Vanessa releases her ‘inner poodles’ on a night of surprises
An Evening with Vanessa Redgrave/ Vienna 1934 – Munich 1938 Rose Theatre, Kingston
We could do with a word being added to the dictionary, I think: “Vaness” (vb), meaning to talk about one thing, get sidetracked on to another, and then yet another, before needing a reminder as to the ostensible topic for discussion.
On Saturday evening at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, a rare Q&A with Vanessa Redgrave (hosted following the matinée of a new play penned by the actress) turned into an entertaining masterclass in the art of digressing (or, as I’d prefer it, Vanessing). After two hours in confab with the film director Roger Michell (best-known for Notting Hill), the subject had somehow moved on to “energy fields”, by which point my own were feeling rather depleted.
Nothing so undignified as a short, tough question met with a simple, direct answer was allowed to sully proceedings. Those hoping for hot-offthe-press thoughts on Liam Neeson – the husband of her eldest daughter Natasha, who died 10 years ago – or on Albert Finney, with whom she co-starred in the Winston Churchill biopic The Gathering Storm (2002) – were left none the wiser. Those, on the other hand, keen to learn how her singing coach Jani Strasser had urged her to release her “inner poodles” would have been well satisfied.
But, of course, refusing to do the ordinary thing and fit into a neat, take-home box is one very big reason why Redgrave, now 82, is held with particular fondness in many people’s hearts. Nothing entirely expected comes from her performances, or from her mouth when asked to reminisce and reflect. Who knew, for instance, that U2’s Bono was a crucial role model for her, up there with Anne Frank?
Frail of voice, Redgrave looked the picture of glamorous anti-chic: grey trousers, sneakers, a large scarf lending her a hint of Isadora Duncan (whom she played on-screen, affording one of many clips during the chat). Michell noted how much her Leftist political activism has gone hand in hand with her acting career. She’s the queen of the passion project, rather than the star vehicle, and projects don’t come much more passion-filled for her than Vienna 1934 – Munich 1938, the play she had trialled over three prior performances at the Rose.
The aim of the script, so far as it’s easily reducible, is to sketch the horrific rise of fascism, contrasting shaming (UK) governmental failure to halt Hitler with the endeavours of heroic individuals. Chief among its dramatis personae are the poet Stephen Spender, her actor-father Michael Redgrave, the German novelist Thomas Mann and Muriel Gardiner, a wealthy American who helped socialist Jews escape the Nazi menace in Austria.
Any one of the story strands would serve and the script risked becoming a slight spaghetti-tangle. But often sitting to one side, hands clasped, Redgrave watched her three fellow actors (Robert Boulter, Paul Hilton and Daisy Bevan, her granddaughter) with rapt attention. For all the show’s longueurs, such intensity of concentration proved mightily infectious. With revisions, her labour of love could easily have a further life. And for sheer performing stamina on a single day, it was a case of Viva Vanessa.