In Spite of Myself

by Christopher Plummer

  BACK IN THOSE prosperous days, I was living at the Connaught in London. I was going through my “single period” again—a bachelor between ladies. Having finished a boozy Saturday lunch all alone in the Grill Room with coffee and several Poire Williams and musing on my wasteful life (a rare sixties guilt rush), I suddenly decided to intrude upon Larry in his dressing room after the Othello matinée. Hoping to wear off lunch, I staggered down to the Old Vic on foot—an ambitiously long trek indeed—and arrived miraculously on time. The curtain had just come down. I went to the stage door and was announced. A dresser was busy removing Larry’s black makeup, an ordeal that seemed to take forever. “You weren’t out front today, I hope,” Larry screeched. “Oh myyy Gawd! They booed me, dear! They booed me! They think I’m a fucking racist pig, darling, a racist pig!” When Larry was in an exuberant mood, he would often assume this pseudocamp performance, which was miles over the top. He told a few off-colour jokes and then we fell into silence. His dresser was having the deuce of a time trying to remove the makeup—it wasn’t coming off at all easily. What could this mean? Black Equity’s revenge? Larry looked at me, his eyes becoming slits. I was sure he was thinking, “Is this inebriated jerk ever going to leave?” The cat had completely got my tongue. “Well,” said Larry, “what can I do for you, Kit?” His weary, long-suffering tone implied, “Spit it out, for Chrissakes. I want my dinner.” Whether it was the booze that made me a bit teary or a sudden attack of nerves I’ll never know, but I heard my voice tremble as I blurted out, “I want to come and work here—more than anything—if there’s ever a space?” but I couldn’t find the words to go on. He came over and gave me a big hug which left a lot of black goo all over my Savile Row suit and I was gently ushered out. But he’d remembered—after all these years, he’d remembered! And it was to be Coriolanus! Well, well! Not bad for a start!

  I telephoned at once to John Dexter, who was now one of the National’s principal directors. “Is this true?” I asked. His answer was in the affirmative. “Then please, John, I’d love it if you would direct.” “I can’t,” he replied. “My dance card is full.” My heart sank. “You’ll probably get a call from Larry, who very much wants to do it, but might I suggest the two Germans from the Berliner Ensemble, Joachim Tenschert and Manfred Weckworth? They will give it a different look, new and fresh, and because they are foreign their presence will smarten up the company. They need smartening up—they’ve become rather lax.”

  Olivier did call. In his carefully chosen extravagant verbiage, he began, “My dear Kit, may I have the pleasure of humbly offering myself to you as your director?” (God, I thought, what a wonderful bullshit artist he is.) “Think about it, dear boy. Take all the time you want.” Now I was in a most awkward position. Great actor he may be but no great shakes as a director—that was universal knowledge. Besides he had himself been the last to play Coriolanus and was perhaps the finest in theatrical history. His famous performance at Stratford in the late fifties had elicited critical love letters and had ended with his own spectacular bit of business—falling from the balcony backwards and hanging by his heels head down in the image of the slaughtered Mussolini. I couldn’t possibly let him direct me. He was much too close to the part. He would give me his business, give me his line readings, in short, make me his carbon copy. I’m afraid I said no. Sir Laurence was not accustomed to being turned down. There was a long silence. “Very well, suit yourself, dear boy,” he said rather sulkily, and then in dulcet wooing tones, “but I am going to miss you.” God, how he could get to you! But I didn’t let him. I went with the Germans instead.

  Kate Fleming was a crackerjack voice coach, one of the very best. It was she who had given Larry such help with his Othello. I spent several weeks with her slugging away at lowering my voice and giving it more power. Kate smoked like a chimney and never stopped coughing her insides out (odd for someone so dedicated to the vocal chords), but she made me spout yards and yards of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine in my lowest tones until I was able to rattle off most of those big speeches in one breath. After Tamburlaine, Coriolanus seemed almost a snap, so by the time the first reading was to take place, I was more than ready to go into battle.

