Hall of Fame

The lead character in Caryl Churchill’s A Number is extremely unhappy that he’s been cloned but, right about now, he might get an argument from Sir Peter Hall. The eminent British director is in the uncomfortable position of having to leave the early previews of his London production of Whose Life Is It Anyway? — with former Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall in the lead — to jet to New York. But Hall, a nine-time Tony Award nominee and the former artistic director of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theater, has a very good reason for this trans-Atlantic sojourn: He needs to oversee his highly praised production of As You Like It, featuring his 20-year-old daughter Rebecca Hall as Rosalind, which will play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from January 18 through 30. (Hall will also participate in a BAMdialogue immediately preceding the first performance.)

As You Like It — a production of the new Peter Hall Company that premiered at the Royal Theater of Bath in 2003 — marks the 74-year-old director’s long-overdue debut at BAM. More amazingly, this is Hall’s first take on the Shakespearean classic, although he has directed about 30 of the Bard’s other works, many of them numerous times. “When I was running the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1960s, we did a production with Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind, and she was so wonderful that I could never see another actress doing it,” he says. “The fact that this Rosalind turned out to be my daughter is simply fortuitous. Rebecca has a very strong wit, a feisty spirit, and there’s something in her femininity that’s still quite boyish, which really fits the character. I would say more about her but it would simply sound sycophantic; so I will just quote one of the London critics, who called her ‘a great actress in the making.’ ”

Hall realized that Rebecca — one of his six children by four wives — had a gift for acting when he first directed her, at age 8, in the British mini-series The Camomile Lawn. “She could have become a full-time child actress, but her mother [the opera star Maria Ewing] and I wanted her to have a regular childhood,” he says. “I think it’s terrible to become a professional actor too early, especially if you want to spend your adulthood as a professional.”

Two years ago, Hall gave his daughter her big break by casting her as Vivie in a West End production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, for which she won rave reviews. He insists that directing Rebecca is just like directing any other actress. As proud as he is of his children — including his son, director Edward Hall — he treats them as colleagues and equals rather than blood relatives. “As I talk to you, my daughter Lucy is sitting here working on the set for Whose Life,” he notes; “but right now, she’s just my set designer, not my daughter.” (The only Hall offspring not involved in show business — well, not yet — is his 12-year-old daughter Emma.)

The reviews for As You Like It have been rapturous on both sides of the Pond, including a rave from Ben Brantley of The New York Times when the production played in Boston. “I am told that I have approached the play differently, but I didn’t really think so at the time,” he remarks. “What’s happened is that we haven’t cut it — most directors usually cut Shakespeare to hell — and so we’ve really done justice to the first half of the play. That part is about the younger brother who dethrones his elder brother and then persecutes his daughter; it’s a very dreadful story of betrayal, violence, and corruption in a society that’s like a police state. And out of that darkness comes the light — the marriages and the children maturing. I think the darkness doesn’t kill the comedy but sets the comedy off.”

After its fortnight at BAM, the production will have a run at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles (February 4-March 27) and then at the Curran in San Francisco (April 5-May 1), which will necessitate at least two more American visits for Hall. He will also probably come back to New York in the spring to see his son Edward’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire for the Roundabout, set to star Natasha Richardson and John C. Reilly. In fact, Streetcar is very close to the elder Hall’s heart; he directed a production of it at London’s Haymarket Theater in 1997 with Jessica Lange (“I think she was marvelous in it”) and he had serious plans to present Cattrall as Blanche Du Bois until financing fell through. But, so far, father and son have not had a serious chat about the play. “We tend to talk about things when they’re there; we’re really good at each other’s previews,” says dad. “It’s such an exciting project for Edward. I’ve never personally worked with Natasha, though I’ve known her forever.”

Though he hasn’t known Cattrall forever, their working relationship does go back to 1986, when she starred as Sofya in the Royal National Theatre production of Wild Honey. Given the array of extraordinary actresses that Hall has worked with over the past five decades — from Diana Rigg to Rosemary Harris to Stockard Channing to Judith Ivey — his continuing devotion to Cattrall is nothing to be sneezed at. “Kim is a true stage animal, like Kim Stanley or Jessica Lange,” he says. “She’s very daring and can get through an enormous emotional range.”

She needs that range to play Claire, the paralyzed woman who wants to die, in Whose Life Is It Anyway? “I really have been looking for a play to do with Kim for about three years,” says Hall. “Brian Clark, who’s an old friend, sent me this rewritten version of his play; it’s been brought up to date and the woman’s been made the center of the piece.” (It was originally written with a man as the lead, but Mary Tyler Moore replaced Tom Conti in the Broadway production.) “So I called Kim to do it and she said yes about three days later, which was great. I find that when actors wait to do a play, they never end up doing it.” Hall has high hopes for the production, which is scheduled to run at the Comedy Theatre through April 30. “Kim has become sort of this icon of the modern woman,” he comments, “so I think audiences will be surprised to see what she does here. I’d love to have it come to Broadway because I think Kim ought to be seen doing this part — and I have a lot more ideas for her if I can keep her away from the camera.”

No matter what happens, Hall’s plate is exceedingly full for the rest of this year. Among his other projects, he’s got a summer season at Bath lined up, including a 50th birthday production of Waiting for Godot — the play that put Hall on the theatrical map when he directed the original British production. “I can’t remember how I did it the first time,” he says. “In fact, I never remember what I’ve done in the past, though I often come back to similar solutions. I did a production [of Godot] about five years ago at the Old Vic with Sir Ben Kingsley and I am sure it was different than the original and will be different than this one. It’s just a play I love revisiting.”

Hall also has to focus on the new Kingston-on-Thames home for the Peter Hall Company, modeled on the old Rose Theatre in Southwark, where Shakespeare’s early plays were performed. Perhaps the theater’s most remarkable feature is its playing area: very wide, with the audience seated extraordinarily close to the stage. While Hall has done some performances there over the past year, the company can’ t work there until it’s completely finished and has been licensed by the government. “We’ve been given a lot of money to finish it,” he says, “so I’m just holding my breath and hoping it will be ready by the end of the year.” Should that happen on November 22, it would make a fitting 75th birthday present for this extraordinary man.