Harriet Walter on Imogen

A Master Performer's Guide to Shakespeare's Most Complex Heroine

Understand one of Shakespeare's most resilient characters through expert eyes

About the Ebook

Harriet Walter discusses playing Imogen in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, in this ebook taken from Shakespeare On Stage: Volume 2 - Twelve Leading Actors on Twelve Key Roles.

In each volume of the Shakespeare On Stage series, a leading actor takes us behind the scenes of a landmark Shakespearean production, recreating in detail their memorable performance in a major role. They lead us through the choices they made in rehearsal, and how the character works in performance, shedding new light on some of the most challenging roles in the canon. The result is a series of individual masterclasses that will be invaluable for other actors and directors, as well as students of Shakespeare – and fascinating for audiences of the plays.

In this volume, Harriet Walter discusses playing the role of Imogen in Shakespeare's late romance, Cymbeline, in Bill Alexander's Royal Shakespeare Company production in 1987.

This interview, together with the others in the series (with actors such as Ian McKellen, Simon Russell Beale, Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw), is also available in the collection Shakespeare On Stage: Volume 2 - Twelve Leading Actors on Twelve Key Roles by Julian Curry, with a foreword by Nicholas Hytner.

Why You'll Love This Ebook

• Learn from an award-winning performer's interpretation of a complex role
• Explore the emotional and textual layers that define Imogen's journey
• Discover techniques for portraying resilience and transformation on stage
• Study the craft from Nick Hern Books' premium artist-scholar collection

About the Author

Harriet Walter is a leading actor on stage and screen.

On stage, she has played many Shakespearean characters including Ophelia, Helena, Portia, Viola, Imogen, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice and Cleopatra (most of them for the RSC). She has also played Brutus, Henry IV and Prospero in all-female productions at the Donmar Warehouse.

She has played many other great classical stage roles, including the Duchess of Malfi (RSC), Hedda Gabler (Chichester and tour), Nina in Thomas Kilroy’s Irish version of Chekhov’s The Seagull with Anna Massey and Alan Rickman (Royal Court), Masha in Three Sisters (RSC; Olivier Award), Anna Petrovna in Ivanov with Ralph Fiennes (Almeida), Hester in The Deep Blue Sea (Theatre Royal Bath and tour), and Elizabeth I in Schiller’s Mary Stuart (Donmar Warehouse, West End, and Broadway; Evening Standard Award and Tony Award nomination). She has also performed in several contemporary classics including Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine (Royal Court), Harold Pinter’s Old Times (West End), Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour (National), and as Linda in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with Antony Sher (RSC, Stratford and West End).  

She has created roles in new plays including Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and Yasmina Reza’s Life x 3 (National), Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field (Royal Court), Stephen Lowe’s adaptation of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Joint Stock), Moira Buffini’s Dinner (National and West End), Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes, Stephen Poliakoff’s Sweet Panic, Tamsin Oglesby’s US and Them (Hampstead), and Clara Brennan’s Boa opposite her husband, Guy Paul (Trafalgar Studios).

Her films include The Sense of an Ending, Mindhorn, Denial, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Suite Française, Man Up, The Wedding Video, Young Victoria, Babel, Villa des Roses (British Independent Film Award nomination), Sense and Sensibility and Louis Malle’s Milou en Mai. Her television work ranges from The Imitation Game by Ian McEwan and The Cherry Orchard (both directed by Richard Eyre), The Price (Channel 4 and RTÉ), Harriet Vane in the BBC’s Lord Peter Wimsey series and The Men’s Room, via guest appearances in Inspector Morse, Waking the Dead, Spooks, Poirot, Midsomer Murders and New Tricks, to more recent appearances as D.I. Natalie Chandler in Law and Order: UK, Little Dorrit, Downton Abbey, Black Sails, Call the Midwife and as Clementine Churchill in the Netflix series The Crown.

She has written several books, including Brutus and Other Heroines and Other People’s Shoes (both published by Nick Hern Books), Macbeth (Faber and Faber’s ‘Actors on Shakespeare’ series) and Facing It: Reflections on Images of Older Women (Facing It Publications).

She is an Honorary Associate Artist of the RSC, an Honorary D.Litt at Birmingham University, and was awarded a CBE in 2000 and a Damehood in 2011.

Publication Details

ISBN (EPUB): 9781780018966
Publication Date: 27 April 2017
Pages: 38
Format: Ebook (EPUB)
Publisher: Nick Hern Books

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