EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Hobbit Star Richard Armitage on the Digital Theatre Release of The Crucible

THEATER MANIA
Mar 6, 2015
David Gordon • New York City

In the summer of 2014, South African director Yaël Farber became the toast of London with her revelatory revival of Arthur Miller's seminal drama The Crucible for the Old Vic Theatre. Staged in the round, with the scent of incense filling the auditorium, Farber's three-and-a-half-hour production starred the stage and screen actor Richard Armitage as John Proctor, Miller's tragic hero, whose extramarital love affair with a young woman leads to the deaths of several people amid the Witch Trials of 1692 Salem.

For Armitage, whose screen roles include Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain, in Peter Jackson's Hobbit film trilogy, and an upcoming six-episode arc as Francis Dolarhyde, a serial killer known as The Tooth Fairy, on the television series Hannibal, it was an experience that pushed him to his limits, both as a person and as an actor. And now, more people will get to see it.

Digital Theatre, the U.K.-based organization that partners with leading West End theater companies to capture live performances for screen broadcast, has added The Crucible to its collection, and it will be available for download starting March 17 at 9am (EST). On a break from shooting an episode of Hannibal in Toronto, TheaterMania caught up with Armitage to discuss the release and his experiences during the filming of a live stage show.

Can you describe the production from your perspective?
Yaël describes her work as "visceral." She's into not making an audience feel uncomfortable, but she likes to drag them forward in their seats. The theater was in the round and she worked hard to conceal the beauty of the Old Vic. She covered the theater with cloth so there were no distractions in the room. It was quite a stark, austere look, even down to the women's costumes. They were trussed up to the neck. It revealed the beauty of the face and actually removed any sort of sensual or sexuality, which was reflective of that tough Puritan existence. It had a very abrasive feel to it. There was burning incense [live onstage]. Sound was very present. There was a pitch that the composer found that could make the seats vibrate with what they call a sonic pulse. I feel like the play had an accusatory feel to it.

What was your first thought when you heard that The Crucible would be filmed for Digital Theatre?
I was hesitant, actually. I wasn't that familiar with Digital Theatre's work. It was late in the run when the decision was made. We had nine five-star reviews and were full every night. There was such an urge for people to see it, [who] couldn't see it. I was very pleased that it would have an afterlife. One of the conditions I had in allowing it to be filmed was that Yaël be part of the edit, because what she was seeing, and what she wanted the audience to be seeing, was very specific. She storyboarded the entire play, so her presence in the filming of it is very acute.

What was the filming process like?
It was simple for us. It was shot over three nights with six or eight cameras in the theater in different positions. Luckily, because the play was in the round, it was easy to get the reverses in certain shots, and you could cross-shoot across the stage. The only difficulty was that we were wearing radio mics and it was difficult for me, because there's a part where my character is washing and to conceal a mic on a bare torso is virtually impossible. We didn't want to put it on clothing. Those technical things were tricky. I was conscious that the audience would be aware of the filming, but of course they weren't. It was very sensitively approached.

How was it to finally watch it?
I had my arm twisted into watching it in a movie theater, because I really didn't want to see it. I'm glad I did. They did a good job. One of the things that surprised me was how much my face had changed from the first day of rehearsal to that point twelve weeks into a run. My face had become weary and weighed down with his troubles. All of the triggers I found during the run were retriggering me in the cinema. It was like a catharsis going through it.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/richard-armitage-the-crucible-interview_72009.html/

Richard Armitage in THE CRUCIBLE

What a wonderful play.  Rich and I saw The Crucible at the Old Vic on July 14 (I think).  We had unbelievable seats - dress circle, first row, smack in the middle.  I had no idea what to expect, and was disappointed, at first, when I read on the side of the theater that it was in the round.  I hate theater in the round.  Usually I get distracted very easily - slight attention span problem there - and, I end up worrying about the actors or if they're going to fall or trip over someone's big feet.

(Actually, in this play, one had to be concerned about the sighing women in the audience with RA in the lead.  One very funny bit - when he removes his shirt to wash up - there was a drastic intake of breath causing a severe loss of breathable oxygen in the room!)

 But, I digress.  I said I hate in the round theater, but happily this was very different.  For one thing, the stage is rather foggy, so that the audience across from you looks more like other characters in the play somehow; almost as if they were sitting in judgement over the proceedings.  And the theater felt more oblong than in a round, with the rows of seats across from us facing ours, with the tiers of balcony seats reminding me of representations of the Globe theater.  Instead of sloping away, the different levels where stacked one directly over the other, giving the theater a more closed in feeling - absolutely perfect for this play.

Enough about all that! The play was wonderful, from the very first moment with the eeriness of Tituba's silent (nearly silent) walk around the stage.   Richard was really magnificent.  Even my husband, who had fallen fast asleep last year when we visited London and saw Perfect Nonsense, was captivated by the play, especially the second half which is magnificent.  The girls - oh, you just want to slap the lot of them - but, when they begin chanting in unison, it is incredibly creepy.

All of the actors were equally wonderful, with two standouts.  Richard, of course, and also Jack Ellis (I think that's his name - I was much too cheap to buy a program).  He played Deputy Governor Danforth, another person deserving a slap on the face.

The only thing that bothered me was RA's voice.  Normally it's such a soothing sound, but he sounded very hoarse here - and no wonder.  We saw the matinee show and then they did it all again for the evening show two hours after we left the theater.   Actors are wonderful.  How they can project such emotion, such heart wrenching tragedy, night after night, is amazing to me.

THE ANGLOPHILE CHANNEL

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was this.  At one moment during the play - don't ask me when because my mind froze up completely - RA exits the stage by walking up a staircase.  A staircase that led directly to where I was seated.  I watched his shadowed figure come up the steps, one at a time, very slowly - and he kept coming closer, and this dark figure kept getting larger and larger, until I thought he was going to jump over the dress circle wall I was grabbing onto in front of my seat.  I truly was smack dab in the middle, and there was a time in my life when that man would not have made it out of the theater alive.  As it was, the girl next to me began making strange hawking noises in the back of her throat.

Anyway, he did get almost eye level and then the steps head downward.  I don't think I took a breath the whole time.  All I remember is that my eyebrow began to twitch and get really, really itchy, but RA was walking straight toward me and I was afraid to move.   I finally went nuts and began gouging at my eyeball to scratch it during this very, very dramatic ascent.  He must have thought I was a looney bird.

Richard Armitage: Crucible is 'a full-body experience'

BBC NEWS
By Tim Masters
Arts and entertainment correspondent, BBC News
July 3, 2014



After 12 years away from the stage, making his name in Spooks and The Hobbit, Richard Armitage is back in a "visceral" new production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible at the Old Vic.

Three days before starting rehearsals, Armitage drove from his home in New York to Danvers, Massachusetts,

Originally known as Salem Village, Danvers is most associated with the famous witch trials of 1692 - the inspiration for Miller's classic play that draws parallels with McCarthy's anti-communist investigations in postwar America.

Armitage, in his dressing room before a preview performance at the Old Vic, explains that the trip was useful preparation for his role as the Puritan tragic hero John Proctor.

"I got this sense that they were real people who had experienced this terrible contagion. These were a tough frontier people who had very little concept of what was beyond their small realm. Because of their staunch religious nature they truly believed it was the Devil that would come for them."

Armitage first encountered Proctor when he played a scene from The Crucible at drama school some 20 years ago.

"I had no idea it was a three-hour 'opera'... it resonates now and it will resonate in 10 years."

The Crucible, directed by Yael Farber, is the latest play to be presented in the round at the Old Vic.


READ MORE HERE: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28104957