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WITH his blue cotton jacket buttoned
to the throat Chinese-style and heavy, dark glasses concealing
his eyes, Alan Bates strode through the morning crowds of tourists
in Stratford-upon-Avon without drawing a single glance of recognition.
It is a fair bet that quite a few of the strollers had attended
the previous evening's performance of "Antony and Cleopatra,"
which has brought the actor back to major Shakespeare, but even
with his identifying mop of dark hair he passed unnoticed. And
that's the way he likes it.
  It
is 20 years since Bates was last in Stratford (in "The Taming
of the Shrew"). His return has given the Royal Shakespeare
Company its biggest presence for years, but Bates has studiously
avoided publicity and kept a low profile. A month after opening,
this was the first and only interview he allowed.
We took
a late breakfast at a local cafe where I had to open his miniature
pot of marmalade for him. He talked openly but with watchful
pauses, as though imagining how his answers might appear in print.
Although
the response to Bates's return to classical acting was warm,
Steven Pimlott's production fared less happily. Both the opening
scene of oral sex between the lovers and the death scenes, in
which the corpses stand up and walk away, came under intense
fire.
o
Tribute to Ollie o
While Bates
was happy to address himself to these, and other more personal
matters, there was one image from the play that the critics seem
to have missed that I wanted to put to him. During the bacchanalia
of the galley scene, when Pompey's party has reached the height
of drunkenness, Bates suddenly drops his trousers. This, I remembered,
was a regular carousing trick of the late Oliver Reed.
Bates grinned
broadly when I mentioned it. "Yes, you've got it. This is
my tribute to Ollie. It was certainly inspired by him. When you
get the amount of drinking and levity that the play describes
then it is bound to get a bit silly. So I took a cue from my
old friend.
"I
can't tell you how many times I saw him in his cups, but never
ever during work. He was totally there for the work, very professional,
but in the rest of his life he was not, shall we say, in quite
the same state.
"He
could have had a career like this, you know," he continued,
nodding towards the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. "Jonathan
Miller once asked him to play Richard III. Now imagine what that
could have been like."
o
Controversies o
 More memories of working with
Reed on their famous nude wrestling scene in "Women in Love"
were to come later. First we discussed the controversies raised
by the current production, in which Antony is first seen head
down between Frances de la Tour's open bare legs.
"I
haven't read anything myself but we've been told there has been
a bit of fuss. We thought it gave an expression of the passion
and closeness of their love. The relationship is founded on mutual
sensuality. It came up in rehearsal; we tried it, then rejected
it and finally reinstated it. I was very happy with it. Because
it is a court scene we thought it could be done stylistically
with the court turning its back on what happens.
"I
can't help thinking if it had been anywhere else in Europe no
one would have said a thing. We seem to be back to that "No
Sex Please, We're British" thing. I find the production
quite daring in many other ways.
"I
believe the death scenes are beautifully done. You just see the
spirit leaving the body. I had a letter from a widow who said
her husband's death had been exactly like that. She felt he had
just got up and walked away."
o
Waiting for 'Antony' o
 It
turns out that Bates has been waiting to play the role for more
than 10 years. Greek director Michael Cacoyannis, with whom he
made "Zorba the Greek," wanted him to star with Irene
Papas. Later, Frances de la Tour suggested they do it when they
were paired in "The Dance of Death" at Riverside Studios.
Last year he was announced for the National Theatre production
with Helen Mirren but had to withdraw with damaged cartilage
and ligaments. Alan Rickman replaced him but the show took a
critical hammering.
"So
Antony has been creeping up on me for quite a long time. I was
working with Frances on another film when the invitation from
the National arrived. I had to tell her I was doing it with somebody
else. That was a tricky moment. She walked me all over town for
a whole day. I now say that's what did my leg in. It was her
revenge. Well, that's our joke. But it took me nine months to
learn to stop limping."