  The reading was conducted in the National Theatre’s offices down on old Aquinas Street. They had not as yet transferred to their new home. It was a series of ramshackle Nissan huts strung together in the shape of a railway train with a long narrow corridor stretching from one end to the other. The cafeteria and the rehearsal room were, illogically, as far from each other as possible. The administrative offices were lined up claustrophobically on either side of the corridor and there were a couple of floorboards which were always wet and if you stepped too heavily on them your feet went straight through. It was the tackiest-looking jerry-built structure you ever saw and quite filthy—if one had called the health department, I’m sure they’d have come and closed it. I had to remind myself that some very glorious work had come out of that grimy old building.

  It never occurred to me at the time, but turning up that first morning in the Rolls-Royce Corniche with Frank attired in his splendid chauffeur’s grey and cap did not exactly endear me to the company. It was a stupid insensitive thing to do, but—damn it!—it was my only mode of transportation. I soon couldn’t have cared less, for apart from three superb actors, Charles Kay, Ronald Pickup and Denis Quilley, most of the company were made up of a bunch of unwelcoming, humourless malcontents whose socialist leanings not only were far left of Lenin but made Harold Wilson look like King Farouk. Also, to my great disappointment, stroppiness had taken precedence over talent. Well, we all settled down for the reading in the usual straight line—the management facing us. Wouldn’t you know it, Larry sat in a chair directly in front of me, John Dexter to his left. The very agreeable stage management Diana Boddington and co. on his right. In one corner sat the National’s dramaturge, of all people, Kenneth Tynan, and in the other, modestly hugging the wall, the two German directors from Berlin.

  The read-through began. The first three pages sped by inaudibly as read by the mumbling “plebs” and then Coriolanus makes his entrance. Directing my first speech to the assembled company, I began with more ferocity and fervour than I perhaps should have:

  What’s the matter you dissentious rogues,

  That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

  Make yourselves scabs? What would you have, you curs,

  That like not peace nor war? The one affrights you

  The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you

  Where he should find you lions, finds you hares

  Where foxes—geese!

  I was enjoying myself thoroughly! The reading rolled on. Much of the cast continued to simply mumble their words with no expression and little understanding—they obviously had done no homework—and out of the corner of my eye I would catch the small-part players talking and giggling amongst themselves. Every so often Larry would get out of his chair, walk over and whisper in someone’s ear, but that didn’t deter me in the least; I was having far too good a time. Besides, I knew I must be doing well because he picked most of Coriolanus’s key moments to create these minor disturbances—canny old theatrical bitch that he was. I even found it quite amusing, my character’s arrogance had clearly rubbed off on me and given me a much-needed protective armour. There was little or no reaction from anyone after the reading was over except from Larry, who privately complimented me, but otherwise it had been the most unprofessionally conducted first reading I have ever attended. People just shuffled about aimlessly, wondering what was to happen next. The poor depressed younger members of the company wandered in and out of the cafeteria with obviously one thought on their minds. Am I going to be used next season or kicked out? There was no spreading of confidence in this company and certainly no love lost. Did I detect in the fetid air a tiny scent of National Theatre decay?

  All the following week as we began to rehearse on our feet, the same strained atmosphere prevailed. There was no dire
ction of any kind coming from the Germans who still seemed to be hugging the back wall of the rehearsal room showing little or no interest in anything at all. Aided by the very capable stage management, we were “blocking” the play by ourselves. It seemed the only thing to do; there was no choice. Denis Quilley, who was playing Tullus Aufidius, would look at me at intervals and we would both shrug. Was nothing to be forthcoming?

  On the last day of that week, the Germans suddenly came alive. Joachim, the one who spoke a little English, announced with a smile on his face, “It’s all right now. Ve can begin. The new texts have arrived! You can srow all doze odder vuns avay!” New texts?! What did they mean new? I had clutched my trusty little Penguin Shakespeare edition to my bosom for weeks now and had marked, underlined and annotated it so heavily, it was practically illegible. New? Had the Bard been doing some recent rewrites that we knew nothing of? Clever bugger—always determined to keep abreast of the times. But no! The title page of my fresh new manuscript read simply, Coriolanus by Bertholt Brecht.

