Mark Rylance

Synopsis: Television interview with actor and first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Mark Rylance, about his life and career, especially his relationship with Shakespeare and his controversial ideas about Shakespeare’s authorship.

Rylance speaks of how his father helped him appreciate Shakespeare by regarding the plays as stories to be told. He comments on his aversion to director-led Shakespeare during his time at the RSC in the 1980s where actors had little or no interpretative input. On the authorship question Rylance says he is ready to step away having lost faith with Shakespeare academia whose recent responses to the issue [triggered by the release of ANONYMOUS] he finds ‘shameful’ and ‘repressive’. He feels that even Stratfordians would find there are many benefits to be gained from ‘doubting’. He is critical of the critics who he feels made no effort to understand what he was trying to achieve and explore with his all-male casting of plays at the Globe. Finally he reflects on what he might have done had he not become an actor and makes a persuasive case for the opportunities for contemplation and observance to be found in the socially useful job of street cleaning.
Series: Mark Lawson Talks to ...
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Television
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Transmission details: 15 Apr 2012 at 22:35 (Channel: BBC4)
Duration: 60 mins

Production type: Documentary/Educational/News
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: gender representation; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Authorship; All-male casts; Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

General: "After leaving RADA in 1980, Rylance quickly established himself as a classical actor through major roles at the RSC. Frustrated with so called ‘director’s theatre’ which left him feeling as powerless as ‘a waiter’, Rylance left the RSC in 1983 to set up his own actor-led production companies. He was the first artistic director of the Globe, where he worked from 1995 to 2005." (BBC programme information).

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