Every actor, or artist of any kind, knows the feeling. The moment they think ‘this is it; this is why I choose this path in life, this is what nakes it all worthwhile.’
For Kathy Kiera Clarke it could have been the time she was nominated ‘Best Actress’ at the Irish Film and TV Awards for her role in Bloody Sunday, or when she received a similar nomination for her performance in the title role of Medea at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. Likewise, it could have been any other publicly lauded moment during her film, televison and theatrical career, which includes Mad About Harry, Proof 2 and Hamlet, respectively. But on the contrary, the moment of redemption for Kathy usually comes during rehearsals for a play, when she feels she “finally cracks” a part. However, when we met during rehearsals for her role in the Abbey’s production of George Farquhar’s classic restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer, she had yet to reach that moment.
“There does come a point, usually around the last week of rehearsals, just before you open, when you feel quite lost and lose confidence in every choice you’ve made in terms of the part,” she admits. “And then, all of a sudden something happens and it works and you realise you have finally cracked that part. Though the real test only comes when you finally appear in front of an audience. But theatre and film are entirely different and I suppose my favourite moment while working in film was working with Paul Greengrass for Bloody Sunday. An awful lot of the time on film and television there simply isn’t time to feel you’ve cracked the part because there are so many other things expected to be fitted into the schedule, and you tend to arrive, do your best and go home. But with Paul it’s about the actor completely, and in that film there was no lights and he would bring you into the space and let you rehearse it. And that’s not just the principal cast, that’s the extras, everybody. So he will add layer after layer and you end up with something very special.”
So, too, is The Recruiting Officer, Kathy suggests – even though she is “only at the second week of a four week rehearsal” as we speak.
“At this point it is very much about just finding the voice of the character,” she explains. “I play one of two ‘feisty heroines’ as the press release calls them – Cathy Belton is the other! But we both are landed aristocracy and, I must admit, even at this stage there is total joy working on The Recruiting Officer. Especially working with a director such as Lynne Parker, who, like Paul Greengrass, completely trusts her actors. And you trust her. So, overall in terms of the rest of the actors and Lynn, it is ultimately a matter of trust. And when someone trusts you, you obviously have a lot more confidence in yourself. But I really am enjoying this immensely. It’s a huge cast, a cast of 15, and the play is a real romp anyway.”
Indeed. Farquhar, who wrote the play at the age of 27 in 1706 – after originally turning to plays to earn a living because the woman he married was not as wealthy as she had led him to believe – based the work on his time as recruiter in Shrewsbury two years earlier, and grafts leering Restoration dialogue onto a tale of sexual double-dealing, romance and intrigue. But what Kathy herself senses from the play is the level of youthful energy that informs the text, its sheer delight.
“It is a comedy of manners, so it is very light-hearted and, as such a perfect Christmas show,” she says. “But, at its heart, it is all about relationships between men and women, and the energy level is so high. Then again George Farquhar died relatively young, in his late '20s, didn’t he? And apart from being in the army he also was an actor, went to Trinity, and wrote other great plays like Love in A Bottle. But there definitely is a wonderful youthful energy to The Recruiting Officer, and I think that will come across for audiences who, hopefully, will get as much joy from seeing the play as I am from appearing in it.”