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 Dench's stare, at the end of the first half, has had
audiences sitting on the edge of their seats since the Kenneth
Branagh Theatre Company's production of Shakespeare's late-life
portrait of the wreckage wrought by jealousy opened this month.
It is a "moment I shall long remember," Guardian critic Michael
Billington wrote.
The play will be broadcast live to cinemas in Britain and Europe
on Thursday, with a delayed broadcast to the United States on
Monday. It will be seen in Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa,
China and Japan in January, publicists said.
"We're excited, there's a lot of excitement in the building
about this live broadcast," Branagh, 54, told Reuters in an
interview at the 710-seat Garrick Theatre where his company is
in residence for six productions this year and next.
One of them will be "Romeo and Juliet" starring Lily James and
Richard Madden, who played Cinderella and her Prince in the
Branagh-directed remake of the Disney animated classic.
The Belfast-born Branagh says it is not so difficult as it might
appear to make the transition between the movie world, where he
also directed the action adventure "Thor" and filmed versions of
Shakespeare, to the stage.
In the movies, he said, when a director heads to the set he may
see 15 key people in one room, 200 in another and a cast and
support crew of 4,000. But, he said, "You can find a human
center to it all ... whether it's in front of a big bunch of
people or in a much smaller environment."
That said, he acknowledged that the talent he is able to draw to
the Garrick, including the likes of 80-year-old Dench, owes much
to his long association with the London stage, dating back to
the 1980s when he was a huge hit in Shakespeare's "Henry V".
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He attributes his ability to enlist Dench, and the way she plays the
part of the hectoring but ultimately forgiving Paulina, to "a
30-year conversation," off and on, with her.
"Judi Dench both provides that emotional trigger, and has the
mastery of the language, so it's the most comprehensive demolition
of a foolish human being that one might imagine," Branagh said of
the scene in which she berates Leontes for the jealous rage that has
provoked his son's death, caused his wife to fall into a death swoon
and made him banish his newborn daughter to be left in the
wilderness, to be eaten by wolves.
"When it's ... embodied by someone like Judi Dench you know you have
a wonderful piece of dramatic writing embodied by a great performer
and you hit the jackpot."
Director Ben Caron will use seven cameras to broadcast the show from
what he regards as an ideal place to film a psychological play
because the Garrick is small and intimate.
"Our challenge is to give the audience in the cinema a feeling of
being in the theater, but also give them that bit extra - that's the
sort of fine balance," he said.
(Reporting by Michael Roddy; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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