“Comedy is my day job,” says Eddie Izzard. “Shakespeare started with his comedies, then he moved to his dramas and tragedies, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Even the Bard might have to step back marvel at the malleability of Izzard on her current global tour, though, as Izzard moves not just from comedy into the realm of Elizabethan drama, but shifts through 23 different characters, in a one-person production of “Hamlet.” With a couple hundred shows already under their belt on the tour, she’s bringing the show to L.A.’s Ricardo Montalbán Theatre for seven performances, starting with a preview Thursday night and official opening Friday, running at the Hollywood venue through Jan. 31. (Tickets are available here.)
Is it madness — doing what many consider the greatest ensemble drama of all time as a solo show — or is there method in it? No one will accuse Izzard of not having done her homework on every aspect of the historical backdrop of the show, as well as having done the difficult work of imagining the blocking and voicing that will help an audience keep all those characters straight. Izzard had some experience with a one-person production, first having done it with an adaptation of “Great Expectations” that similarly traveled around the world. Now, there’s no definite end in sight for Izzard’s “Hamlet,” with the actor having too good a time to not keep adding cities to the run. Reviews and accolades in prior engagements have been enthusiastic, including nominations from the New York Outer Critics Circle and the New York Drama League for a run back east.
Prior to coming to L.A., the Tony-nominated, Emmy-winning performer (who is billed as just Eddie Izzard for this appearance but also privately goes by Suzy Eddie Izzard) Zoomed with Variety to talk about both the practical and theoretical underpinnings of this challenging achievement. (After L.A., the show moves on to Austin, Toronto, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.; see dates here.) The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Do you have a count of how many times you’ve done this “Hamlet” now?
It’s 205 now. It is soaring on, and it’s about 50,000 tickets sold. Some people are going, “Oh, this is most unusual.” It’s not that unusual. A lot of people are doing solo shows all around the world. I like the idea of taking Shakespeare around the world — we’re negotiating taking it to India, and Australia is this year as well, and the third leg of the tour of America. I just think it is a wonderful thing to do. I hope that Shakespeare would approve.
As you say, one-person shows are not totally uncommon, but the sheer amount of characters you play seems like it might be more taxing on you than perhaps someone who’s doing a monologue-type show. Is there any weariness that sets in when you’re doing two hours a night of all those characters?
It is a tough show. But when you mention people doing monologues, I mean, these are full shows that other people are doing, playing multiple characters, so I am really in the same bracket as them. So it’s as taxing as for them as it is for me. You have to be totally on top of it because it’s yourself out there for two hours. But it does mean that people can concentrate more on the text rather than saying, “Who’s wearing what costume?” You can really focus in on the story and the text and the wonderful poetry of Shakespeare. So I think that’s something which is unusual and gives it an interesting focus in that way. So I’ve been looking forward to getting back out there. That’s the odd thing. Because maybe now you’d be thinking, “Do you wanna keep doing this thing?” Yeah, I do. Every night is press night — that’s how I feel. It is tiring. If you got ill and did it, then I think it’d be really tricky. But I’m loving doing it, so I just wanna continue.
You said you wanted to pay special attention to the female characters.
Absolutely. I just want to, a trans person, give honor to all characters. You know, trans is getting such a buffeting at this time. But on a positive side, when I came out 40 years ago, January ‘85, no one was talking to us at all. We were just non-people. So even though there’s buffeting, even though there’s loud voices raised, left, right, and center, trans people exist. We’re not going anywhere, so it’s good to be out there. And people get obsessed about male/female. But most people who are thinking people see everyone somewhere on a spectrum. So to get out there and play classically male characters, classically female characters, it’s an intriguing thing to do. And as a trans person, as someone who’s gender-fluid, I don’t see much difference in my own personality, between a male version of me or a female version of me. It’s just me. It’s slightly more of a presentation to people or how people see me. But, yeah, to be the best version of Ophelia that I can be, the best version of Gertrude that I can be, is a wonderful challenge. So I go for it.
