PERFORMANCE PERSPECTIVES

"The Winslow Boy"
SEPARATING LIES FROM THE TRUTH

By a coincidence of fate, at the same time "The Winslow Boy" was in the cinemas "The Barchester Chronicles" was being re-run on television. It is an interesting exercise to compare NIGEL HAWTHORNE'S two performances. Both characters are conservative intelligent men. But while Arthur Winslow is a man whose views of the world are tempered by his feelings, the Arch Deacon is perhaps a man who masks his feelings by sudden and extreme outbursts of temper. Interestingly both productions have distinctive directorial styles. "The Barchester Chronicles" embraces a heightened, slightly florid acting style whilst "The Winslow Boy" is a uniformly more confined and restrained approach to performance. Both these styles can lead susceptible actors to take "process" to extremes. But NIGEL HAWTHORNE never gets caught in that trap. This doesn't mean that he is a safe and boring choice maker. In fact the opposite is true. NIGEL HAWTHORNE is compelling to watch because his choices are often dangerous and testing ones for an actor. And yet he always manages to know where the boundary is drawn. He might at times be extravagant but never extreme.

Without knowing him personally we can only speculate as to how he manages to achieve these results.

It could be that,

• he works with people he can trust but obviously he also always trusts himself
• he is good at listening to directors and sorting out the things he needs to hear and the things he doesn't need to hear
• he listens to directors overall goals and finds an individual way of delivering them
• he is naturally an intelligently competitive person who enjoys promoting the contest and joining the conflict which exists between characters and so instinctively always finds complex drama
• he combines a clear sense of story with a great intuitive understanding of how far he can push the character
• he has a clear intellectual understanding that drama is built on conflict and whether he is playing a shy measured man or an arrogantly extrovert one he is always listening to assess any challenges which may be presented to his character.

Whatever the reason NIGEL HAWTHORNE manages to find a comfortable place for himself in everything he does. He is a remarkable actor with great depth of technique. His technique is diverse and strong enough to support him wherever he ventures. It is also the mark of a good storyteller that he never uses a performance to display his acting technique but only to explore the nuances of character.

"The Winslow Boy" is an excellent test of his skills for it is both a testing script and a testing performance style. And generally speaking all the actors in this production rise to the occasion for in the end the story is well told.

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