When Rosie read the part of King John it was electrifying
You’re setting the production in the 1950/60s. What led you to that decision?
We’re not setting the play in one specific era, but there are massive influences from the mid-20th Century, as well as medieval influences that become more prominent in the second half of the show.
The mid-20th century clicked with me quite early on in the process of thinking about the play. It’s perceived as an era of optimism – we had left World War Two and rationing behind; some of our cities were starting to be rebuilt; we were redefining ourselves proudly in terms of our pop culture and pop music. But it was also a period of massive unrest and conflict. It was the height of the Cold War. And it was the beginning of people – particularly comedians – really satirising the status quo, and questioning a hierarchy that had always been taken for granted.
One of the first things that piqued my interest about the play is that the natural hierarchy you’d expect in a history play doesn’t really exist. The King is rarely the loudest person on stage. It’s a bit of a free-for-all; everyone is scrabbling for attention; everyone wants their voice to be heard. It felt more like a family around a dinner table, than grand monarchs sparring over the future of their countries. It was the dynamic of this family and their conflict that really appealed to me. I was never interested in the notion of court – for me, the appeal of this story is that all these powerful characters appear as very real, very flawed and complex human beings. They leap off the page.
Can you tell us something about how the production will look, and anything that has inspired that look?
There’s a massive tapestry in the show, that at first glance looks medieval but when you look closer it’s got a lot of modern influences in it, including the kind of psychedelia you’d expect in a Grayson Perry piece. The costumes are very mid-20th century – very Mad Men or The Crown, but the medieval creeps in more and more in the second half of the production.
The idea is that the medieval world of the play never entirely goes away, in the same way that the architecture and the traditions embedded in with the Royal Family or in Westminster today are still present, even though there’s a modern world sitting on top of it.
King John is one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays. What is it about the play that made you want to direct it?
The fact that it’s lesser known really appealed. I grew up watching and reading a lot of Shakespeare and I’m fairly familiar with quite large chunks of the canon, but I’ve never seen King John. I was surprised by how much of it was familiar when I first read it – the language has crept into our bloodstreams somehow, even though most of us aren’t familiar with the text.
I mostly direct new plays, so the chance to work on a Shakespeare that most of the audience won’t know is really exciting – it’ll feel like a real discovery for most of the audience.
My first reaction to the play was I couldn’t quite believe how funny it is. I think that there’s a reputation with King John that it’s some kind of austere, quite dry, courtly drama – and it’s not. It’s incredibly satirical, and then it becomes incredibly emotional and disturbing and disruptive. And it really challenges the audience, it really provokes them to think about the world they are living in, and what they want that world to be.
It’s probably not Shakespeare’s most perfect play in terms of structure, but I feel like it’s one of his most personal, one of his most political. He feels very present in it. We’re having a lot of fun making it – it’s exciting.
You’ve cast Rosie Sheehy in the title role. Can you tell us more about that decision?
I came into the casting process with a very open mind. I was interested in posing the question of what it’d be like if we had a female actor playing John or any other of the usually male roles. I also wanted to keep an open approach in a host of other ways – I was keen that everyone should be from a different place, that we had room for a lot of different voices in the company. There isn’t any uniformity in terms of training, or dialect or experience. It’s one of the joys of working at the RSC: the job requires that you think in terms of a company, rather than just individual actors.
I knew Rosie from a workshop we did last year on a different play, and I had such a great time working with her. When she read the part of King John, it just connected for me – she was electrifying, and it was so exciting to be able to offer that kind of opportunity to someone who is very talented but wouldn’t normally be able take on that role. She’s really grabbed the show with both hands, and it just works – one of the actors told me the other day that he couldn’t imagine that role in any other way than how Rosie is playing it.
I didn’t enter into the production looking to make a statement about gender – it was one of those great opportunities where I found an actor I really wanted for the part. It was the same with Katherine Pearce, who is playing Pandulph, a character who is traditionally played by an older male actor – and here we have this brilliant young Mancunian flinging herself into the role and discovering so much in the part that wouldn’t have been explored with another actor in that part.
Eleanor Rhode talks to
Post Life about directing Shakespeare’s King John, casting a woman in the title role and having one half of Goldfrapp writing the music
Will Gregory, well known as part of Goldfrapp, is writing the music. How did that come about?
Will’s name came up very early in conversation. I’m a big Goldfrapp fan, and Will has created a large repertoire that criss-crosses pop, opera and theatre. We both connected on the show quite quickly – he seemed to really understand the tone of what I was trying to achieve in terms of a confluence of genres and time periods. He really understands mid-20th century musical language, but he also has classical training. It’s very easy to talk to him about music, which isn’t always a given – he understands what’s needed in a scene to tell the story. It’s really exciting to be bringing modern instruments into the show, particularly synthesizers – it’s going to sound great.
The production is playing in the Swan Theatre. In what ways do you think that space will contribute to the production?
It’s a lovely space. The audience is right there in the thick of it. When you’re in the audience you feel really connected to everything happening on stage – you wrap around the action like a big hug.
King John runs in the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, between September 19 and March 21.