It’s funny that there’s so much Hamlet in the air now, in popular culture. Taylor Swift, named her single “The Fate of Ophelia,” which got young people looking the character up. Of course there’s the “Hamnet” movie now, which ends with a version of “Hamlet” that has been condensed into about 10 minutes. L.A. just had a very experimental adaptation of “Hamlet” at the Mark Taper Forum where the play was condensed into one hour, and then the second hour was a sort of modern-day sequel. In all, it’s a play that comes back and resonates for people, and it’s maybe just coincidental that there’d be some of that in the air at the time you have chosen to do this.
It is odd. I keep noticing it. I’m thinking, does this help me or hinder me? I think it helps. If there’s more “Hamlet” out and people saying, “Let us revisit, let us look at this,” and people coming from completely different directions on it, I think that’s kind of wonderful. And it has lasted for so long. “Hamlet’s” in the ether at the moment, so I’ll just keep riding that wave.
What was most attractive to you about doing this? Was actually doing all those Hamlet soliloquies kind of the main attraction, or was it more about performing the 23 roles in one fell swoop?
Well, it’s more actually just doing Shakespeare. It didn’t have to be “Hamlet.” I was a severely, atypically dyslexic kid, so I had great difficulty just reading off the page. But I was someone who was, from the age of 7, saying, “I really want to act,” trying to get into school plays desperately. Even with standard, modern-day text, I found that tricky, getting it from the page through my brain and out of my mouth. So I was always intimidated by Elizabethan verse and by Shakespeare. As time went on, I decided to concentrate on comedy. Then I started pushing into my dramas and going through Broadway and onto the dramatic films. But I really wanted to do Shakespeare. I wanted to really challenge myself. I considered “Richard III” and considered others where I could start. It was a fact that, because my career has been so unusual, I was not on top of everyone’s list (for Shakespearian productions). And I’m trans as well, so I’m just such an unusual person, putting everything together — I don’t think people say, “We’ve gotta build (a show) around this person.” It’s a very high bar. No one was that keen on putting me forward to do it.
So I just thought, “Well, I’ll do this myself.” When “Great Expectations” took off and worked so well, it came from something that I was already doing, performing against myself, something I had been doing in my comedy. I realized it could work for drama as well as it could work for comedy. I just decided, “Let’s do ‘Hamlet.’” And I could do that without getting permission from other people or making sure that they were setting the budgets for that. I wanted to do Shakespeare and I wanted to go towards this thing that had scared me as a teenager.
As you say, going back and forth between different characters is something that you have done as part of your comedy, so that didn’t feel like a totally unfamiliar thing. You had to figure out how people will understand that you’re shifting personas here.
In the first five, 10 minutes, some people do go — well, maybe most people go — “What are you doing here?” I haven’t watched everyone else’s solo shows, but sometimes they’re using screens, they’re using recorded videos. They’re talking to themselves as other characters on screens or videos or however they’re doing it. I’m playing it where I’m flipping and changing physicality, changing a voice. Not overtly, not in a caricatured way, but in a subtle way. And gradually, I feel the audience will pick up on who the character I’m playing is. And there are guides to that. And maybe we mention people’s names more often. You drop in a “Yes, Horatio.” …
Basically you’re obeying Shakespeare’s script, however you’ve adapted it. But the bottom line is to be truthful in all your performances and all the arcs of the characters that you’re driving them through, and hopefully the audience can grab it. I’m sure some people are going, “I cannot get this. How this works is unusual to me.” It’s not for them. But, you know, we’re up to 50,000 tickets now, so people are coming back a second or third time, so I know it works. And I also have had so much experience, not just on stage — I spent four years as street performer. And if you think of Shakespeare’s actors, their training must have been pretty similar to that training, because they were not going to drama school. Just one generation before “Hamlet” was written, they were performing at festivals and fairs and market days, and then the Curtain Theater was built in the late 1570s, and this is only 1600, so it’s so close. At the Globe Theater in London, keeping everyone focused and interested was a tricky thing to do. My training has been through all that, so I know I can do something on stage which is a little unusual for most actors, and I bring all those skills to bear in every performance.
