This book started as a series of interviews between actor/director Brendan O'Hea and Dame Judi Dench, about the many Shakespeare parts Dench has played. O'Hea's plan was to donate the tapes to the archives department at Shakespeare's Globe.
Brendan O'Hea and Dame Judi Dench
O'Hea's chats with Dench were so entertaining that he decided to condense them into a book. I had access to both the written book and the audiobook (which is delightful)!
Dame Judi Dench, born in 1934, is considered one of Britain's greatest actresses. Dench's talent and versatility led to appearances on stage, in films, and on television, but she's most revered for her roles in Shakespeare's plays.
Dame Judi Dench
The plays discussed, and Judi's roles, are: Macbeth (Lady Macbeth); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania, Hermia, First Fairy); Twelfth Night (Viola, Maria); The Merchant of Venice (Portia); Hamlet (Ophelia, Gertrude); Coriolanus (Volumnia); As You Like It (Phebe); Measure For Measure (Isabella); Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice); King Lear (Regan, Cordelia, Goneril); The Comedy of Errors (Adriana); Richard II (Queen Isabel); Antony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra); Cymbeline (Imogen); All's Well That Ends Well (Countess of Roussillon); Henry V (Katherine, Hostess); The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Quickly, Anne Page); Richard III (Duchess of York); The Winter's Tale (Hermione, Perdita, Paulina, Time); and Romeo and Juliet (Juliet). Quite a resume!!
Judi Dench (as Volumnia) and Kenneth Branagh (as Coriolanus) in Shakespeare's Coriolanus
Judi Dench (as Cleopatra) and Anthony Hopkins (as Mark Antony) in Shakespeare's Cleopatra
Judi Dench (as Mistress Quickly) in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor
Interspersed with discussions about specific plays are miscellaneous chapters, including: Stratford-Upon-Avon; Play; Company; Fireside Ramblings; Rose Theatre; Failure; Rehearsal; Critics; Shakespeare's Language; Audience; Changing Times; Future of Shakespeare; and Advice. In addition the audiobook concludes with a fun 'off the cuff' talk between O'Hea and Dench.
Dame Judi Dench chatting with Brendan O'Hea
Though I've seen some Shakespeare productions, I'll admit I looked up synopses of the plays being discussed, to familiarize myself with the plots and characters. Thus the book was a twofer for me - Judi Dench's memoir and a bit of a primer on Shakespeare.
Prompted by O'Hea, Dench discusses the plays' plots, language, staging, costumes, cast, directors, relevance, mishaps, and more, and Judi is knowledgeable, fun, introspective, philosophical, practical, honest....all kinds of good things.
Dench also gives us a glimpse of her personal life, with anecdotes about her parents; her husband Michael (Mikey) Williams, her daughter Finty, and people she's met and worked with during her long career.
I'll give examples of the chitchat, to provide a feel for the book.
Macbeth
Speaking about Lady Macbeth, Dench opines: "Macbeth needs a push, and with the help of the spirits his wife is the one to do it. She is the spur that pricks him on....She's not interested [in being the Queen]....She does it for him....towards what she believes to be his due."
Judi Dench (as Lady Macbeth) and Ian McKellan (as Macbeth) in Shakespeare's Macbeth
On a light note, thinking about doing the play in Africa, and acting outside in the heat, Judi recalls, "I remember seeing vultures sitting in the trees and I said to the actors, 'For God's sake, twitch when you're dead, they're waiting to eat us."
Stratford-Upon-Avon
Asked about Stratford-Upon-Avon, Dench observes, "In all the memories I have, that's where my heart is. It's where I feel centered. So much of what Shakespeare talks about in his plays can be referenced to the countryside around Stratford....We (Judi and her husband Michael) lived there for ten years and Fint (Judi's daughter Finty) grew up there. And Michael is buried in the grounds of the little church."
Stratford-Upon-Avon
Judi Dench, her husband Michael, and their daughter Finty
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Thinking about the play, Dench says, "Titania and Oberon are so randy. They're at it like knives. You never see that in productions, do you? All the fairies should be humping each other throughout." LOL
Judi Dench (as Titania) in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Company
Dench loves being in a production company. Speaking about the Old Vic, Judi says, "It was thrilling being able to have a walk-on part in one production, play a character in another, understudy in something else. I loved being a cog in this great big community."
