Penelope Wilton on Isabella (Shakespeare on Stage)

Penelope Wilton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780012094
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

In each volume of the Shakespeare on Stage series, a leading actor takes us behind the scenes, recreating in detail a memorable performance in one of Shakespeare's major roles. They discuss their character, working through the play scene by scene, with refreshing candour and in forensic detail. The result is a masterclass on playing the role, invaluable for other actors and directors, as well as students of Shakespeare – and fascinating for audiences of the play.

In this volume, Penelope Wilton discusses playing Isabella in Jonathan Miller's 'chamber' production of Measure for Measure.

This interview, together with the others in the series (with actors such as Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart), is also available in the collection Shakespeare on Stage: Thirteen Leading Actors on Thirteen Key Roles by Julian Curry, with a foreword by Trevor Nunn.

'absorbing and original... Curry's actors are often thinking and talking as that other professional performer, Shakespeare himself, might have done' TLS

Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s so-called ‘problem plays’. It was written in the early 1600s, between Hamlet and King Lear, when he was at the height of his powers. In the 1623 First Folio it was labelled a comedy. However, it ends with two weddings which are enforced rather than romantic, and a marriage proposal that receives no response – hardly the stuff of conventional comedy. ‘Enigmatic masterpiece’ might be nearer the mark.

Isabella tells Angelo ‘O, it is excellent / To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant’ [2.2]. The use and abuse of power is a central theme. Other issues raised are the extent to which mercy should temper justice, and the validity of different relationships between men and women. To what degree is the Duke a benevolent deus ex machina, and to what degree a ruler by the seat of his pants, who moves from one hastily improvised solution to the next? Is Angelo really nothing but a villainous hypocrite, or is he basically a virtuous man whose newly aroused sexuality propels him out of control? And in Isabella, what separates saintly compassion from rigid and frigid morality? Measure for Measure asks many more questions than it provides answers to, and resists neat categorisation.

I must declare a strong personal interest, having played Angelo in this production. Jonathan Miller updated it to 1930s Vienna. It was originally put on in 1973 during the National Theatre’s tenancy at the Old Vic, shortly before the company moved to the South Bank. The show was revived two years later at Greenwich, with some of the original cast and some newcomers, including Penelope Wilton.

It was small-scale, intimate, ‘chamber Shakespeare’. There was very little that was either fast or loud. People, for the most part, simply spoke to each other. Jonathan Miller directed with the delicacy and precision of a watchmaker. Some of his suggestions bypassed theatricality. For example, when Claudio was told that death is certain [3.1], he turned away and yawned. As a physiological response to terror, it was piercingly accurate. In the final scene [5.1], after Angelo’s unmasking, I stood in front of the Duke. Jonathan suggested I should remove a barely perceptible piece of fluff from the Duke’s robe, as I confessed. I thought it was a daft idea. But in performance people found it inspired. Don’t ask why, I’ve no idea!

Not long before this interview I’d played Penelope’s simple-minded brother in an RSC revival of Middleton’s Women Beware Women at the Swan Theatre. Besides being wittily and sexily evil, she brought a rigorous intelligence to her performance, and it was this quality that contributed to making her Isabella so remarkable. In my opinion, Angelo finds her attractive not only sexually but also cerebrally. We met and talked one fine morning in 2006, in her light and airy flat in west London.

Julian Curry: I’ve put together a collage of your reviews. They were terrific, by the way. It’s in two halves, here’s Part One. The critics were fascinated by how unattractive and dowdy you were. They described you as ‘tight-lipped and determined, gauche and sex-frightened’. They referred to ‘primness’, ‘religious mania’, ‘glacial self-righteousness’ and ‘pur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Production Information
• Penelope Wilton on Isabella
• Other Interviews Available
• About the Author
• Copyright Information