Archives for The Servant

’Tis nothing but my melancholy: playing the Jacobean malcontent in a 1950s setting

A major challenge in the role of Bosola is addressing his archetypal role of the Jacobean malcontent – a man filled with rage at the superficial world around him, cynical about the motivations of others while at the same time a convicted criminal and ready gun-for hire. Applying a purely Stanislavskian interpretation to the character’s contradictory nature was something that I was very wary about: part of what makes Webster’s original text so interesting is his juxtaposition of contradictory values within the same character, and I didn’t want to simply ignore this element in the writing and be needlessly reductive.

Read More