All the world’s a stage
23 Oct 2017
John Bell introduced Shakespeare to a generation. Now he’s preparing for a new role – and a new stage.
The philosopher Kierkegaard once famously said that a 16-year-old actress should never play Juliet; that even though the tragic Shakespearean character is a teenager, the part requires an emotional maturity only found in someone much older. For veteran Australian actor John Bell, performing Shakespeare has only gotten better with age.
“If you play Hamlet every 10 years you’re going to get better and better,” he says. “When you are young you play him with a lot of rage and impatience. When you get older you play him with more understanding and ambivalence.
“Even though Hamlet is a young person, he knew about life. You need to know about life to understand what he’s going through.”
Bell doesn’t profess to be an expert on life. But with a career spanning more than five decades, he certainly knows a lot about Shakespeare. Bell even founded his own company, Bell Shakespeare, in 1990 to share his love of the great playwright with a new generation of Australian thespians and theatregoers.
A new role
Bell is back in Sydney after a month holidaying in Italy and the south of France, and is about to begin rehearsals for the new Sydney Theatre Company production of The Father.
“It’s a French play,” Bell says. “A tragic farce. It’s got some comedy to it, but it’s basically a tragic story. It’s about old age and the loss of memory and identity.
“Most plays about old age or mental illness are shown from the outside. This is shown from the inside. That’s the big difference and what makes it such a great story.”
Bell plays the titular ageing father; a man named Andre who is struggling to come to terms with the growing chasm between his own reality and that of the world around him. So how does the play tackle ageing and, perhaps more importantly, society’s fear of getting older?
“Andre runs a big gamut of emotions,” Bell says. “He goes from being funny to seductive to cantankerous to furious – and totally puzzled and confused.
“I think the audience will have great sympathy for Andre, especially if they have older parents, they’ll know what it’s like and also how funny it can be when people get totally muddled. When he slips up it can be quite funny. But of course it’s also quite sad.”
The Father gained widespread critical acclaim when it premiered in the UK in 2014, and has enjoyed successful runs on the West End and Broadway. As with many things in Bell’s life, Shakespeare is never far away.
The play’s central father-daughter relationship and theme of madness have drawn comparisons to King Lear. Bell says the similarities are deliberate, but don’t necessarily go much deeper.
“Andre is unaware,” Bell says. “King Lear is a very tortured character and suffers great pain. Andre doesn’t really do that. He’s often confused and surprised, but he doesn’t understand what’s happening. That’s about as deep as it goes.”
Following Shakespeare
Bell has made a career of playing some of Shakespeare’s most tragic figures, including King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Richard III. So what’s more fun to play – a king like Hamlet, or a fool like Andre?
“It’s more satisfactory to play a great, tragic role like King Lear or Macbeth,” Bell says. “You feel more of a sense of achievement. But it’s more fun playing the comic characters.”
Bell famously stepped down as artistic director of Bell Shakespeare in 2015. In his time with the company, he acted in and directed some of Shakespeare’s most well known plays.
“I’ve done most of the roles three or four times, which has been a great privilege,” Bell says. “But I’d been doing it for 25 years, and I thought that was long enough. It was time to give somebody else a go – a younger person.
I had turned 75 that year. It was also my 50th wedding anniversary. So those things coincided and it seemed an auspicious time to dip out.”
Still, it’s never easy to say goodbye. Bell refuses to name a favourite among Shakespeare’s plays, but there is one character he’s particularly fond of playing.
“Richard III is the character I most enjoy,” Bell says. “Because he is complicit with the audience. He can get away with all the evil deeds because he is so charming and amazing and ingratiating. It’s like watching a gangster movie – in the end you know he’s going to get the chop, but you enjoy the experience while you’re having it.”
Bell says the tragic plays are often more fun to rehearse and prepare for, too.
“You can’t take yourself too seriously. You’ve got to have fun doing it. You can’t be sullen. I’ve played King Lear with [Australian theatre director] Barrie Kosky, and he has a very enjoyable, light-hearted approach. I think that’s a good antidote to being too pompous.”
Winding down
Even though Bell has stepped down from the role that arguably defi ned his career, he is still a long way from retirement.
“Now that I’ve resigned from Bell Shakespeare, a lot of responsibilities are off my shoulders and I’m just enjoying what I’m doing. It’s a time of satisfying my own artistic requirements, but not having to worry about paying the bills.”
Bell recently directed the powerful war drama Tosca at the Sydney Opera House, and has more directing projects in the pipeline for next year.
“When I was younger, I had to be acting all the time. I think when you’re younger you have an anxiety and a need to prove yourself and establish yourself. I don’t have that anymore. I’ve played all the parts I wanted to play desperately.
“I’m less anxious, enjoying life more and enjoying work more without the anxiety or the need to succeed.”
A round of applause
A quick glimpse at the extraordinary life and career of John Bell
1940 - Born near Newcastle, NSW
1962 - Graduated from the University of Sydney
1970 - Founded Nimord Theatre Company
1990 - Founded Bell Shakespear
1997 - Named an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust Australia
2002 - Won a Helpmann award for playing Richard III
2009 - Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia
2010 - Presented with the Sydney Theatre Award for lifetime achievement
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