Bertie Carvel
|
Age: 30
Currently: Making his musical theatre debut as Leo Frank in the Donmar Warehouse production of Parade, the Alfred Uhry/Jason Robert Brown musical that marks the directorial debut of the Tony-winning Broadway choreographer, Rob Ashford. Carvel, who is neither Jewish nor American, is lending his high baritone to Brent Carver's Broadway role of an American Jew who was lynched for the murder of a young girl in Atlanta nearly a century ago. "I'm an actor," points out the performer, who studied English Literature at Sussex University before doing his drama training at RADA. "I'm not Jewish, and I could have taken the approach to thinking that it was absolutely vital and important for me to understand the Jewish religion inside out in order to do this role. But the thing that, I think, seems obvious is that the phenomenon [of Frank's death] was as much to do with his difference as with his Jewishness, and also with the kind of scapegoat factor in Atlanta at that time. There was so much disenfranchisement from so many points of view: not only that Leo was a Jew but also a northerner and a member of the cultural elite." Parade, says Carvel, is about Leo's "alien-ness from the people around him."
Hometown: London, where Carvel grew up the son of a psychologist mother and a father, John Carvel, who is the social affairs editor of The Guardian. "We didn't really go to the theatre," notes the actor. "It's just not something I particularly had any contact with. My grandmother used to take us to the Theatre Royal pantomime in Windsor, and when she thought I was too old for the panto, one year we went to see The Tempest at the Barbican, which I thought was unutterably dull." The turning point came 18 months before Carvel left university, when, "as a new hobby," he auditioned for a drama society production of Murder in the Cathedral. "I got the lead and was kind of impressed by myself, so I did more stuff there and instantly felt at home on stage. It flattered my ego a bit," he laughs. "I'm very lucky it's all worked out because if that hadn't happened, I don't think I knew what I was going to do." After university, "I read the drama school prospectuses, which make it sound like a monastic existence and in many ways it is. The idea of going to an institution where you're stretched every hour of the day jumping and fighting and learning to act and doing a show in the evening really attracted me"—but before doing the Eliot play, he says, "it would never have occurred to me."
Bertie Carvel in Parade
|
Sing Out: "I've never especially thought I'd do musicals, though I enjoy singing and at drama school,” he says. “We all had singing lessons as part of the training." When he heard about Parade, "I just sort of thought, I might like to go up for that. Having worked a lot at the National"—on Coram Boy and The Man of Mode, amongst other productions—"working at the Donmar seemed the perfect next step. So they sent over the stuff to prepare and I just sort of thought, ‘This is a real long shot.’"
America, America: Though the cast of Parade is almost entirely British, Carvel has in fact travelled to America, flying over with a chum during uni to meet another friend who was spending a year living in Vermont. The initial idea was to spend a month using an Amtrak rail pass to see the entire country, but that plan was amended. "We ended up with just over three weeks doing this ridiculous dash down the eastern seaboard, literally spending that afternoon and a night and then getting on the train to the next city." He pauses. "America's a fucking big country."
Bertie Carvel and Lara Pulver
in Parade
|
Translations: How, then, does Carvel regard a show steeped in so many of the defining issues that continue to mark out America to this day: prejudice, yellow journalism, the mob mentality? (Not that such concerns are exactly unknown in the U.K.) "I remember thinking, I wondered how much of [the material] would be lost on a British audience, but having gone into it dramatically as an actor, I'm not at all worried; apart from anything else, the story is very clear on an emotional level. It's amazing how much of the details of the actual case Alfred and Jason have been able to get into the piece. So many of the things that were topical about the piece were kind of original in its day, but none of us are strangers to the role of the media in a case like this; it's sadly so topical at the moment."
Kung Fu Fighting: Carvel has been blessed with good reviews in his career to date and has a weapon up his sleeve that is unavailable to most performers, not to mention critics, should he ever be panned: namely, a black belt in kung fu. "I started my first year at university and decided that's what I would do, and I got into it very quickly. It completely changed my life. I kind of got really fit, though I must say that during the last few years I've neglected it, " he says. Still, it would seem that some skills, riding a bike and apparently kung fu amongst them, you never lose. "Don't cross me," says Carvel with a laugh, before adding, "I really hope I never have to prove it's worth anything."