The RSC
initially signed him for both "Antony "and "Timon
of Athens" but he had to withdraw from the latter when a
chest infection robbed him of 10 days' rehearsal. He said, "I
could not resist the double challenge. I have a hunger to do
as much as I can before the energy starts to go, and "Timon"
had been on my list for some time. But powers beyond my control
took over. Perhaps it was a message telling me I'd made a mistake."
Michael Pennington has taken over the role.
o
A New Plateau? o
 Bates
has always seemed drawn to the most demanding roles, be they
the endlessly loquacious characters of Simon Gray or stage-chewing
oddities like "The Showman," seen at the Almeida not
long ago. "I do have an appetite for fairly big things.
I look at it this way: I'm in this business. It's what I've always
wanted to do. I do it reasonably well. So I'll do as much as
I can."
He will
remain in Stratford until October, then go on to Plymouth, Newcastle
and the Barbican in London. "That takes me through to next
April and it suits me fine. There is no way I am going to get
bored with this show. It will continue to grow as we go along."
He has
at last achieved the long-sought working reunion with Cacoyannis,
on a film version of "The Cherry Orchard," again co-starring
de la Tour, which will open in London in October. "Michael
adapted it himself, raised the money - which for a long time
seemed impossible - and we shot it in Bulgaria. It's a strange
and exciting place, like a country in limbo trying to decide
where its future should be."
Alan Bates
is 64 and seems to have found a new plateau of existence after
the tragic loss of his son, Tristan, and wife, Victoria, in the
space of two years in the early 1990s. He cannot quite bring
himself to agree. "There is no right way of doing things.
You just live with it. There is no alternative but to accept
that you will live out your own span of time and miss them like
hell. There is nothing you can say. It is an everlasting thing."
While his
other son, Benedick, continues to be busy as an actor, Bates
has concentrated on supporting the Tristan Bates Theatre he established
as his dead son's memorial at the Actors' Centre in London. He
recently helped the theatre to become a producing venue as well
as a receiving house and it will now stage its own productions
for six months of the year.
o
Theatrical History o
There has
been a recent reminder of his own early breakthrough in the theatre
with the National's revival of "Look Back in Anger."
Bates played Cliff in the original 1956 Royal Court production.
"It was the first time I was seen in a recognised play and
people took notice. Doors began to open and I was being offered
work. I think there was a sense that the play would be seen as
ground-breaking. But the initial reaction was not very good until
Kenneth Tynan came to the rescue in The Observer. The rest we
know."
That was
the time when the young Bates was living in a flat in Battersea
that became a footnote in theatrical history in its own right.
He shared it with Albert Finney, Brian Bedford, Keith Baxter
and Roy Kinnear - all on the threshold of their careers. "That
life seemed to go on for 10 years but I'm sure it can't have
been that long. You always knew there would be someone around.
They were great days."
 We
returned to Ken Russell's film of "Women in Love."
There can be no higher act of courage for an actor than to enter
a naked wrestling contest with Oliver Reed, I suggested.
"Oh,
I don't know," he smiled. "We both knew the scene was
in the book and we would have to do it. The whole thing was very
carefully choreographed. Ken set up four cameras so we would
only have to do it once. We were due to rehearse it the day before
but for some reason Ollie decided he wanted to rehearse separately."
I interrupted
him to say that legend suggests Reed was worried that his manhood
might not measure up to Bates's and was only persuaded to continue
when he was assured of equality in that direction.
Bates grinned
again: "I think there may have been a bit of willie-watching
from Ollie. I think he was a bit concerned. When you are the
first people to do something like that it's easy to become a
bit paranoid. But by the time shooting came it was the last thing
on our minds. We did it in sections over a day and a half; it
was quite shattering."
He began
to button up his jacket again to walk back to the theatre. This
time he forgot the dark glasses. A group of schoolgirls spotted
him from across the road, but by the time they caught up he was
safe inside his house and the door was closing. His privacy was
once again complete.
Michael Owen, © The
Sunday Telegraph, 8 August 99, reprinted Wednesday, 11 August
99.
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