Recently starring opposite Alfred Enoch in Romeo and Juliet at the Globe, Sirine Saba has a strong background in Shakespeare. She has over twenty years of experience performing on the hallowed stages of the National Theatre, the RSC and the Globe. She has worked with some of the most innovative and exciting directors working today; Blanche McIntyre, Adrian Noble, and Joanna Hogg to name just a few. The Indiependent spoke to her about her career and relationship with the Bard.
The Indiependent: You have performed Shakespeare at some iconic stages, including the RSC to the Globe, what draws you to the Bard?
Saba: I am drawn to the bard. But the bard is also drawn to me. I haven’t fought tooth and nail to do Shakespeare, new writing has come towards me in the last ten years. My first job was with the RSC. I was playing first fairy in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The scene attracted attention, it was ground-breaking. So my first professional introduction to Shakespeare was really exciting.
What about it was so ground breaking?
Tom Piper’s set was extraordinary, it was strikingly bleak with this smooth semi-circular background with five doors. And that was it. We used these five doors to create magic on stage. There was nothing to see, but when a door opened the world fell apart. You don’t need all those lights and all that music. One door opening on a blank stage is plenty.
Matthew Warchus’ The Winter’s Tale was again supremely exciting and ground-breaking. Part one was set in 1940’s Chicago and part two set in the deep south in the 1950’s. The transition from part one into the interval used a real-life hawk swooping across the roundhouse space to land onto Florizel’s forearm so that when he says in part two: “I bless the time when my good falcon made her flight across thy father’s ground”, we have seen the falcon. It was magic. It was just so exciting.
Something that has come to the forefront of a lot of people’s attention is the question of gender in Shakespeare. For example, Kathryn Hunter has just reprised her role as King Lear for at the Globe. What is your take on this?
It has been a long-standing frustration that most Shakespeare plays have three female characters and numerous male characters. When I started out at RADA, there was a 50/50 split [of male/female students]. But we were told categorically that you will work less because you are a woman. We never questioned this. We just said “oh that’s what happens”. In my day we took it as red. We were told we were going to have to work way harder. What’s exciting at the moment is that there is this slowly emerging 50/50 split among casts. We just do not live in a time anymore where it is acceptable to say, “sorry ladies there is just less out there for you”. The most recent Shakespeare I did had a fifty/fifty gender split.
As a performer, how do you feel about meddling with the DNA of a play a la Nicholas Hynter’s Midsummer’s Night Dream to rejig some of, what we would call, the problematic elements?
[Nicholas Hynter’s production of a Midsummer’s Night Dream saw Oberon tricked into falling in love with Bottom rather than Titania]
The swapping of Titania and Oberon was inspired. It was such a brilliant move. Since I heard that he did that I have wanted to swap all of them, like Katherine and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. It’s an extraordinary thing, that these plays keep getting done. There are people that argue we should be investing in new plays, telling new stories. But actually, we apply what is happening in our society, the changes that are happening around us, to these old plays that are so beautifully written and people do flock to see them. How wonderful to have this history of extraordinary literature with Shakespeare, but to then be able to apply our present experience with them.
Younger generations don’t tend to engage in theatre that can be demanding on their attention spans. Do you think the digital era has changed the way creatives approach Shakespeare?
Using phones have already crept into productions of classical texts. But the thing about Shakespeare is that a lot of the drama, a lot of the tension, comes from characters not being able to reach each other. Take Romeo and Juliet: she would just text him. Friar Lawrence could have just sent a text. Romeo would get Juilet’s number off someone or call her. You wouldn’t need the balcony scene.
I notice that you are multilingual. Do you think that being able to speak different languages illuminates a different side of Shakespeare?
[Saba was born in Lebanon during the Civil Strife, and grew up in Cyprus]
Multilingual also means multi-ethnic. I access to certain sides of my personality that maybe if I was completely white, or completely British, I might not be able to access with as much ease. Having grown up in a world where hot feelings are very natural and are expressed quite willingly, it gives you a shortcut to accessing those aspects of a personality. I feel that the more international aspect of my life and upbringing have opened me up to a larger pool of emotional availability.
Words by Alexander Cohen
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