Academy Award winner Sir Mark Rylance is starring in a “remixed” version of a 17th Century play by Moliere at the Marylebone Theatre.
Tartuffe (Remixed) is set in London with an African family about to marry into a Jamaican family and has been written and directed by Darren Raymond, with whom Sir Mark has a long working history.
Sir Mark plays the hilariously cunning Pastor Terrence Blake.
“He’s the catalyst of the play. The play is really about the family, but he’s a conman who comes in like any good conman in a very convincing disguise, in this case as an Anglican priest,” said Rylance.
Sir Mark is the only white character in a play with an otherwise all black cast in what he describes as “an incredible meeting of two different cultures”.
He added: “Because of the history of the relations of Europe and America with Africa and the Caribbean there is a rather wonderful and sometimes, no, always tragic resonance with the age of slavery.”
He said: “I’ve learnt a lot more, but I’ve always loved African and Caribbean culture. I live in Brixton.
“Since I came back to England in ’78, I’ve wanted to live in those communities. I like that culture.”
Sir Mark and Raymond have found both purpose and deep friendship through working together over two decades.
They are part of Intermission Youth: Raymond as founder and artistic director and Sir Mark, first as patron, then trustee when the youth theatre became a charity.
It also marks the launch of the Intermission Ensemble, a place for the classically trained graduates of Intermission Youth to start their professional careers as actors.
This is Intermission Ensemble’s first Off-West End play.
“It’s a bit like Arsenal who go in and find the young football players by having a wide range of youth programmes, but then eventually have a professional team,” explains Sir Mark, who is also starring in one of Raymond’s plays for the first time.
‘I saw a lot of myself in Othello’
Darren Raymond started Intermission Youth Theatre in 2008 as a way of helping disenfranchised young people in London feel included in society through the works of Shakespeare.
He had spent a brief period of time in the criminal justice system some years earlier and found an unexpected connection to the bard with the play Othello, during a workshop led by Rylance.
“Growing up, Shakespeare for me wasn’t something I was particularly interested in, but we were looking at Othello, and Mark was doing brilliant stuff at the Globe at the time.
“He was able to come in and really introduce the text to us in a way that resonated,” recalls Raymond.
“I saw a lot of myself in Othello. It was a character who was looking for love, belonging, identity. These were the very things I was searching for myself.”
Many of the young people he works with are also looking for the same things, he adds.
Morenike Onajobi, a graduate of Intermission Youth, is making her professional debut as an actor, having left her full-time job in HR to do so.
She plays Kemi, the “voice of reason” in the play, and said working alongside Sir Mark meant “every single day is like a masterclass”.
“Working with him and Darren combined is really fun. And they have fun, they really do.”
Rylance and Raymond have plans to take the play to the West End proper, as well as to work together on more professional plays through Intermission Ensemble in the future.
I ask whether Tartuffe (Remixed) then, is not just the culmination of their work together, but the beginning of an expansion.
“I hope so!” exclaims Rylance. “I’m enjoying it so much, it’s where I’m going to do my classical work.”
What have they learned from each other after so many years working together?
“He’s a brother to me,” says Raymond of Rylance, “and a lovely human being. He’s a person who has changed my life, and I love him to bits.”
Rylance reaches over to grasp Raymond’s arm.
“He’s one of the great leaders,” he says.
“My faith in people is revived when I’m with Darren.
“My hope, particularly where hope is rightly placed, is with young people.
“He’s just got enormous gifts and on top of it all a sense of humour.”
Tartuffe (Remixed) runs at the Marylebone Theatre till the 24 October.
Credit: BBC