And, yeah, no screens, and it works, but they have to tune into what I’m doing. I’ve worked very hard with my movement director, Didi Hopkins, who’s steeped in commedia dell’arte, to make these transitions between characters so that people can feel there is a sharp difference between them, as opposed to a confusing difference between them. I’m crisp on the architecture. If I move one character to another character, when I move back to that first character, they will not be somewhere else on the stage, they will be back where you left them. And that’s something I’ve been very dogmatic on. That must happen so that if Gertrude wanders across the stage, talking about the fact that her previous husband has died and then they pass through to eternity, Hamlet will be in the same place when you flip around.
Eddie Izzard in “Hamlet”
Carol Rosegg
Do you have a favorite character to play apart from Hamlet?
Ophelia is wonderful to play — the twin soul of Hamlet, some people say. The women are underwritten; Gertrude is underwritten. So as a trans person, I’m very keen to land those characters, separate ’em, and land them as well as I can, because I just feel they’re underwritten by Shakespeare. Claudius is someone who has a great [sweep in his arc and eventually is confessing to the audience, or to God, that he did it. it’s just an interesting thing to track him, trying to play him as magnanimous as possible. And Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, I play as hand puppets, and that is an unusual thing to do. Hamlet, I feel, is really pleased but confused to see them at the beginning, and he’s gradually unraveling the lies behind what they’re there for.
It’s interesting that conscience seems to be the main thing that I feel that underpins the whole thing. He has to be happy with his conscience, Hamlet, as he drives through. I grew up thinking: How did people look at religion years ago, say, back in the 1590s, when this was written or back in the 1000s, when it takes place. They’re all saying that conscience is the thing that you should be judging things on, so if you’re good with that… He’s talking about these Catholic ideas, even though he is in a new Protestant country. In the Elizabethan country, purgatory should not be happening in the lexicon, but he’s talking about the old days, so he can get away with it. And I think he probably was a secret Catholic. But Hamlet (believes he) can get to heaven because he’s had these people killed, but they were trying to kill him, so that’s fair, and he can argue at the pearly gates, or wherever it is you had to argue in those days. But they were thinking of it just like us: At the beginning of the play, they’re saying there aren’t any ghosts. Then, oh my God, there are ghosts! That’s how we are right now. It feels quite modern, how it is. … The audience watching must have been half of them Catholic, half of them not Catholic, some of them lip-service Protestants — a complete spread. It’s almost “Game of Thrones” when they talk about the old gods and the new. This was really a time of the old gods and the new, even though it was one God. It was all the old ideas and the new ideas. The amount of bloodletting that happened between the Catholics and the Protestants over the idea of how you should interpret the scriptures tragic. But all this rolls into a play where conscience is king.
The way I feel it, it could well be is that Hamlet’s personality personality is quite close to Shakespeare’s. Shakespeare’s a kid who didn’t go to university, who had this chip on his shoulder trying to work his way to the upstart crowd, trying to get his way through. When he dies, there isn’t a great triumphal parade. He isn’t taken as the great person. He doesn’t get all his plays published, which is really odd, in the first folio…
So in the end you have to serve that story, serve that play, and make it work for the for the public. And we’re very keen on that so that kids from 9 to 90 can come in and enjoy the beauty of the poetry, and see a storyline that isn’t so confusing. Because it is quite confusing, at times — what he does with going to England and then not going to England. ..The fact that number of things in the play happen off-stage… The whole pirate fight is off stage. The sort of semi-rape of Ophelia, that is a reported story. An unusual way to do a play. But he did it, and so we interpreted it as we see it.
There are so many different ways to play Hamlet, but it sounds like you are very sympathetic to the character at least.
