Glenda Jackson

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2019

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

The great Glenda Jackson is back on the stage. In 1992, the Emmy and two-time Academy Award winner was elected to Parliament. She spent the next 23 years in Britain’s House of Commons. Since returning to theater in 2015, she’s played King Lear on London’s West End and won a Tony Award for her performance in Edward Albee’s "Three Tall Women." Now, she’s playing Lear again in a new production, directed by Sam Gold, on Broadway. We were thrilled to get Glenda Jackson into the studio to talk about playing a king, opportunities for women in the arts, and the intricacies of her performance in the new production of "King Lear." Jackson is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 14, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “What Have You Performed?”, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Technical help came from Robert Auld, Helena DeGroot, Deb Stathopulos, and Larry Josephson at The Radio Foundation studios in New York.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spend more than 60 years in the public eye and you can understand how.
0:05.0	She ends up here.
0:07.0	Take physics,
0:10.0	expose yourself to feel what wretches feel
0:16.0	that thou may shake the superflux to them and show the heavens more just...
0:23.6	From the Folger-Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore,
0:39.2	the Folgers director. That, of course, was the great Glenda Jackson. I can't begin to list
0:46.1	all of the accolades and accomplishments in the life of Glenda Jackson. If you need it all
0:51.4	spelled out, go to her Wikipedia page. It's long.
0:56.0	In short, though, two Academy Awards for Best Actress,
1:00.0	two Primetime Emmy Awards for her performance of Queen Elizabeth I on PBS in the 1970s,
1:07.0	there's also a Tony Award in there for Best Actress in a Play.
1:19.5	All that, despite giving up acting entirely in 1992, to serve 23 years in the British House of Commons.
1:26.3	She's back in full force now, performing on Broadway in a production of King Lear.
1:29.8	We had the great good fortune to get Glenda Jackson into the studio in New York to talk about playing a king after playing a queen, opportunities for
1:36.7	women in the arts, and the intricacies of this new King Lear production. We call this podcast,
1:43.1	What Have You Performed? Glenda Jackson is interviewed by Barbara
1:48.3	Bogave. You've played monarchs before, Queen Elizabeth I, the first, for instance, for Elizabeth
1:55.0	R. But this was your first king. So my question was, do the two roles inform each other at all? Or do you approach each, each monarch and each role with specificity, you know, that they're apples and oranges and not just because of gender?
2:09.6	Well, another actor who I know and who had played several kings was asked, how do you play a king? And he said, you don't have to. Everybody does it for you
2:18.9	because they all stand up when you come into the room and they bow. And there's an element of
2:23.0	truth in that, of course. The basic difference here is that Elizabeth was a real ruler.
	...

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