Listen to the full interview with Andrew Philpot.
In the beginning of William Shakespeare’s Richard III, the titular character opens the story with one of the bard’s most famous soliloquies, which starts with the line “Now is the winter of our discontent.”
Addressing the audience directly, the character goes on to explain his physical infirmity—the real-life Richard III had scoliosis—and how it separates him, even among the most powerful class in England, explained the Pacific Conservatory Theatre’s (PCPA) resident artist Andrew Philpot, who plays Richard III in the conservatory’s upcoming production. The character then states plainly how he feels and his outlook, declaring, “I am determined to prove a villain,” foreshadowing his vicious pursuit of the throne.
This theme and device has lost none of its potency, Philpot explained, comparing it to the storyline of a contemporary television show that puts front and center one man’s Machiavellian quest for power.
“This is an early Shakespeare play, and this was probably the first time he had a character begin a play like this, and continue through the play with the character speaking directly to the audience, telling them what he’s going to do, inviting them in, and saying, ‘What did you think of that?’” Philpot said. “So, the allusion to House of Cards is apt.
“And I’ve been watching House of Cards quite a bit—I’m completely up to date—and it’s everything I can do to not do Richard with a Southern accent,” he laughed. “You had to know that Kevin Spacey was using a bit of that to create that character of Frank Underwood, I mean Kevin Spacey has played Richard III, and that checking in which he does so intimately in that show, hopefully we can have that kind of intimacy in the [PCPA] show. But that’s where it comes from, Richard III, I have no doubt.”
Philpot has been with PCPA for more than a decade now as a resident artist—the teaching actors who make up the core of each production’s cast. He teaches different classes to the conservatory students, but one in particular is a course on Shakespeare and his works.
The bard’s work is old, but not aged, Philpot explained. This has to do with the clarity of Shakespeare’s language, somewhat removed, but not different from our own. This precision works as a guiding force when interpreting the work, Philpot said.
“People say, and I guess it’s true, that the longer you work on Shakespeare, you realize he’s easier than other forms of theater, other writers, because he kind of does the work for you,” he said. “But before you get to that point there’s a bunch of homework to be done. But in his writing there is a lot of direction, he’s sort of directing you with the text.”
The task handed to whoever plays Richard III is huge, as the character lies, cheats, and backstabs his way to the throne. Richard often plays different characters himself, wooing women and swaying statesmen, all with gleaming-eyed asides to the audience.
Philpot said that he has found Richard’s moments of seduction and deception among the other players as less challenging than the villain’s soliloquies, which lay the character bare in all his unwholesomeness.
“If you think too much, if you prepare too much, you’re going to be missing the boat, because with the Shakespeare it is think, feel, and speak all at the same time,” he said. “People compare it to when that character breaks out in song in a musical. Well, that moment that the Shakespearean character begins a soliloquy is very akin to that, because it’s kind of about, ‘I’m no longer holding anything back, it’s all just an outpouring.’ Well, how do you get yourself to that feeling of just outpouring? Maybe that’s the hard part for us.”
For someone who has performed Shakespeare across their career, like Philpot, it’s a thrilling challenge and adventure, from the moments of cloak-and-dagger subtlety to the visceral explosions of life and death.
The raw energy of the rehearsals escalates proportionally to the approach of opening night. It begins to crackle when all of the elements come together, Philpot explained, and the actors begin to inhabit the characters’ world during rehearsal.
“Sometimes you don’t get these things for a long time in rehearsal and then you get to what we call tech, when all the technical elements get put in, you get put on to the stage, you get put into the costume, you have the lights put on you, and it isn’t until then that all the things start dropping in,” he said. “I get a lot out of costume—and I know some actors do too—but I just have to feel what he’s wearing, or put on the shoes and it’s suddenly there.
“And I’m playing with quite a twist in my spine, and a shorter leg than the other leg,” he added. “To live with that for more than two hours, it gets inside of you in a funny way.”
That’s when the centuries-old verses cease to be just words on a dusty page, but rather a direct communication that addresses the world as it is now. That’s where Shakespeare actually lives, Philpot said, outside the classroom and on the stage.
“I know it reaches you on a visceral level, it’s meant to be spoken, it’s meant to be out in the air in a full voice most of the time,” he said. “I can read Shakespeare in bed and fall asleep like that, I’m not immune, but when you actually hear this stuff, that’s where it’s alive, that’s where it’s making you tingle a little bit. And the images can frighten you and entice you, and excite you, but I think more so when it’s spoken aloud.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne will give his kingdom for a horse. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2016.
