role in the production finished its run last night at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It transfers to the Barbican in London from 9th December till 25th January 2014. The run is currently sold out, but a limited number of tickets will be made available on the day of each performance directly from the Barbican Box Office. Otherwise phone 020 7638 8891 for returns.
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