A New Type of Person (Tatler, 21 July 1965)
By J. Roger Baker
The interpretive artist adapts to the conditions of the age. Centralization of young acting talent into national repertory companies, ease of world travel, the experimental impulses observed in other countries, the cinema's cultivation of the big personality have all helped to create a new type of person. Though there is always space for the individual charisma of a Callas, a Fonteyn, a Dame Edith Evans, the age of the Great Lady of the Stage seems to be passing. The actress, the ballerina and the soprano who here indicate how they fit into the changing picture are all young, all possess a strong individual following and are all adapting to the new conditions.
1. The Actress
Maggie Smith was one of the first people to be invited to join the National Theatre company. Previously her career had followed the old pattern, glittering in a succession of long-running plays. "Actors today," she says, "are more interested in acting than in being part of a long run. During my spell in Mary, Mary I was able to take a Cordon Bleu cookery course during the day but by the end of the run I was practically hanging from the picture rail. You must do lots of things, which is why the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company are so healthy."
The first time she went to the theatre she saw The Shop at Sly Corner. "I thought oh no. I don't want to go there again." A not particularly promising reaction from a little girl who would one day become an actress herself. She was born in Ilford in Essex, but went to Oxford High School for Girls when her parents moved out there. Later she went to the Oxford Playhouse School where she did the usual jobs, like assistant stage manager, while learning about the stage. There was no parental opposition to this career: "My twin brothers became architects. Now this was way out as far as my parents were concerned, so I suppose they just gave up when it came to me."
This nervous, flip approach informs much of what she says and makes for a consistently entertaining narrative. Coming up form her cottage in the country to the Old Vic by car sometimes makes her slightly late for rehearsals. "I ring up and tell them and they say oh yes, Miss Smith, but they don't believe me, you know. Yesterday I got stuck behind a lorry in the Blackwall tunnel and its patrol tank blew up, all smoke and flame. I just sat there. It was like something out of Fellini's 8 1/2 - but I'm sure no-one believes me." The telephone in her flat rang, it was answered but she wasn't summoned to it. "It's not for me," she sighed. "I'm a failure."
Failure is something Maggie Smith has not yet had to face - though she has been in the occasional unsuccessful play. From Oxford she went to Edinburgh to take part in a revue which later came to the Watergate Theatre Club Then she appeared on Broadway as a comedienne in New Faces '56, and this was followed later by her first decisive appearance in London sharing the lead with Kenneth Williams in Share my Lettuce which immediately cast her as a revue artist. She will never do another revue, she says: "It can ruin you."
Mainly comedy roles followed, notably in Mary, Mary and in Restoration and Shakespeare with the Old Vic in their 1959 season.
"The National Theatre has given me an opportunity to extend my range considerably. I am very much aware that I have certain tricks and mannerisms, but I am now going through a period of trying to strip them away and build again." Opportunities are frequent for her with the National Theatre. Among the serious parts she has attempted are Hilde Wangel in The Master Builder (or Hilde Bangles, as she calls the role), and Desdemona in Othello, a controversial performance unpleasing to the younger critics but highly thought of by the older generation of theatre-goers. At Chichester this summer she plays the title role in Miss Julie opposite Albert Finney.
Playing Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing this year gave her an opportunity to work with Franco Zeffirelli which was, apparently, stimulating if unnerving: "It is very difficult for English actors to become Italian overnight. He says 'Be excited, make a lot of noise' so what do you do, mutter 'marry come up' or something? He was all over the place, doing Tosca in Paris at the same time, then I had this really weird wig to wear."
Humility is a strong characteristic of Maggie Smith's approach. She says: "I went tripping in to do the Rehearsal thinking I knew a lot, but Alan Badel soon sorted me out. I learned a lot from him." She has made potent appearances in films, notably The V.I.P.s and Young Cassidy but finds it impossible to combine filming with acting on the stage. She also dislikes the lack of team work in filming which means often that she can do all her scenes without meeting more than a few of her fellow actors in the film. As to the future she sees no clear picture of her progress: "I really can't say what I want to do, any particular role, for example. I rely on others to tell me, to come up and say try this."