  Well, I took it home with me that night only to find that my role in the play which Shakespeare had once called The Tragedy of Coriolanus had been violently slashed to ribbons, reduced to a one-dimensional cardboard cutout, and, as expected, the archsocialist Brecht’s favourites, the citizens, the proletariat, the mob, “the plebs” were now eliciting sympathy as the main characters of the piece. I called Larry in Brighton first thing next morning—he was after all the artistic director. He couldn’t quite digest what I was telling him. “You mean, you didn’t know?” I asked. “No—I—didn’t know. Ah—my dear Kit, I’m late for my train—call Ken—he’s in the office. We’ll talk later—ah—” and he trailed off!

  “You mean you didn’t know?” I repeated to Tynan across his desk. “No—n-no, I didn’t,” he asserted in astonishment. At once sympathetic and helpful, he looked up the availability of possible directors who could take over the project, but being the usual suspects (Blakemore, Dexter, Elliot, Gaskill, Dunlop, etc.) they were, of course, all busy. What to do? “A-A-I-I’ll l-look into this r-right away,” he stuttered. As I left his office and started down the corridor, the administrative staff scattered and as if sensing trouble, ran back into their offices and shut the doors behind them. Confrontation of any sort was not their strong point. Of course, the whole thing was a fait accompli—the Nat was stuck. They had made the deal. That little bureaucracy had got the Berliner Ensemble cheap. They’d made the deal for the same set, the same costumes, the same two directors, the same production in English that London had just recently seen in German, and they’d made it behind Larry’s back.

  I met with the brass and explained my concern. The Germans generously agreed to put back some of the cuts, but it would never be the same. “I came here to do ‘Shakespeare’s’ Coriolanus,” I stated simply and reluctantly went back to rehearsal. The poor Germans, as much in the dark about these shenanigans as I had been, patiently tried to carry on, but it was no use. I wouldn’t accept direction from them. How could I? I was in the wrong play. We’d arrived at an impasse. Rehearsal was cancelled. A company meeting was called and I, as a guest artist and not permitted to attend, went home to await the results.

  By late afternoon, Larry came to No. 9 with his henchman Paddy Donnell. “The bulk of the company voted you down,” he said. “I knew they would,” I said. “But they’ll be happy campers. They’re the stars of the show now!” Larry’s expression was that of the tragic muse. “It’s all right, Larry. It’s a great relief, really it is, and thank you.” “You will come and do something else for us, won’t you?” “We’ll see,” I said, and he and Paddy left. I felt for Larry. He, like myself, had been placed in an untenable situation and I believe he was genuinely upset. He had been all for firing the Germans and replacing them with Michael Blakemore, but in that regard, he was powerless. If only I’d gone with him from the start, I thought to myself, none of this nonsense would have taken place.

  KEN TYNAN would, over time, turn the tables and change his story. In his published diaries he maintains that I was the difficult one, that it was I who caused dissension in the ranks. That is not true—we were all of us victims of a devious plot and he had conveniently forgotten that at the time he could not have been more sympathetic to my plight. Of course, he is no longer with us and so can’t defend himself. We’ll just have to fight it out entre nous quand nous serons ensemble en enfer. But Ken, playing a role he was not accustomed to, embroiled in the petty intrigues of theatre management, had completely changed.

  I remember, years before, a party at Lillian Hellman’s brownstone in New York. Everyone in our business who mattered was there. I noticed a distinguished-looking older man I’d not seen before help himself to food and disappear all by himself to the upper regions of the house. “Who is that?” I asked Lillian. “Oh, that’s Brooks Atkinson; he makes it a rule not to mix with actors.” And I understood it. Mr. Atkinson had principles. He didn’t necessarily dislike us as a race; he saw it his duty as a critic to remain professionally impartial. But Tynan had “crossed over.” He was dying to be on our side of the fence and once there had lost all his raison d’être. He became the elite version of a star-fucker, hobnobbing with the famous, buttering up Larry, his major meal ticket, or Marlene Dietrich, his escort service, rubbing shoulders with Mick Jagger or Roman Polanski and, against all his socialist convictions, currying favour with the royals only too visibly represented by Princess Margaret. He also enjoyed being a sort of star himself—a wag at parties, a contrived Oscar Levant; to use his own words, he defrocked himself publicly. He wanted a breathlessly waiting world to know he alone had invented the word “kink,” that he’d personally discovered “spanking” and that mutual masturbation was his new religion. As the National’s dramaturge, he no longer wrote reviews, so apart from some entertaining pastiches on bullfighting and haute cuisine, his only contribution to society was O! Calcutta! an inferior sexical performed by numerous unknowns in the altogether, exposing their shrivelled parts in frigid London theatres. A far cry from the man whose brilliant, witty and discerning pen had for two decades helped restore the highest standards of the English stage.

