ML: Did the changes in your mother impact your [2014] production of Lear?
Actually, not that much. I guess a friend of mine impacted it more. He was a brilliant, brilliant man who now has Alzheimer’s. I love him very much; I love his wife very much. He’s had Alzheimer’s for about five years now. Just a tragedy, the horror of watching one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever had the honor of knowing turn into what he’s turned into. It’s just so painful.
I still spend as much time as I can with him and his wife. I recognized that he would ask the same questions over and over again, and Lear did the same thing. I went, “Oh my God! Oh my God! He’s in dementia.” So it was really my friend who had that tremendous impact on that production, because, as I said, my mother did not have dementia. She would forget things, but it was normal forgetting for her age. But! She never forgot anything that the Republicans did. (Laughs)
ML: Nor should she.
Right! She was still Rhoda. And she was still funny, and she still enjoyed a glass of wine and having people around her that she loved. But my friend, now, who is in this horrible dementia, Alzheimer’s, that’s totally different. He’s not there anymore, and that’s the difference. My friend has lost himself. So going through that was the trigger [for that production].
I’ve always felt that Lear was kind of crazy before the show begins, always. I just didn’t know enough about dementia to put it all together until I went through that with my friend. No one in his right mind would give away the kingdom and expect to be treated the same way by everybody. That’s just plain crazy. So I realized, when I got to know dementia in that personal way, that the king, before the show even begins, is in it. Otherwise, you just don’t divide that kingdom up. That’s a sure way for disaster, and Shakespeare knew it and wrote about it, and he must have known people who were in it. That is my assumption. I directed it twice before, and it never occurred to me, because I had never been through it before. It’s the experiencing of [dementia] that reminded me of Lear.
ML: My wife and I have experienced dementia with my wife’s mother. She recently passed away, and, like you, we were both there.
I’m glad you were there.
ML: Because of our experience, I connected powerfully with your production.
Oh, I’m so glad. I’m glad it connected to you. I’m glad you were able to feel that. In some way, it makes you a little less lonely to see that one of the great geniuses of life was able to connect with the horror, the pain and the tragedy of a great mind gone. Thank you very much. It makes me feel so good to know. Please tell your wife that it’s a comfort to my heart.
ML: During an experience like yours, both with your mother and your friend, does any part of you divide off and witness it as an artist and think, what can I salvage from this?
Oh, it’s a wonderful thing. Life is wonderful. Through all the good and bad and horror, all artists, and I’m quoting someone, I can’t remember who. I love this idea. Artists weave their grief into art. And that’s what we do. We take everything. We take the good moments, we take the bad, we take the silly, we take the insane, and we put it in our play.
Is there solace in that?
Oh, it’s great. Yes, great solace. Because you have to communicate all these emotional moments to your actors. You have to communicate what it feels like to give up hope or what it feels like to have a parent die, or a child die, or like Orlando to fall in love with a lightning bolt in your heart. You have to dredge up all of these wonderful memories, all of these moments of your own life, and communicate from your own life through Shakespeare to the actors. It is opening your veins every time, every day, every moment and every rehearsal. And that is an unbelievable feeling. You do get very tired, but you also feel a sense of relief that this very complex range of emotions can be shared. You got that in Lear, Mark. Very complex; from a bastard to someone you felt badly for. Lear. He was this total, complex tyrant in some ways, and then your heart would break for him.
Your heart absolutely does break for him.
And that’s the key, to be able to communicate, and you only have yourself. You have to investigate your own interior landscape; otherwise, I don’t know how you can direct, actually. A lot of people do it in a totally different way. There are many roads to Mecca. As wesay, there are many roads to Windsor. And everyone has a different style and a different way of getting through and making, you know, a different window. My window is to go down deep within myself and try and help people understand through whatever it is I’ve lived through. And then Shakespeare, of course, is the trigger.
And you have a venue to share it!
I do! No kidding.
ML: Would that make it hard to retire?
Oh, I never think about retiring, except when I’m really tired and a technical rehearsal has gone south. Retirement killed my father. Yeah. Without a doubt. He never planned on retiring. It really hurt him. He had nothing to look forward to. Look: most artists who are as passionate as myself, and not everybody is, but when you have this kind of passion that is the fuel for your life, the only thing you can think about is the next thing you must communicate. So that’s how I live my life.
EPILOGUE
ML: Keep working, Barbara, you’re still young.
Yeah. But you know what? You always think, Oh my God, if my eyes go, if my hearing goes — those are the two crucial things, right? Sight and vision. (Laughs) [If they go], then you teach; then you do something to share, to give something back; that’s the key.
ML: That’s what happened to you at the beginning, isn’t it, after your knee went out?
Yep, that’s right. There’s a wonderful play called Duet for One. It’s based on the life of Jacqueline du Prè, the cellist who had developed MS and couldn’t play. One of the doctors says to her, “There are many branches on the tree of life.” Which I think is something we all have to remember. So your question can’t even be answered because there are so many impulses inside of me that need to come out. Just consider me pregnant with a whale. (Laughs)
ML: You make your own luck.
You make your own luck, you do.