Life is all about stepping out of your comfort zone and attempting things that seem hard. As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”
Jennifer Ehle as Gertrude with Alex Lawther (Hamlet) in The North American Premiere of Hamlet, A ... [+]
Actress Jennifer Ehle has taken that to heart. This past June, at the very last minute, she stepped into the challenging role of Hamlet’s mother Gertrude in the epic production of Hamlet at the Park Avenue Armory. Lia Williams, who had played the role in the show’s London’s West End production, injured her Achilles tendon and had to depart the show.
“It was one of those moments when a delicious challenge comes and there really isn’t any self-respecting option but to take the leap and start to build a plan in midair,” explains the Tony-winning actress. Not only did Ehle leap in this dazzling production directed by Robert Icke, she flew.
Playing the mother to Hamlet (Alex Lawther), Ehle is compassionate for her tormented son struggling to grapple with the murder of his father. She skillfully does this while having intense passion for her new husband, Claudius, (Angus Wright), the murderer, who also happens to be her late husband’s brother.
“In this production Gertrude is madly in love with Claudius, and feels she has a real chance at romantic and sexual joy for the first time in her life,” explains Ehle of the show that is playing in repertory with Aeschylus' Oresteia, also adapted by Hamlet’s director Robert Icke. “The primary emotional relationship of her life thus far has been her only child, her Hamlet. Being torn between these two men and the intensity of her love for them is her struggle and she is trying to find a way to build a bridge so they can be a happy family.”
For Ehle playing such a feast of a role is pure bliss. “Gertrude is complicated and flawed and striving for happiness, all of that is really fun to play with as an actor,” shares Ehle who is the daughter of actress Rosemary Harris and the late writer John Ehle. Each performance she has a wild odyssey. And with such grace, she hangs on, until she can’t anymore.
“Gertrude starts the play having recently realized that life is brief, and joy must be seized. And she ends the play with that joy turning to horror as she realizes her husband is attempting to murder her son in front of her and she drinks the poison herself,” observes Ehle. She adds, That’s one hell of a journey. And I’m thrilled to be along for her ride.”
Jeryl Brunner: You imbue such a sense of compassion for Hamlet that one can really get a sense of Gertrude's dilemma: she loves her son, Hamlet, so much. But she also has to grapple with this intense sensual draw to Claudius.
Jennifer Ehle: I was fortunate to be fitting into a production that was very specific in its point of view. When I came in it was already a few days from previewing and with a director who has really lifted the play off the hooks of what we all generally learned in English class about it and swung it around a quarter turn. Rob talks about these characters intimately, as if he knows them intricately.
Brunner: Do you believe that Gertrude knows that Claudius is a murderer?
Ehle: The way Rob has directed it Gertrude does not have any inkling that Claudius is a murderer for more than half the play and then she doesn’t truly know until the last few moments of her life. I don’t know what decisions I might make if I’d been exploring the play from the beginning and maybe I’ll play Gertrude again one day and try another take on her.
But it is a joy to play her the way she is in this production. One of my favorite things about Rob’s production of Hamlet is the way he has peopled it into a real ensemble piece. Every single character is so fully realized, individual and clear by this extraordinary company of actors.
Brunner: The Park Avenue Armory is such a jewel box of a setting with its sweeping 55,000-square-foot drill hall. Why do you love performing there?
Ehle: The Armory is an extraordinary building to work in with its beauty and history and wonderful weirdness’s and vastness. But the most extraordinary thing about working there is the people there and how passionate and committed they are about bringing groundbreaking works to light in that space.
Brunner: When did you know you had to be an actress and what was one of the first times you performed in front of people?
Ehle: My first part was one of several trees in Where the Wild Things Are at a day camp in New Jersey. I think I was maybe six. I remember the feeling of being in front of the audience, a few parents probably sitting on the grass for the first time. I felt as if I was able to somehow bring their attention into my head. As if they could experience my experience of being a tree. I liked that feeling and still do when it comes.
(From left) Angus Wright (Claudius), Jennifer Ehle (Gertrude) and Peter Wight (Polonius)