I feel very happy playing Hamlet. I have lived a life that has been through so many different phases and challenges that I felt very happy to take on his challenge. But the procrastination of him, I found fascinating, and the self-questioning. You say, “Well, what am I doing? I’m not bloody doing anything,” and he isn’t. He just isn’t getting it done. Then he kills Polonious, and what he does to Ophelia is disgusting; it is overtly horrific. … And regime changes happen. So playing him as mad, okay. It’s a trope that had happened before many times, and we see that down the ages. But then to take it out on Ophelia, and then when she’s died, to be at the funeral saying, “I loved her 40,000 times more than you.” Well, we weren’t seeing any of that, mate, because you weren’t doing that! So to track a human being through Hamlet is really a tough thing to do. You hope you can bring the audience with you on that character. He’s the trickiest to land.
But Ophelia dying, she has this song to sing, as she is going, as she is coming apart at the seams, and playing that is very affecting. The way we’ve chosen to do it is, she doesn’t really get going into the song, but she does sing as beautifully as she can, as beautifully as I can sing, with a control to her voice. But it is more like a broken record that she’s playing. So each night I do delight in all the characters. … Gertrude — didn’t she sense that something was weird, that he suddenly died. Were a lot of serpents biting people in those days. I don’t know, in Denmark, it seemed rather cold. Were there lots of snakes around? There’s so many questions in it. It’s so tricky and you can take it so many different ways. So you make your choices and you dive in and go for it.
There is a thing that any actor could feel if, going into it multiple times — you know, 10, 50 performances, a hundred, 150, and I’m over 200 now — that you could lose the joy, lose the passion of it. But it’s not happening and I’m happy to keep bringing it around the world.
Is there anything you think might feel different in how you bring it to L.A.?
Not necessarily, because I tend to try and pull the audience to me, as opposed to saying, “You are a Los Angeles audience. So I better be aware of that.” I would not have been that way whether I’m playing Los Angeles or I’m playing Sydney Opera House, as we’re doing next year, or Oakland or London or Manchester or France. I will pull that audience to my performance. I feel that’s the way every actor should do that.
But I’m looking forward to the Montalbon. I was last there, I think, with Robin Williams, performing with him at a benefit performance. It’s nice to be back there. And Ricardo Montalban’s a very interesting guy. I was just watching an episode of “Columbo” with him, a really fine performance. Ricardo Montalban is probably been known for “The Wrath of Khan.” But I could just see he must have had big status back in Mexico and then was someone who was breaking through in Los Angeles at whatever level he could, even though, at the time, probably they weren’t gonna build an entire film around him. Anyway, there’s such a history in that building. I will try and pull Los Angeles to me, as opposed to tailoring it to anyone, and say, “Come and see where my imagination has taken this, and our work has taken this.”
You’ve developed a great Shakespearian scholarship, it seems.
If you know anything about my standup, you know I’m a history savant. I inhale history, because I do feel the repetitions of human beings. Our brain pan size has been the same for a hundred thousand years or more. So the brightest, most interesting humans on the planet have had this ability to look at the world, to study, to articulate, in many fine ways down the centuries. And so to reach back into what this guy, William Shakespeare, was doing… Was he gay? Was he Catholic? Was he lying about things in his life? He didn’t go to university. He must have been pissed off about that. And going from his comedies to his tragedies, that journey, which I’m now just following in his footsteps, I find that fascinating. And so to be going through, traveling through his mind, and out into the audience…
And particularly having this thing of the four years I worked on the street, that put me in such an unusual place, which I’m very happy to get where I can do the soliloquies to the audience. If you watch online, you can see Richard Burton in his famous “Hamlet,” where he seems to be performing at his soliloquies at the audience, rather than to them. But I think it is necessary to do these where you really are talking to them. I see them as the Greek chorus of Hamlet’s mind, and that’s how I talk to the audience: they’re on my side. They’re my gang. So that’s how I will do these soliloquies to them.
