Liberating Shakespeare

Wednesday, 2nd April 2008

Mary Wakefield talks to the RSC’s Michael Boyd and learns how he scared the Establishment

But maybe, coming from such a different background, you were a bit prejudiced? I say (he cut his teeth directing plays in Coventry and Russia). Boyd says, ‘Yes, but most of my prejudices were confirmed! There was a lot of talent in the company, sure, but it did need to be more outward-looking, more internationalist. I was right. Though of course that scared some people.’

Did anybody criticise you? ‘A lot of grand people with large investments in the RSC said it was a ridiculous idea. In fact, they queued up to tell me!’ he says. Did that worry you? ‘Well, obviously, it was hurtful, but did I think I was wrong? No — I pressed on!’

So what are these frightening ideas of Michael Boyd’s? Why were the great and the good in such a panic? First on the list (the first swing of the wrecking ball against Shakespeare’s pedestal) is Boyd’s aversion to the idea of Shakespeare as incomparable. ‘Very early on, I commissioned Laurence Boswell to do a season of Spanish plays, to remind ourselves that, actually, there wasn’t just this extraordinary flowering of genius by Shakespeare,’ he says. ‘There were other things going on in the world at the time, including in the court of our very worst enemy, Spain!’

Then (another swing of the ball) there’s his commitment to commissioning new work: ‘I think 50/50 is a good balance of contemporary work and Shakespeare,’ he says. ‘I know, I know, it’s the Royal Shakespeare Company, but its charter is to develop the dramatic arts generally. It’s my passionate belief that actors want to do both, and the audience want to see both.’

Part of Boyd’s excitement about new work is because of what young writers can learn from Shakespeare. ‘The RSC has a place in the new writing ecology,’ he says. ‘Shakespeare can teach the current generation not to divorce high art from entertainment. Whether it’s his ability to marry the everyday with the metaphysical, and digest large ideas in narrative, or even particular techniques, like the breaking of a banquet or a feast.’