Podcast Extra: André Holland on Shakespeare’s “Richard II”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Books, Society & Culture, Remnick, Storytelling, Wnyc, News, David, Yorker, Arts, Politics, New

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2020

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This summer, the Public Theatre, in New York, is putting on Shakespeare’s history play “Richard II.” Because most theatre was cancelled, even outdoors, due to the pandemic, the Public partnered with WNYC to bring the show to the radio. The production stars André Holland as the weak, indecisive king who faces a rebellion by his cousin, Bolingbroke. Richard is not a “bad dude,” Holland says, but a man doing the best he can in a situation he cannot manage. The theatre critic Vinson Cunningham spoke with Holland about performing Shakespeare as a Black actor and his concerns about taking on the role of King Richard: What would a Black man playing the failed leader convey to an audience? Holland also explains why he thinks that Black actors are particularly suited to inhabiting the language of Shakespeare.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm David Remnick, and this is a special episode of our podcast. This summer, the public theater in New York is putting on Shakespeare's play, Richard the Second. Now, normally, of course, they'd be doing it for free in Central Park, but it was canceled. So Richard the second is happening instead on the radio and on podcast in four episodes.
0:23.4	The New Yorker's theater critic Vincent Cunningham hosts the event,
0:27.1	and you don't have to stand in line for eight hours in the sun to get tickets.
0:34.3	Richard II is about a weak, indecisive king who loses control and faces a rebellion by his cousin.
0:38.5	Andre Holland plays Richard, and he talked with Vincent Cunningham.
0:44.5	As the host of this radio production, I interviewed a number of the principal actors in the show,
0:46.8	and I was especially excited to talk to Andre Holland.
0:52.9	You might remember him from the great movie Moonlight, and he was also the lead in a movie I loved so much called High Flying Bird.
0:54.8	He's a wonderful presence on screen, a wonderful voice.
0:59.1	And the casting of this production was really unusual.
1:01.9	Most of the principal actors are black people and people of color.
1:05.4	And this was all decided well before we knew that it couldn't happen in the Delacourt Theater and instead would
1:12.4	have to happen on radio. And so much of the complication, much of the challenge of making the
1:19.4	production was having the sort of color consciousness that is so much a part of the public's mission
1:25.2	often with Shakespeare and making it come across in terms of
1:29.3	sounds instead of sights. So one of the things that Andre and I talked about a lot is performing
1:34.7	Shakespeare as a black actor. It really spoke to me, man. The language really moved me and it
1:40.5	sounded so much like people who I had grown up around, you know what I mean, in Alabama.
1:45.0	And I just felt really connected to it.
1:48.8	You know, there's a, there's a rhythm to the, to the language that it can sound, I think, at worst, sort of repetitive and boring. But I think really what he was trying to do
2:03.6	was right the way that human beings speak and think. And, you know, when I think about black
2:10.5	people in the South, you know, we kind of naturally speak in this like iambic pentameter kind of
	...

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