Judi Dench (as Ophelia) and John Neville (as Hamlet) in Shakespeare's Hamlet (at the Old Vic)
The Royal Shakespeare Company
Much Ado About Nothing
Talking about the Bard, Dench observes "There's something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all there in his plays: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, [jealousy, love] everything."
For instance, in Much Ado About Nothing, the character Beatrice doesn't want to get married. Dench observes, "She's down on her knees every night praying it'll never happen. Who needs a man? Who wants to be accountable to a 'clod of wayward marl'? After the passion of the wooing and the solemnity of the wedding, it's all downhill. She has such a bleak view of matrimony."
Judi Dench (as Beatrice) and John Barton (as Benedick) in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing
King Lear
Dench has been in King Lear three times, at the Old Vic, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and on the radio. She remembers, "John Gielgud was Lear in the radio version and we were recording it to celebrate his ninetieth birthday." When asked if Gielgud was good as King Lear, Judi says, "I've no idea. With radio, you only ever tend to record your own scenes....and I never heard the full production when it was aired. But I adored him so much, he could have played Bo Peep and I would have thought it was superlative."
John Gielgud (as King Lear) in Shakespeare's King Lear
Judi Dench (as Regan) in Shakespeare's King Lear
The Comedy of Errors
A scene in this play reminds Dench of an incident in her own life. She observes, "[My husband] Mikey and I had some friends over for lunch at our house. He took a few of them down the pub for a drink, while the rest of us stayed home and cooked. I told Mikey to be back by two and when they didn't turn up on time we locked the doors and started eating. They did eventually appear....and we took absolutely no notice. They had to get a ladder and climb in through the bedroom window."
Judi Dench and her husband Michael Williams
Critics
Talking about critics, Dench notes, "Caryl Brahms never liked anything I did. She was vitriolic, and clearly allergic to me....[she] always had the knife in me - never once gave me a good notice."
Caryl Brahms
Judi goes on, "In the early days I used to read every word of my reviews, but I don't have any truck with them any more....If you read something negative, you start worrying and get self-conscious...And a positive review can bring its own problems....The audience comes with very high expectations and you're under pressure to live up to them."
Richard III
In Richard III, Dench plays Richard's mother, the Duchess of York. Asked how she got the part, Judi says, "I was at the Hay Festival being interviewed by Richard Eyre. Ben Cumberbatch was sitting in the front row and when it came to the audience asking questions, he put up his hand and said, 'Will you play my mother in Richard III?' And I said, 'Oh yeah, I expect so.'....so the way to get me to do something is to shout it out in front of a big crowd!"
Judi Dench being interviewed by Richard Eyre
Benedict Cumberbatch (as Richard III) and Judi Dench (as the Duchess of York) in Shakespeare's Richard III
In the play, Richard murders his way to the throne, and Dench (as his mother) demonstrates her horror in the following speech:
O ill-dispersing wind of misery.
O my accursed womb, the bed of death.
A cockatrice hast though hatched to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
Dench observes, "You don't half tell a story in that speech. It's four lines of enormous information - and extreme alarm."
Judi Dench (as the Duchess of York) in Shakespeare's Richard III
Future of Shakespeare
Dench believes Shakespeare will always be relevant. She says "Shakespeare's words will continue to exist because he's part of our everyday language. How often do we unwittingly quote him?" 'As good luck would have it; what's done is done; fair play; eaten me out of house and home', and more.
Judi hopes people will still be performing Shakespeare's plays in fifty years. She says, "What we need are teachers, directors, and actors to ignite the pilot light....Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon for humanity, and a bridge across cultures."
Congolese Macbeth
Chinese production of King Lear
*****
I learned a good bit about Shakespeare's plays, as well as Judi Dench's career, from this book. You don't need to be a Shakespeare expert, or even a Shakespeare fan to enjoy the narrative because O'Hea and Dench are interesting and fun in and of themselves. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley, Brendan O'Hea, Judi Dench, and St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio for copies of the book.
Rating: 4.5 stars
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