{"id":28478,"date":"2008-03-08T13:06:22","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T18:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2008\/03\/08\/28478-sir-ian-mckellen-launching-a-new-book\/"},"modified":"2008-03-08T13:06:22","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T18:06:22","slug":"sir-ian-mckellen-launching-a-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2008\/03\/08\/28478-sir-ian-mckellen-launching-a-new-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Ian McKellen launching a new book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ianmckellen.jpg\"Board member diedye alerted us to this article at “Varsity” about a new book by Sir Ian McKellen and an appearance he’s making at The Octagon this Monday:<\/p>\n

“Sir Ian McKellen is launching a new book about the Marlowe Society, of which he was President whilst reading English at Cambridge in the Sixties. He\u2019s written the foreword, and now he wants to talk. The voice on the other end of the telephone line is eerily familiar, and terribly grand. McKellen is keen to discuss the book: \u201cIt is important for wider readership because of the influence the Marlowe Society has had on the professional theatre world,\u201d he observes \u2013 an influence largely to do with their \u201cshared approach\u201d to the Elizabethan dramatic verse that is their area of interest.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

He identifies this approach as to do with a \u201cclose attention\u201d to, even academic \u201cdissection\u201d of, the way the plays are written. Dramatic verse, he explains, \u201cis to do with how you speak it.\u201d He is sceptical of those \u201cwackier\u201d dons who don\u2019t think Shakespeare should be put on at all; the academics don\u2019t know best: it is only \u201cin performance\u201d that you can \u201canalyse what is dramatic about a play.\u201d He displays a certain weariness with an overly academic approach to Shakespeare: \u201cMy heart used to sink when I was asked questions like \u2018Is Coriolanus a tragedy: discuss.\u2019 It\u2019s about politics, how a society can be organised \u2013 but if it fits to being a \u2018tragedy\u2019, I don\u2019t know, and frankly, I don\u2019t care.\u201d <\/p>\n

Does he read critical material when preparing a role? Less now than before; as an actor in a play, he doesn\u2019t need to understand the whole play, he says; he is, after all, merely \u201ca channel, an interpreter\u201d for one part of it. It is his job to communicate the role \u201cout of my head, through my body, to the audience. It is a process of discovery.\u201d Those at this university that have protested about the nature of the reviewing system can take heart in McKellen\u2019s disparaging opinion: \u201creviews are merely part of the publicity machine…they\u2019re not for actors but to just get people to come to the play.\u201d What is more, he says he has \u201cscarcely ever read a comment that was helpful\u201d; they are mostly \u201cnot very good,\u201d even \u201cnonsensical\u201d. He describes instances when he has written to reviewers to explain or defend points he felt were unjust. Without fail, he says, they have immediately backed down. <\/p>\n

In light of some recent debate here about whether Shakespeare should be put on so often, considering the disproportionate number of male roles as well as the plethora of other writers who remain neglected as a result of this preference, I ask him if he thinks it is right that Shakespeare be thus privileged. \u201cHe is the greatest writer that ever lived,\u201d and indeed, he\u2019s \u201call for\u201d women playing men\u2019s parts; after all, \u201cthere\u2019s no more reason why a woman shouldn\u2019t play Hamlet than an old man.\u201d He rather thinks women should embrace the parts he wrote for them as Shakespeare \u201canalysed the feminine condition better than any woman who\u2019s ever written.\u201d This assertion is a little bewildering, since Sir Ian has surely never experienced the \u2018feminine condition\u2019. He says he only speaks on subjects about which he is \u201cexpert\u201d, namely \u201cacting\u201d and \u201cbeing a gay man\u201d. Not being a woman then. \u201cI do hope Germaine Greer isn\u2019t behind all of this\u2026\u201d I press on. Should theatre be provocative? \u201cWell, I\u2019ve never known theatre not to be provocative. Even a farce like Boeing Boeing challenges our views of stereotypes.\u201d Indeed, for McKellen, this is a \u201cdefinition of what art is\u201d, be it painting, music, or theatre: something that \u201caims to have the mind readjusted\u201d; people go to the theatre, he thinks, \u201choping to lean forward\u201d. In this it differs from film, which often \u201chas no such pretensions\u201d, and performs a different function in that people tend to \u201cgo to the cinema to relax\u201d. Maybe this has something to do with a sense, especially in the younger audience, of alienation from the theatre? \u201cIt\u2019s just the ticket prices\u201d, he observes. In fact, price obstructions aside, theatre \u201cis actually much more available than film\u201d, as the audience is actually \u201cin the presence of the people telling the story.\u201d <\/p>\n

The chance to be in the presence of this particular storyteller presents itself this Monday. He will be reminiscing at The Octagon, St Chad\u2019s, at 8.30pm, and is prepared to \u201canswer any question as long as it is not slanderous or filthy.\u201d It will be a rare opportunity to hear one of Cambridge\u2019s most illustrious theatrical alumni speak at close quarters, and it certainly should not be missed.[Read More<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Board member diedye alerted us to this article at “Varsity” about a new book by Sir Ian McKellen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mckellen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-7pk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}