Now sitting at the pinnacle of Australian theatre royalty, John Bell began his journey to the throne at 14 when he first caught the Shakespeare bug. He went on to study at the Bristol Old Vic and perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company for five years, before co-founding the seminal Nimrod Theatre in 1970. The year 1990 saw John return to the Bard as the eponymous founder of the Bell Shakespeare Company (BSC). Twenty years later, approaching his 70th birthday, John is playing the lead in Shakespeare’s epic family tragedy King Lear. And despite the magnitude of the milestones and the role itself, the Bard from Maitland doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
This year Bell Shakespeare Company celebrates its 20th anniversary and while John says he has been doing ‘more of the same’ since he first appeared in map magazine eight years ago, the company has expanded its education arm and established Mind’s Eye to create new Australian works – with nine projects currently under development.
What hasn’t waivered is John’s passion and commitment to sharing the power of Shakespeare’s works with future generations. Not one to shy away from the big challenges, the company is celebrating its anniversary by presenting the epic King Lear.
“We wanted to do something big, big scale,” says John. “King Lear is about the biggest epic play that you can imagine. It’s also one of the few plays I can do now at my age. So it seemed like a good conjunction to bring them together.”
The national tour (presented in Brisbane by Queensland Theatre Company) is currently playing to packed houses with strong attendances from school students. “It’s very important that young people hear and see Shakespeare live,” John explains. “Reading from a book or watching it on video doesn’t have the same impact.”
“I think Lear is the most profound and uncompromising play ever written. It has a lot to say about identity generation gap and fractured families. And it’s a very affecting play where audiences stand every night and cheer, which is quite unusual for a tragedy but I think they find it so exhilarating – it’s so epic – the kind of thing you just don’t get on television.”
Bell Shakespeare now has three education teams on tour, providing children the opportunity to interact with the actors, ask questions and discuss the plays. The grand storytelling of Shakespeare has also found favour in remote indigenous communities.
“They love storytelling, they love performing; so we spend up to a fortnight with communities translating the plays into indigenous languages,” says John. “Having them tell the stories in their own way; comparing our myths and legends with their myths and legends and seeing how the two come together. The magic of Shakespeare’s worlds. They find that very accessible.”
John’s passion and interest lies in Shakespeare’s storytelling and the various “moral universes” that he creates as settings. Mostly, it seems, John likes to challenge and investigate.
“When you’re working with great material all the time, with the big questions being approached and examined but not answered, it’s such a positive and huge challenge, and that’s worthwhile,” John said eight years ago.
His circle of inspiration has today grown from Peter Singer to include thinkers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and AC Grayling. “I think they are all very important people and good spokesmen for a very large silent majority of people who haven’t the faith and no religion but are looking for some other philosophical guidance and a new form of secular ethics,” John explains.
King Lear itself addresses similar issues. “The original story has a very Christian setting and happy ending. Shakespeare deliberately set it back in pagan times and gives it a very tragic twist. I think he is questioning the idea that there are any gods or supernatural powers, or if they exist, they are entirely indifferent to man. He wouldn’t have got away with that if he had set it in his own time – it would have been considered heresy.”
Unlike King Lear, the question of who will succeed the King at Bell Shakespeare Company is not an issue for John. Would either of his two daughters (actress Lucy and playwright Hilary) be in line? “No, they’re nowhere near it,” John laughs. “The time will come in four or five years when I want to hand over the company to someone else. But I say that every year so it’s possibly not saying much.”
The legacy of Bell Shakespeare’s success over the past 20 years has instilled confidence in John that the flame will continue to burn. “I got excited by seeing great actors perform Shakespeare and I think we are having that same impact.” There are many stories of young Australian actors and directors who were initially inspired by a BSC performance, and subsequently pursued a career in theatre. “It’s the next generation that will be making all the decisions … the work they
are doing, the originality of their thought. We have a whole new wave of creative people in art, in music, in theatre, and that’s a good sign of a healthy society,” John says.
And what are the great challenges ahead for the company? “Our biggest problem still is a lack of advocacy,” says John. “We have very few public figures speaking out in support of the arts. Without them the arts tends to get sidelined in the media. It’s only when you have some outspoken person who endorses the arts as an important activity that the general public gets the message.”
Eight years ago John expressed gratitude for a life in the theatre that had given him “everything he had ever dreamed of” and encouraged readers to “follow their bliss”. Reminded of his words of wisdom, John offers a new approach to life in a contemporary moral universe riddled with conflict and challenges.
“Be aware,” he advises. “There is so much happening around us whether it’s in politics, in climate change, in history wars, or this whole religious fundamentalist revival. There is so much going on that if we don’t take note of it we are in peril of going under. We have to be aware of what’s going on around, take note, react responsibly and accordingly, and be outspoken about important issues.”
Interview By Jon Stikman.
