Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Williams and Will Keen talk about their roles in the Changeling, July 2006
[My transcript of Tom below the cut]
Tom: 0:00 - 6:38
‘The best thing about the particular story between Alsemero and Beatrice-Joanna was the rehearsal we had with Declan (Donnellan) and Nick (Ormerod) in Nancy, where I think we all realised - well, I realised - that Alsemero begins the play thinking that it’s a Shakespearean tragedy - like Romeo and Juliet - and it’s called Alsemero and Beatrice-Joanna. And, of course he hopes it won’t end tragically. He hopes it will be a fantastic love comedy and they’ll be happily married and there will be a dance, as there always is!
And what happens in The Changeling is that he realises in the scene where Beatrice-Joanna has the idea to get De Flores to murder her betrothed, Alonzo, that is where Alsemero and Beatrice-Joanna’s Romeo and Juliet story veers off the train tracks into something completely different.
And Alsemero has no idea. So, from that point on, he is kept out of the loop, and every time he sees the audience, and talks to them, and every time he’s on stage, he thinks that they know as much as he does. But in fact, they know everything. And he knows nothing. And for most of the second half of the play, he’s a pawn in the chess game that Beatrice-Joanna and De Flores are playing.
And then, what happens at the end of play in the final scene where Alsemero confronts Beatrice-Joanna about what he’s seen (he’s seen Beatrice-Joanna and De Flores together) is that he realises it hasn’t been a play about him at all. And he realises that he’s been kept completely out of the loop. And that’s his tragedy. That’s his narcissism, his loss. Narcissism in the sense that he thinks that he’s his own protagonist. But that actually he’s been a supporting player in a much greater scheme of things.
And what’s grown along the tour is playing the potential for a Romeo and Juliet story at the beginning, and playing the realisation that it was never going to be that at the end. I think that’s something that we didn’t achieve necessarily to its greatest effect at the beginning of the run, but it’s something that we’ve really worked on.
Every venue changes the show, which is the best thing about this tour. I think the fact that The Changeling moves from place to place every week - and we only do five performances in every venue - means the demands of the space and the mechanics of your entrances and exits, and just the technicality of the show have an effect on your performance. So it never feels like you’re trotting out the same performance, because you’re coming from a different place. Which is brilliant! So, yes, we’re performing for six months, but you’re not performing in the same place... It never gets robotic or routine because each theatre has its own personality which you adapt to, and that’s been brilliant.
When I first read the play, I thought that The Changeling had all the characteristics of a Jacobean tragedy in that it’s about visceral humanity and blood and sex and death. And that’s what we come to associate with Jacobean plays of this genre. But Declan was very keen on the first day to talk about how it’s the much more obscure things and deeper things in the play: like it’s loneliness - everyone is so lonely - Alsemero certainly ends up on his own; and loss; and lost love. It’s a play about wanting something or someone very, very hard - each character wants something very deeply. And it’s about trying to get what you want, and what happens when you don’t. A tragedy. Basically.
Declan and Nick never stop working! They’re always changing things. Or just reminding you of the same old things, which keep the stakes of any particular scene at their highest. So... if you feel like you’re getting stuck in something repetitive, or you just somehow have lost something, they always come and remind you of the basics, the absolutely simple things of the way they work, of Declan’s methods. It’s so simple. He asks the most simple questions of one as an actor, to get all of the important things like context and what there is to win in any given situation, what there is to lose in any given situation, and all of his stuff, which he describes in his very brilliant book. Plug that! *laughs* So that’s had a huge effect. And also there’s something about being a company. I think a company of actors get closer together when they’re on the road than they ever would in London, and that’s only ever a strength. And that’s the great thing about touring. The more you get to know people, the more familiar you become with them and the deeper the relationship you have on stage. So that’s, hopefully, something that’s reflected now on the last leg.’
