ROYAL SHAKESPEARE Company actor Gerard Logan comes to the Town Hall on Monday February 1 with his tour-de-force solo performance of William Shakespeare’s epic narrative poem The Rape Of Lucrece.
Directed by Gareth Armstrong, the production has already enjoyed sell-out runs in Edinburgh and London and garnered numerous rave reviews (“a captivating tale told by a consummate storyteller.”, “If you love poetry, Shakespeare, or just a good story brilliantly told, don’t miss this show” ).
The Rape Of Lucrece, which Shakespeare published in 1594, tells how the lustful Roman prince Tarquin rapes Lucrece, virtuous wife of his friend Collatine. Though tormented by awareness of his own evil, Tarquin still proceeds with the rape.
In the aftermath of his crime Lucrece commits suicide, triggering a revolt against Tarquin and the royal family which sees them expelled from Rome.
The Rape Of Lucrece is a poem of immense power and emotional intensity, providing a vivid account of the terrible crime of rape and its dreadful consequences for victim and perpetrator.
Speaking from his London home, Logan explains what initially gave him the idea of staging the poem.
“Shakespeare is the reason I became an actor and the reason I stay an actor,” he commences. “When I was with the RSC even when I wasn’t performing, I used to spend an awful lot of time just reading the sonnets.
“Then I decided to look at his other poetry as well, and when I started reading The Rape Of Lucrece it really blew me away. It was as visceral an account of the dreadfulness of the crime of rape as any I had ever seen. It also reminded me a lot of Macbeth. I just knew it could work onstage if I could find the right way of doing it.”
So how did Logan and director Gareth Armstrong discover the right way of making Lucrece work as a stage performance?
“I learnt the entire 1,855 lines of the poem to begin with,” the actor reveals, “but then you realise it has got to be cut because if we were to do the whole thing it would run for an hour and 50 minutes and I don’t think an audience would listen to one actor’s voice for that length of time even if you were Laurence Olivier!
“So we cut about 700 lines and we hewed out the narrative and then it began to take shape, but I find even Shakespeare’s poems are very theatrical and they lend themselves very readily to being related to an audience.”
The Rape Of Lucrece dates from comparatively early in Shakespeare’s writing career and some critics feel it does not quite rank alongside his best work but Logan strongly rebuts this view.
“I didn’t find that the case at all,” he says. “People say Shakespeare was one of the greatest minds ever. I’ve done so much Shakespeare as an actor, and nothing has ever more evidenced the magnitude of this man’s mind for me than doing this Lucrece.
“I find it incredible that a man in his mid-twenties in 1594 could have an appreciation of the dreadfulness and gravity of the act of rape and how it transgresses even the most basic decencies which we owe each other.
“He had an appreciation of that in 1594 that, in a way, the 20th century legal system did not and arguably even the 21st century legal system does not. He could get inside a woman’s mind and really feel and follow the tremors of the earthquake that has happened to her but, being Shakespeare, and typically, he can also follow how the tremors affect the rapist as well. For me it’s the best thing of his I have read.”
Logan’s visit to Galway also marks something of a personal homecoming as both his parents hail from Tuam. The Rape Of Lucrece should ensure it is a visit that will make a powerful impression.
As Logan himself concludes: “As an actor, I have never before had a reaction like Lucrece gets and that’s because the writing is so astonishing and also the production as directed by Gareth Armstrong - he is completely brilliant. I would love people to come along and I think we can guarantee them something they won’t forget.”
Tickets are €20/16 and are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777.
