And a Word from Richard III’s Ann Noble

1. What can a female actor bring in playing a major male role better than a male actor?

I don’t think that there’s anything “better” that a female actor can bring to this role than a male actor would. Every actor will bring something utterly unique to any major Shakespearean role; that’s part of the beauty of these roles, they are so massive and demand so much, that we get to encounter the fullness of every actor’s humanity as we attempt to tackle them. But, I will say, there is an “otherness” that I bring, as a woman, in this specific case. When I’m with only the male actors in scenes, I’m not really “one of them”. And, also, when I’m only with the female actors in scenes, I’m not one of them either. So, I’m always an “outcast”, which I think is part of who Richard is, so it’s a wonderful (and quite uncomfortable) feeling to be living in, and I just sort of “allow” that to seep into my performance.

2. How would you like the audience to respond, and how did you prepare for this role?

I hope the audience will enjoy the ride. This play is almost all action, it moves and it churns and it never let’s go… And, because of that, it has this capacity to “capture” the audience. We take them on quite a journey, and, more than hoping for a particular response from the audience, I hope they come along with us. This play is very funny, and it’s also heartbreaking, and it also pierces through into our current moment, which can be quite frightening, but that’s what theatre is supposed to be.

It’s supposed to grab and hold and allow us to experience something in the dark with a whole bunch of other people, to remind us of what it means to be alive, both the awful and the wonderful. My preparation was the same as it always is: get memorized, do research, ask questions, build deep backstories, and get as clear as I can on who this person is, and understand the world they inhabit the best I can…and then, walk into rehearsal with an open mind.

Acting is both a fully solitary and a fully communal enterprise, and one must be able to dance between the two at all times. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Studying Shakespeare since I was in college, so, in a way, this part feels like a culmination of a life’s work.

3. Richard murders a lot of people before he becomes king. Do you think the audience will cheer him on or give him the side eye that says, “stay 50 feet back.”

I’m sure everyone will have a different experience of Richard as the play begins, but the people that Richard “killed” before the play were adversaries in a time of war…we have different rules for that. We don’t call it “murder” in wartime. So, I think it will be interesting to hear what people think and feel at the start, because part of the drama of this play is that the war is over…and what does a master strategist do when it’s peace time? Someone who is not invited to parties and celebrations, who is not able to fit into the world when it’s not at war? Well…come and see.

4. How do you see Richard, as a victim of circumstance or an all-round power-hungry bastard?

Can’t he be both? My job is to build a real person, and to “be” him. To say yes to all the things he does and thinks and believes. I don’t judge him. So I build the past for him, all the things that have happened to him that could have created his way of being, his way of thinking, and his philosophy that allows him to act the way he does. He has had unspeakable tragedy in his life.

And, as we know, hurt people hurt people. That’s no excuse, that’s just the truth. We all think certain things will “save us” or right the wrongs that have been done to us. Now, most of us will not go to the lengths that Richard does…or, if the right circumstances presented themselves…would we? I think Richard calls us to look at those parts of ourselves that we would rather not acknowledge. Richard allows us to point the finger at someone else, but, somehow, also see that it might, ever so slightly, be pointing back at us.

5. What projects do you have coming up, and do you have a website?

I am directing an all-female staged reading of Othello with Unsex Me Here Players in April, then I will be on the stage at Antaeus Theatre in May & June with their production of Antigone. Then, I am directing, writing and performing in a number of shows at the Hollywood Fringe Festival with Theatre Ghosts. I am on Facebook and Instagram, theatreghosts.org and antaeus.org