Rylance reveals why he had to quit the Globe over Iraq
Monday, 5 May 2008
enlarge
Print
Email
When Mark Rylance announced he was resigning as founding director of Shakespeare's Globe, many in the world of theatre were left utterly perplexed.
After a decade of directing and starring in a series of acclaimed productions, he gave almost no explanation when he left the London theatre in 2005, saying merely that it was "time to move on".
Now, after years of silence, Rylance, 48, has finally spoken out about the real circumstances around his departure. In an interview with The New Yorker, he says he feels it was his "vocal opposition" to the Iraq war as well as his controversial theory about whether William Shakespeare actually wrote his plays that led to his resignation.
In 2003, Rylance was among those, along with Julia Sawalha, Stephen Fry and Saffron Burrows, who expressed their opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
"They didn't understand the need for an artistic director," he said. "It became more and more difficult for me to stay. They were afraid I would bring it [his views on the Iraq war] on stage," he said, adding that his decision to go was the "right thing for me to do".
At the time of his departure from the Globe, many suspected that it may have been Rylance's questioning of Shakespeare's authorship – and his outspokenness on these views – that lost him the support of the theatre's board.
Although Rylance worked as an actor at the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1980s, he was open about his scepticism over whether Shakespeare ever wrote the plays that bear his name. He said he believed the plays ascribed to the Bard were actually penned by a group of 16th and 17th-century writers. He began to organise meetings at the RSC to discuss the authorship question, leaving some of the actors apparently feeling uncomfortable.
Mr Rylance said at the time: "I became more and more convinced that Francis Bacon was the doorway into it and had to be involved in some way. Undoubtedly the Stratford actor [Shakespeare] is involved in the creation of the plays because he is a shareholder in the Globe but I have not seen a convincing argument that he was capable of writing the plays."
The theory has been publicly denounced as "baloney" by the Globe's current artistic director, Dominic Dromgoole.
But Rylance, who joined the Globe when it opened in 1997, told The New Yorker that he took care not to allow his personal views about Shakespeare's identity to affect his role as director or actor. "I have never demonstrated or deconstructed the authorship question in any Shakespeare play I've directed or played in."
In the past 25 years, he has played some of theatre's finest roles, including Romeo and Hamlet in various Shakespearean productions. At the Globe, he presented Elizabethan-period plays with an all-male cast; modern-dress productions; and all-female shows. He led by example playing female roles including Cleopatra.
Rylance's all-male production of Twelfth Night in 2002 saw him lauded for his portrayal of Olivia. It won him the London Critics' Circle Theatre Award for best Shakespearean performance and an Olivier Award nomination. His programming, too, won praise. He won the London Evening Standard Theatre Special Award for the 2002 Globe season, Cupid and Psyche.
