The Playgoer: New Rickman Interview

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Sunday, July 30, 2006

New Rickman Interview



Most pertinent quotes:





Nicola's decision was condemned by Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and Vanessa









John Branch said...

This will be off the main track of your post; I apologize for that.

I'm glad you included the link to Stoppard's Guardian piece questioning free speech as a basic right. It is, as Playgoer says, an odd piece, but for me it's odd only because it questions something everyone else takes more or less for granted. Stoppard is only the second writer I've encountered who has thought to ask on what we base this notion of a right. The French thinker Simone Weil (whom I happen to be studying) is the other. Weil remarked that the notion of rights was essentially invented by "the men of 1789" (i.e., during the French Revolution) and added that "The Greeks had no conception of rights.... They were content with the name of justice." One thing I think she meant was that the situation of free people freely inquiring into the truth doesn't require this relatively modern notion of rights. That we have it is probably to the better, except that we sometimes have trouble deciding exactly what it means.

Weil made another remark almost in passing: "Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention." That, it seems to me, is one way of summing up the controversy over the NYTW's cancellation of the Rachel Corrie play: the right of the playwrights to be heard, the right of the theater to change its mind, the right of the audience to see the work, the right of certain members of that audience not to be disturbed: some of these may make more sense than others, but to me it's clear that not all these contending rights can be right at once. This is what happens when you start talking about the concept without anyone being clear what it means. Stoppard's piece was one little effort to banish some of the murk.

PeonInChief said...

I think my comment got lost.

Am I the only person who found the Rickman interview hilarious (unintentionally, of course)? And does the press always treat him with that kind of simpering obsequiousness? I know that this isn't the same as grilling Tony Blair on Lebanon, but really!

Anonymous said...

No, peoninchief, I found that interview monumentally ridiculous as well. It read as if it was written by one of the dizzy hens that circle Alan Rickman whenever he appears in public. It reads like some pre-chewed publicity puff piece that inserts a sentence like "by the by, censorship is icky." NYTW has gone on record, on radio, in front of Katharine Viner, saying the financial deal they got from the Royal Court wasn't sweet enough for a not-for-profit. It's the same kind of "censorship" that lead the Royal Court to refuse to mount "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" because they were afraid of the IRA. If you read other "interviews" by Jackie McGlone, you see a pattern of celebrity ass kissing and smoke blowing. I just thought it was interesting that on the one hand she's going mental about his gal pal, yet the rest of the piece just makes him sound like big gay Al.

PeonInChief said...

Thank you, Anonymous. I read a couple of McClone's interviews and realized that I'd missed nothing--although the one with Spike Lee was less painful than the Rickman interview.

And I hadn't realized that the point of the interview had anything to do with his sexual preference until you mentioned it. All I wondered was whether he had nothing else to talk about.

But having completed my research on the subject, I think this is the most telling:

At the opening-night party, Lindsay Duncan's husband remarked to a Times reporter that he's not worried about wifey being with Rickman all the time because "he's gay"—a crack that got the whole room buzzing. Scores of cognoscenti lined up to tell me, "No, he's straight, married, and devoted..
[from Musto in the Village Voice]

The lesson, of course, is that if you want to stay in the closet, you have to make sure everyone's in the loop.

I have to admit, though, that I was most irritated when he turned Rachel's parents into "human waterfalls". I didn't see any reason to trash their dignity to make his point.