Making His Mark

Popping a Tic-Tac every once in a while, Mark Rylance spoke on the telephone in the dulcet, often subtly puckish voice that has stood him in great stead for some time now as one of the world’s most accomplished Shakepeareans. Indeed, until two years ago, he was The Globe Theatre’s foremost Bard exponent; but he’s since left that coveted post and returned to being a full-time working actor. This month, Rylance will follow his recently acclaimed West End stint in the boulevard comedy Boeing Boeing — which he’ll bring to Broadway in the spring — with a return to another of his favorite spots, Minneapolis’ revered Guthrie Theater, as the title character in a new Robert Bly translation of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which begins previews on January 12. TheaterMania recently chatted with the always voluble Rylance only minutes after he’d finished a rehearsal of the play.

THEATERMANIA: Peer Gynt is often considered one of the hardest plays in the entire dramatic literary annals to do. How did you come to take on the assignment?
MARK RYLANCE: It was all kind of my instigation. When I met Robert Bly in the late 80s I’d bought a copy of his book of poems, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. In it was a scene from Peer Gynt. I asked him, “Did you ever do the full play?” He said no. So [Gurthrie Theater artistic director] Joe Dowling commissioned him at my request, because I wanted to create a Peer Gynt in this area. We’ve set the production in a kind of Kansas Wizard of Oz mode.

TM: How long have you wanted to do the play?
MR: It’s not a part I’ve ever hankered to play. I’ve never even played in Ibsen before. I’ve always been involved with Shakespeare and his contemporaries. If I wasn’t doing Shakespeare, I tended to do new plays. But not playing Ibsen is just a coincidence. I think he’s the next great European dramatist after Shakespeare. He created such a foundation for modern theater. But Peer Gynt wasn’t written to be performed. It was written as a poem and would take six hours to perform. So we’re cutting it down to two hours and 40 minutes. When you cut that much, you have to make big decisions, but we’re losing nothing substantial.

TM: Now that you’ve been rehearsing for a while, what are you discovering?
MR: It’s very tiring, physically tiring. Even with Hamlet you get the fourth act off. With Peer Gynt, he’s almost always on stage. He’s a driven and relentless kind of egotist.

TM: You’ve often been worked with Tim Carroll, who’s directing this production. Tell me about that.
MR: He’s one of my favorite directors, because he’s a very good collaborator. He shares my interest in trying to bring the spontaneity and rehearsals into the space. He doesn’t want a signed, sealed, and delivered package that stays the same. You can’t come to the end of that process in the six weeks you have to prepare. My image for the production is the way Miles Davis used to play at the end of his career. He would turn his back on the audience. You had the feeling you were at a live rehearsal. He invited you into the creative process of making music together. We look for ways to bring that into the production. The playing of most of the scenes can be very fluid. It never involves “You stand there and move to that table” or “Try and say that line like that.”

TM: What’s it like being at the Guthrie again?
MR: The place is astounding. It makes the National look like a shack. The rehearsal room I’m sitting in here is stunning. The recording studio is world-class. The organization of the whole thing seems as if no expense has been spared. I wonder if there’s another theater in the country like it. When I first went to the Guthrie, I was behind a mask of being British, but it was good to get back and be relaxed. A certain part of me has leapt free and danced.

TM: Although you’ve devoted much of your life to playing Shakespeare, you’re now well-known for seriously doubting that the 16th-century playwright wrote everything with which he’s credited. Where do you stand on the issue now?
MR: This summer I wrote a play about it. The title is a mouthful. I’ll say it slowly-The Big Secret Live “I Am Shakespeare” Webcam Daytime Chatroom Show. I came to a conclusion a bit like the end of Spartacus— that Shakespeare lived in each one of us. There is definitely cause for reasonable doubt. It’s not good any more to say it’s lunatic to doubt the man. It’s a great stain on academia to stiff arm this question. About who did it, I am not sure, but the man from Stratford is not in the first line of contenders.

TM: What Shakespeare roles that you haven’t yet done would you like to tackle?
MR: I’d like to play Richard III or Iago, and I’d love to play Gloucester in King Lear. I love all those little casual cruelties of his — the way he treats his bastard son worse that his legitimate son. I find his pathway interesting.

TM: I hear you’re coming to Broadway with Boeing Boeing.
MR: Yes, but the play is being reset in America. Matthew Warchus [who directed the London revival and will repeat those duties here] thought we should transpose it, which is fine. I’ll also do it with an American cast. It wasn’t possible with Equity to bring so many English actors over. New York producers have got to try to draw in out-of-towners. I’m not sure when it opens, but I know we start rehearsals on March 24.

TM: And what’s on your plate after Boeing Boeing? Would you consider returning to the Globe?
MR: I don’t know what’s coming along in the river of work that will be offered me. I’ve never turned anything down because I think I’m not in the mood for tragedy or comedy. I take the work because of the people. And I will return to the Globe eventually. Dominic [Dromgoole, his successor] and I are good friends. But we agreed it needs a few years of me being away.