Eileen Atkins in The Sea
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Dame Eileen Atkins is one of a quintet of major British actresses of a certain age who have distinguished themselves both sides of the Atlantic, and Atkins is the only one to have worked with Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith—though not all at the same time. (If she and Diana Rigg share a credit, I haven't come across it, though Rigg did eventually star on the West End in the very play,
Honour, that won Atkins her most recent Olivier Award.) A regular visitor to New York, a city whose theatre she loves not least for its sense of community, Atkins caused a real stir last fall as Judi Dench's ill-fated sister in the BBC series
Cranford, based on the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, which brought the actress raves that were ecstatic even by her exalted standards. Now, she's back on the West End inheriting a role most recently played on the London stage by Dame Judi—that of the imperious Louise Rafi in Edward Bond's puzzling, admittedly powerful play,
The Sea, at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Atkins spoke to Broadway.com within days of opening night, not yet aware of the raves she would elicit, as she pretty much always does.
How are you feeling, as opening night approaches?
A bit exhausted, though that's all relative. I can remember playing Twelfth Night and then Saint Joan in the evenings and rehearsing The Lady's Not For Burning during the day and falling asleep in my armour in the dressing room.
I think we're all hoping the production does well. Jonathan Kent [director both of the play and the season of which The Sea is a part] is certainly thinking big and bold.
He's fabulous. I'm in love with him. All these years I've worked with him as an actor, and this is the third thing he's offered me as a director. I was a bit so-so at the beginning about the play, but my agent, Paul Lyon-Maris, was very keen. And I spoke to Judi about it, who said, ‘I love Mrs. Rafi.’ She was mad about the part, so I thought I'll take it on recommendation. I do love doing it now, I have to say that, and I enjoy watching other bits, but it is a very, very weird play, there's no doubt.
Presumably you didn't see Judi do it at the National.
No, and I was heartily grateful for that. I don't understand actors who go to see things in which they're going to take over; I never saw Cherry [Jones on Broadway] in Doubt. You'll then have something lodged in your mind about how it goes. And when I have seen people do parts, it's usually been so long before. But I remember I messed up my first Rosalind [in As You Like It] because I had too many other Rosalinds in my head before coming to it clear. Luckily, I had never seen anybody do The Night of the Iguana.
Eileen Atkins and David Haig
in The Sea
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How do see Mrs. Rafi—whose name, to begin with, is decidedly unusual?
She's this wildly bossy matriarch of an English village on the east coast and she thinks that the whole village revolves around her; she is a terrible bully. I mean, to me these characters always seem terribly real; I know that sounds bizarre but you can go up the east coast where people are a bit weird; there's the equivalent in America—those wasteland areas where people are a bit weird. [Laughs.] Maybe the play will be more understandable to American audiences.
And you've got a male character, David Haig's Hatch, who believes in aliens.
Yes, and I suppose we've got some people nowadays here who think martians may land at any minute. But the play seems to me as I watch it through to be about the utter stupidity, the pathetic ridiculousness of human beings. Edward [Bond] seems to have pinned down human beings: that we are absurd and are to be pitied in many ways and yet are marvelous creations in some ways. The play is about us, really; it's about human beings.
Had you ever done a Bond play before?
Oddly enough, I read Saved in America for some producers about the time that I was on Broadway doing The Killing of Sister George. They do that a lot in America—they want to see how a play reads—and I terribly wanted to play that girl in Saved then.
Eileen Atkins in
Doubt on Broadway
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Gosh, it's hard to imagine that particular play of Edward's doing well in America, with its famous scene of a baby being stoned. But then again, you're a bit of an expert on how plays in one country will fare in the other—you predicted Doubt correctly, for instance.
I think I do get those things sort of right. I'd never go with this to New York, though having said that, I don't see why an American audience can't enjoy it. The awful thing is that people want to pigeonhole all the time—is it a comedy or tragedy, are we supposed to laugh or be sad, and the answer is, we're supposed to be both. I've been calling it a tragicomedy, a tragic farce; it isn't just a comedy, which is what Edward puts down. We had a disastrous first preview, and the man who owns this theatre said the most sensible thing—he said that people need the critics to tell them what to think, especially since Edward Bond's work hasn't been done endlessly over the years, either. [The Sea marks Bond's West End debut.]
Has Edward been involved in rehearsals?
He does get involved sometimes. He came and was shouting at me for doing something and he was going red in the face, and when I got back to my dressing room I saw that I was following slavishly what he'd written in the book. He knew he'd been rude and he came to the dressing room and I got out the book and stabbed my finger and said, ‘I'm slavishly following your directions!' He's just about as perverse as you can get, though there's something about him that's all right. And he is pleased with us.
It's interesting with those women who are your distinguished colleagues—you all seem to have somewhat different attitudes to work.
Well, if I'd been offered five Harry Potter movies, as Maggie has, I might not think about work so much [laughs], though Maggie loves work, that's at the front, even if she doesn't obviously like it quite as much as Judi does. Judi says, ‘It' s so terrifying, it's so terrifying, isn't it wonderful?' and on average I suppose that's how I feel. I've moaned just now about getting tired but I think in fact the adrenaline makes you feel quite a bit younger, and with this play, you're shooting adrenaline all the time. Although this isn't such a big part, you're endlessly changing wigs and there's no sit-down. The last three plays I've been in before this have gone straight without an interval, and, I mean, Sister Aloysius [in Doubt] was heavenly: one hour 18 minutes and you're done. I don't want an interval; I just want to get through.
You've had such a fascinating life and career: have you not thought of doing a book?
[Laughs.] I've got another letter here proposing exactly that. I can't tell you how often I've been offered money to do it. But look, I blag my mouth off in interviews and get into enough trouble there. What a book would do, God alone knows.