‘Mr Rossiter says he is good at madmen’: Leonard Rossiter interviewed by the Guardian in 1969 – from the archives
17 July 1969: The actor talks about his role as Hitler in Brecht’s Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, and his career so far‘It was hard not to stare at him all the time’: inside the remarkable rise and shocking loss of Leonard RossiterIt comes out after a few drinks with Leonard Rossiter that he is disappointed that no one, so far, has regarded him as a really big name in the theatre. He is now playing Hitler in Brecht’s Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Saville in London where he sweats and sulks and rants his way through two and a half hours during which Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and associates are portrayed as Sicilian gangsters cornering the cauliflower protection rackets of Chicago and Cicero. It is a manic and stylised performance which has been much praised by the critics. But the production is two years old, and has already been seen at Glasgow, at the Edinburgh festival, and at Nottingham. No one took much notice of it until it came to London; and does the same performance in the same production, Mr Rossiter wants to know, suddenly become different and better just because it has come to the West End?It very nearly never came at all. As Mr Rossiter explains things, the play has one of the most off-putting titles ever devised and many people can’t pronounce Ui, which should be like Oo-ee; [he] Rossiter was not really a big name; Brecht is always death in London anyway; and the play needs a cast of 40. The cast was almost the last straw but eventually Michael White, the London impresario, brought Ui to the Saville where it succeeded a long run of Danny La Rue’s female impersonations. Continue reading...
admin
17 July 1969: The actor talks about his role as Hitler in Brecht’s Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, and his career so far
It comes out after a few drinks with Leonard Rossiter that he is disappointed that no one, so far, has regarded him as a really big name in the theatre. He is now playing Hitler in Brecht’s Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Saville in London where he sweats and sulks and rants his way through two and a half hours during which Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and associates are portrayed as Sicilian gangsters cornering the cauliflower protection rackets of Chicago and Cicero. It is a manic and stylised performance which has been much praised by the critics. But the production is two years old, and has already been seen at Glasgow, at the Edinburgh festival, and at Nottingham. No one took much notice of it until it came to London; and does the same performance in the same production, Mr Rossiter wants to know, suddenly become different and better just because it has come to the West End?
It very nearly never came at all. As Mr Rossiter explains things, the play has one of the most off-putting titles ever devised and many people can’t pronounce Ui, which should be like Oo-ee; [he] Rossiter was not really a big name; Brecht is always death in London anyway; and the play needs a cast of 40. The cast was almost the last straw but eventually Michael White, the London impresario, brought Ui to the Saville where it succeeded a long run of Danny La Rue’s female impersonations.
Continue reading...
