REINING IT IN
There is a classic clip out there of Ian McKellen rehearsing Hamlet’s deadly soliloquy, “To be or not to be”. It is an actor’s nightmare, a set of lines so familiar that there is a distinct possibility that, pretty soon, most audiences will start intoning the rubbed-down words and phrases along with the hapless actor. It takes an actor of McKellen’s calibre to make those words K. But beyond that, unlike Marguerite Yourcenar writing the , or Hilary Mantel reimagining the villainous Cromwell, Sealy has significantly less historical material to rely upon. Even the Mauryan background is relatively sketchily known, compared to Rome, or Tudor Britain. It is all to be done.
