Alex Vlahos interview
The pop-up Shakespeare experience in York
"Romeo is young, lovesick and he finds the love quite funny"
© Robling Photography
August 1, 2018 by Nicole Oebel @philomina_
Look, my love, what are those streaks of light in the clouds parting in the east? Sunbeams and lightning, heatwave and hailstorm, the Shakespeare's Rose theatre stands tall. Even more varied than the crazy weather changes though are the nuances of Alexander Vlahos's Romeo. There's mocking Romeo, dolce vita Romeo, dark Romeo and erratic Romeo - all in one show? Yes. But also different each night and every day. Like teenagers are. Alex's Romeo is so young, so full of himself, so vulnerable; there are moments he looks wide-eyed into a groundling's eyes, on top of the world, or in the depths of despair, and you want go with him hoping for the possibility that, this time, just maybe, disaster will be averted.
One month after opening night checking in with Alex Vlahos in York we chat about his pop-up Shakespeare experience, his process as an actor and different aspects of life after Philippe.
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The Shakespeare's Rose Theatre - what an incredible space, what a huge stage! There's nowhere to hide, it's just the people and the language. Is it very exposing to be on a stage like that?
[laughs] In a sense that you need to keep the space alive. There's a bigger duty to you as an actor to be much more on the ball. As an audience member you can get easily distracted, in normal theatre the lights go down, the audience are in darkness, the focus is on the stage. It's like in the cinema. On a stage like this you have to try very very hard to keep them with you. It's liberating, it's the first time I've ever done open air and I love it. I can understand why people say, when they work at the Globe, they like it.
How does your TV experience play into your stage presence?
The TV experience goes out of the window, I think it has to. I feel like I'm way over the top in Romeo and Juliet, more than I've ever been, facial expressions are ten times bigger. You can't teach stage presence, you just have to have it. Dyfan [Dwyfor, who plays the title character in Richard III] has stage presence in spades, he constantly talks to the audience.
Richard III - we haven't talked much about that one before. It was some interesting silent acting you did there. Catesby clearly had opinions all the time that you could see even if he wasn't part of the dialogue.
I try to make sure that Catesby is memorable. It was my idea with the coffee cup and to have the Financial Times under my arm and the Peter Mandelson glasses. He's based on Peter Mandelson, a Labour MP, a spin doctor, a classic Tony Blair right, and I thought that's Catesby! Catesby is the puppeteer, he never gets himself in trouble, he will just imply things and then tell Richard on other people. And what's Catesby's own undoing in terms of the Richard storyline is he ends up having to go to war. He's a politician in war, terrified, he sees Richard losing his mind realising he's backed the wrong horse here and he's going to die. You have to have opinions as that person.
Can you compare your 2013/2014 Shakespeare experience with this year's Shakespeare experience?
They can't be compared and I mean that in the best possible sense. I loved every single moment of my time working with Ken [Branagh] and Rob [Ashford] as playing Malcolm in the Scottish play, Macbeth. I got looked after - as Malcolm I could have been a person doubling up, do lots of other small parts but Ken said "you are literally going to be Malcolm, so when after 40 minutes off stage you appear to do the England scene it's a surprise for the audience". Malcolm is the rightful heir to the throne, he's smart but he's weak so he runs away to England and then Macduff comes to England to rally the troops and says we need you. You call it the England scene, it's an amazing scene, brilliant Shakespeare writing. And Ken gave me that moment. He took me under his wing, he taught me how to speak the verse, really hammered that home, became a friend in terms of work, I can't compliment him enough. The first time we did Macbeth was in Manchester, it was in a deconsecrated church with 200 seats. It was really intimate. When we went to New York it was 1000 seats, we blew it up, we had radio mics.
Playing Romeo is a whole different theme. There are so many different hurdles to be part of this. Have I come on leaps and bounds since I did Malcolm? Absolutely. In between Malcolm and Romeo there are four years of Versailles slotted in there. There's a massive gap, it's not like I've done a Shakespeare a year so that I can compare them easily. Romeo is his own beast entirely. They can't be compared in the best possible sense.
