Winter2000TheSoulOfTheActor
withRogerHendricksSimon
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Winter2000TheSoulOfTheActor
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Q&A | withRogerHendricksSimon |
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Q: What led you to create your professional lab for young actors, writers
and directors – a “gymnasium” approach to training?
A: I was a founding member at Yale
Repertory Theatre in the 60’s and instead of going “west” to
Hollywood, which would have been commercially profitable, I went to England! At Yale, I had the extraordinary opportunity to listen to amazingly
vibrant directors Stella Adler, Bobby Lewis, Jonathan Miller, to experience
theatre companies like the Living Theatre, the Open Theatre, actors from the
Royal Shakespeare Company, who came to perform.
When I was invited to teach in London for a summer, I leapt at it and
directed a play by Megan Terry called Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place.
When we used flags as bed spreads we were promptly arrested. England still had a censor in 1967. But all of a sudden I was invited to direct throughout Europe,
principally the Royal Court Theatre (London), State Theatres in Denmark Nancy
Festival Du Monde, at the Abbey Theatre and Edinburgh Festival.
The world became much smaller.
The Simon Studio is a direct result of my years directing.
Actors don’t have to create in a room all by themselves, directors,
and writers should be there too. The
Arts should be a common language, an inter-action.
A: All the good and
bad you have in a revolution. All
of a sudden there were all these great ways to work as opposed to saying there’s
just one particular school. We
had Paul Sills and Viola Spolin from Second City the same year the Royal Shakespeare
Company taught us. It became very
hard to say “there’s only one way that really works.
It’s a matter of breaking down walls.
You learn you don’t have to fear the writer or director.
A: Putting contemporary
writers side be side with the classics, as well as actors with writers and directors.
The best training to help the artist grow is one night you’re doing
Pinter, or Williams, the next Shakespeare.
New works loosens the language of the classics.
The continual work on the classics also gives you a discipline and through
that respect, it reinforces your respect in contemporary works.