M2: Firebrand Fiennes!


By Diane Parkes
Evening Mail
pp. 35-36
April 25, 2003






RALPH Fiennes is a man with a mission. The English Patient and Schindler's List star is currently treading the boards in Stratford-upon-Avon as the single-minded preacher Brand. And, despite the fact Brand - a man who turns his back on his dying mother and sacrifices his own child -- is a highly unlikable character, Fiennes admits he does see a streak of himself in the character.

'He has a powerful, uncompromising vision which is inspiring but destructive, ' he says. 'It is that paradox in the role which attracts me.

'I certainly feel that the drive and some of the mission in Brand is something I can identify with.'

Directed by Adrian Noble, this Royal Shakespeare Company production of Ibsen's Brand has taken its time to reach fruition. Noble first handed Fiennes the play more than two years ago and suggested he give it a read. Fiennes admits he knew nothing of the character he is now playing.

'I was pretty unfamiliar with Ibsen,' he says, 'but the power of the role particularly struck me. The difficulty is to make sure you don' t play him as extremely mad - I tried to find the doubts and questions in him.

'You respond to a part. When I read Brand I just had a gut response that this was a part I wanted to play.'

After eight weeks of rehearsals, Brand was first performed last week at the Swan Theatre. It is due to play in Stratford until the end of May when it will transfer to London's West End.

At a press conference yesterday in Stratford to promote the play, 40-year old Fiennes was characteristically quietly spoken but animated when talking about his passion -- acting. Dressed immaculately in black and brown with a leather jacket, his responses were earnest and he was keen not to steal the limelight from Noble. Questions about his private life were given polite but short answers and he was clearly much happier talking about his character than himself.

Brand is not Ibsen's most accessible play. Bleak in landscape and in characterisation, it features the story of the preacher Brand who believes so uncompromisingly in an 'all or nothing' approach to life that he cannot bend to the humanity of those around him.

But how relevant is a story based in such stringent religion to the lives of people today?

'I think looking at faith and addressing spiritual needs is very present in the country today,' says Fiennes. 'Even Brand says he is an individual trying to figure out his identity in terms of God and man.

'And the audience see Brand with his mother and with his wife, which is something they can understand.

'Ibsen said Brand could just have easily have been an architect or politician.

'It is simply about a man of vision -- a passionate burning vision which takes no prisoners.'

'I think with September 11 the world was smashed in the face by very extreme fundamentalism -- people that believe like Brand that death is the only victory.

'I think what shocked us was where free will could take people.'

These days better known for his film roles and having recently starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan, Fiennes has a long history of appearing on the English stage -- not least at Stratford where he has appeared in The Plantaganets, Love's Labour's Lost, Troilus and Cressida and King Lear. So how does it feel to be back?

'It is quite strange actually,' he says. 'I had two very memorable seasons here but have been away for 13 years now.

'I keep thinking I see actors I worked with hanging around the corridors.'

And his partner Francesca Annis, whom he met when playing Hamlet to her Gertrude on the stage in London nearly ten years ago, has already been in the audience. 'She saw it last week and enjoyed it,' says Fiennes, 'although she did give me a few notes.'

And Noble has no doubt Fiennes is the man for the job. 'Part of the reason this play is so rarely performed is that there are not many actors who could play the part of Brand,' he says.

'The demands of this role make it as difficult a part to play as Shakespeare' s King Lear but you need a much younger actor.

'There are not many actors who could succeed playing this role. You need someone who has real talent and that is Ralph.'

Brand plays at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon until May 24. Contact 0870 609 1110 or www.rsc.org.uk for ticket information.










 

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