About how best to prepare as an actor Kenneth Branagh once said: "This is a constant mystery to me, because it changes all the time." So you are in good company approaching each job differently.
The only process that I have is not having a process by treating every job differently. My process for Romeo can't be the same process that I have for Prisoner Zero. Doing Dorian Gray can't have the same process as doing Hamlet, even though they're both the same medium. Even though they were both with Scott [Handcock] they were completely different. I prepped so much for Hamlet and I rarely prepped for Dorian, just trusted the script. For Maurice Solovine in Genius I wanted to do so many tricks, I wanted a cane, I wanted him to smoke, I wanted loads of props - I hate props as an actor, do not give me anything to hold - but with Maurice, he's a guy that accumulates things, he's a rich person, he wants things. So you tackle it differently. I was a guest actor and I had no responsibility. I was watching Johnny [Flynn] in the same situation that George [Blagden] and I were in, having to try and manage a show. In Genius I did a couple of days here and there with little to no pressure - that's a different process. If there is a process it's taking it as it comes. In Ken's words, I think he's right. Sometimes you prep too much, sometimes you don't prep enough.
With Romeo they required a lot of it but the only thing I have to remember is he is young, he is lovesick and he finds the love quite funny. He's quite self-deprecating, he can look at himself and think that it's ridiculous that she's not putting out. As long as I remember those three things walking up on to my first moment with Benvolio then the play dictates itself. You jump on the track, Shakespeare gives you the words. That's the prep. Walking through the groundlings, walk up those four steps, stand, look up to the sky, remember those three things and I'm on it. If I miss one of those beats then it's quite hard to keep on track. Each of them takes a different muscle memory.
© Robling Photography
When we talked earlier you mentioned Lindsay Posner, the director, does not let you get away with your "lazy bad habits". What are these habits?
[laughs] In Shakespeare there are rules, hitting the last word of the line in the pentameter. Naturalism in Shakespeare works in certain productions, so in the Scottish play, in Macbeth in New York, rules were there to be broken in terms of Ken's. We were never told to hit the last word of the verse, as long as it made sense and you made sense of it then it's fine and the audience will get it. Lindsay was not of that belief, he wanted me to hit that last word. Complete my thought. Don't let it trail at the end. We as natural human beings in modern day society we are less confident when we talk, it sort of drivels away, it's quite visceral. In this space, the Shakespeare's Rose Theatre, it gets eaten up. Getting rid of my bad habits in the rehearsal room meant that when I came to this space I was more prepared than doing four previews and going "oh god, they're not hearing me, they're not understanding the story". You have to really use the muscularity in your tongue to make that they hear everything. That takes away the naturalism of a performance but it makes it more powerful. Lindsay was so diligent and kept at me - there were moments I thought I was the worst actor alive. I also kept fighting him a little bit and it took a while for that rehearsal process to really sink in. But thank god it did because now in that place I think I land everything and that means the story is told better. Ali [Alexandra Dowling] does exactly the same and we both as a pairing share responsibility for telling the story.
You've also recently mentioned how you are finding a way to be happy with yourself without your career being defining which I think was also reflected in your tweets about change during the past months. Is it like a bit of pressure is off you now? And do you feel it has an impact on your work here, playing the role of Romeo?
Massively so! But also then, you lose pressure and you gain pressure in different aspects of your life. You lose pressure by doing a job like this, it's in York, it's not in London, it's not on the West End, I'm doing Romeo but it's not the RSC, I'm doing a new venture, a pop-up experience. Also it's an equivalent of doing La Ronde. You invite pressure but you ease it off. I chose to do the most batshit crazy production in a tiny little theatre, Off-West End, it takes a little bit of pressure off yourself. There is a responsibility that comes with playing Romeo and I don't want it to transfer, I want Romeo and Juliet to live and die in York.