  WELL, I DID go back to “The Nat” and I did work with Larry. For a time, we had the most wonderful fun together—endless stories, ribald jokes, many dinners, with or without the ladies, and much wine and song. He loved reminiscing about the old Hollywood days. I think he often missed the glamour of those times. There is no question Larry was great company and he seemed to bend over backwards to make up for everything. In fact, there was much more joy backstage than the piece we were rehearsing could ever offer. The play was Sam Behrman’s Amphitryon 38, based on a gossamer bit of fluff by Giraudoux—a satirical take on the Jupiter, Leda and the Swan myth as a design for living triangle, which had once been a vehicle for the Lunts. The triangle consisted of Alcmene, her dazzling lover Jupiter and her boring husband, Amphitryon. Larry, as director, thought it would be a novel idea if I was to play the two parts, Jupiter and Amphitryon. I did! I was appalling in both! I was so heavy-handed, if they’d filled me with helium, I couldn’t have got off the ground! And if I was heavy as lead, wow, so was Larry’s production. It was surf-n-turf when it should have been spun sugar! Only Geraldine McEwan, that wizard of artificial comedy, as Alcmene, came anywhere near the mark. It was generally so literal and ponderous they even constructed a mechanical cloud upon which Jupiter and Mercury could commute between Earth and Heaven, which, of course, broke down in front of the first preview audience, leaving “Merc” and myself stuck up there, halfway between the stage and the flies. Having run out of text, we began to frantically ad-lib as stagehands in the wings struggled with the mechanism. We found we got more laughs ad-libbing than any of the lines from the actual play itself, but now the laughter from the fed-up audience was taking on a more derisive tone. Exhausted of invention, sick of egg on our faces, we decided in spite of our shared vertigo to get the hell off the damn thing once and for all. We were ju
st about to climb out and possibly fall to our deaths when the curtain finally came down. Think of it! This was only act 2. More such embarrassment was yet to follow. When at last we were safely back in our dressing rooms at the play’s end, Joseph Mankiewicz (who was to direct Larry in the movie Marathon Man) came back to see me. All he could say was, “One day, dear Chris, your cloud will come in!” I wonder what he meant by that.

  Geraldine McEwan (Alcmene) being wooed by me (Jupiter disguised as Amphitryon)

  The last performance came none too soon and to appease me further, they handed me on a silver platter the role of Edmond Danton in Büch-ner’s Danton’s Death. This is an overly long work filled with complications and in desperate need of an exceptional director who can sort things out and give it some theatrical life. We got one in Jonathan Miller. It gave my spirits a giant boost to renew my acquaintance with this extraordinary man whose knowledge of painting, literature, anthropology, religion and medicine was so rich it dwarfed many an intellectual competitor and whose devastating wit was already well known in concentric circles on both sides of the Atlantic.

  Elaine and I had seen Jonathan’s splendid production of The Merchant of Venice with the Oliviers, Joan and Larry, as Portia and Shylock, respectively, and Charles Kay whose performance of the Prince of Aragon is the funniest I’ve witnessed before or since. We had gone with Raymond and Dorothy Massey who brought along their old friend Gregory Peck. Peck had just flown over from California and promptly fell asleep on Elaine’s shoulder (“Be still my heart,” she quipped later). The rest of us, wide awake, sat entranced by what we all agreed was the clearest interpretation of that difficult piece ever. And the sets Miller had created with his talented designer Julia Trevelyan Oman—giant books whose pages opened onto each and every scene, rich in color like a series of Old Masters, a stunning effect of great beauty and ingenuity.