You put stuff away and this empty space gets filled by other things. My agent says you're in a luxury position - I think of it as a terrifying position - there's an empty calendar in front of me now in terms of being an actor, there's no six months in a country tying me down. During season 1 Simon Mirren used to say to me "you're an amazing actor, don't let Philippe define you." And I let him define me. And let people who surrounded me, personal friends who have come and gone, latch on, but then it's the people who stay with you after all who define you.
The idea that validation is a thing that I've required as a person is fucking crazy when you think about it. I constantly sought validation for my existence, not alone acting, I surrounded myself with people all the time, hated being alone. It's an amazing moment after Philippe is gone and you do something like this, in a place that you've never been and you live day to day on your own really. Lauren [Samuels] told me to go to York - have the best experience of your life, shit on the stage, go out with your friends you've made in the company, live your life, don't leave York thinking you have any regrets - that's an amazing thing to give someone and I fucking love that she did that. I've done that with her when she went to Bolton. Be an actor but also be Lauren.
I guess it's about finding who you are. I lost myself a little bit along the way through Philippe and through existence and validation I think.
This is kind of a big jump now but there was another new experience here, the school performances. How did they go?
What the Shakespeare's Rose Theatre has done brilliantly is a Rose Bursary Scheme which means school kids go for free. So there were kids in that audience, did they want to see that show? Probably not. Are they interested in drama? Probably not. So you're battling with people who actually don't want to be there. It was a full house, you got full groundlings, 900 kids. It's 11 am, that's an ungodly hour to do a play. You're competing with a lot more than just open air, the rustling and the sweet packets, you're trying to keep their attention. I hope to god that in one of those school performances one of those kids will grow up to be a Sir Ian McKellen or a Dame Judi Dench or a George Blagden. That there's someone in there who has seen something, whether it's a Romeo or a dream or a sword-fighting thinking "God, that's cool, I'd love to do that!" That's the hope. One in 900 would be great! Like the class clown trying to get attention, getting cheap laughs amongst his mates. I was that kid, I didn't do what he did, but I was that kid that discovered that I can concentrate my energy of wanting attention from girls or spotlight on me by putting myself on the stage. That gives me everything I need. So he might be that one kid in 900. You come off really frustrated that you've just been hackled throughout the whole show and then you take a step back and think if we're getting hackled it's because he is watching and he's interested and he's making jokes. He's going to be on stage or in the arts at least.
We get guaranteed curtain calls in the school performances, it's hard to keep them all sustained but right at the very end they really love it. It's a great theme that they set up!
© Robling Photography
Has there been more breaking of the fourth wall?
Yes, Ali decided not to come back on for a moment the other day. In the Balcony scene when Juliet walks away and I go to the groundlings before she comes back down to the gardens with me and we have the little face to face scene. I thought I heard her and I ran on stage and she wasn't there and I turn to the audience and go "She's always late!" Big laughs. It was like 20 seconds but it felt like five minutes - in acting terms you're just eating air [desperate voice] "Oh god, I'm dying!" So when Ali finally does come on she gets a round of applause and she says "I have forgot why I did call thee back." Big laugh. And I say "Let me stand here till thou remember it." - I just did for five minutes! There are these little moments that you can interact. [Let Alex explain this to you in much more lovely detail in the sound clip below.]
The first show on opening night I was terrified. That was just adrenalin, get through it, say the lines in the right order - it felt like that. Whereas now, you find these moments where you can land on the fourth wall. As long as you start that relationship with the audience they'll be with you all the way. It's about making Romeo likeable and not making him wet. You try and capture that essence with "Please like us so that when it all goes wrong you care for us." That goes back to our first Romeo interview when I said I never really cared enough, never really believed that they're in love either, it spans only four days, it's mad the whole play. So the audience participation and the fourth wall, it's a "come with me!" so that in the tomb scene there's deathly silence when I'm saying my last speech.
Read interviews with Alexander Vlahos on the tv series Versailles, other theatre projects and directing
It’s always the biggest pleasure talking to @philomina_ ✌🏻 https://t.co/X2L8RhkdBV
— Alexander Vlahos (@vlavla) 1. August 2018
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