INTERVIEW: American playwright Ken Ludwig on why he’s given a huge donation to help save Hall’s Croft
Renowned American playwright Ken Ludwig has donated £1 million to The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.. Described as transformative, the unprecedented contribution marks the largest private donation in the Trust’s 177-year history and will significantly support the ongoing conservation of Hall's Croft, once home to William Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna. Good humoured and super chatty Ken talked to Gill Sutherland about his love of Shakespeare while on a visit to Stratford last week.
Tell us about the circumstances of how your donation came about.
Certainly. I have loved Stratford all my life. When I was at Cambridge as a student, I would come here all the time, and was already a huge lover of Shakespeare, I’d spend time here and see shows at the RSC, and then I’d visit the birthplace, and see all the properties because they’re so moving.Although I studied various things, I always wanted to be a playwright… and this is the source. There’s no other place like this – nowhere in the world where Shakespeare’s footsteps appear.He walked here all around the town. I loved it so much and it meant so much to me.I fell in love with everything to do with Shakespeare here in Stratford. I was here in March, when I did a presentation to children from Birmingham during Shakespeare Week, trying to teach them some Shakespeare. And so more and more I’ve become just in love with Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and what it does.I overheard Charlotte Scott [the Birthplace’s director of knowledge] talking to a colleague about the fact that Hall’s Croft was literally falling down and what are we going to do to save it.Overhearing that, somewhat impulsively, but really with my full heart, I said, well, what can I do to help? And it ended up being this donation to keep Hall’s Croft standing and open it as a centre that they can do anything they want: use it as a teaching place or bring visitors back into it. It’s a gorgeous building with this beautiful garden.I think it’s really the prize of all of the five buildings.
Just playing devil’s advocate: we’ve got the plays, we’ve got the poetry, why do we need anything else? Do the bricks and mortar matter?
That’s a great question. I think it’s a personal matter. For me, the answer is, as a playwright – but this applies to everyone in the arts or who loves that world of study – it’s the joy you get from walking in Shakespeare’s footsteps. It’s like nowhere else on earth.We know he was here. It’s not an issue. We know he was born, if not in that building, maybe a few feet away.We know he built New Place as a home for him while he was in London so that he could come back and retire here. We know that he built Hall’s Croft for his daughter Susanna when she got married to Dr Hall.
Is there anywhere you particularly feel his spirit?
Yesterday, I spent time at the Holy Trinity Church, which has really been beautified more than ever. It’s prettier than I’ve ever seen it. And it’s so moving, and for me as a playwright, it’s invigorating.I see Shakespeare from a different angle when I’m here looking at these buildings. It does have an impact on how we interpret his writing. So it’s a real honest aid to scholarship.And Hall’s Croft has that spiritual aspect to it, not in a silly way, but in a way that inspires us like nothing else. And we can’t let it go. We just can’t let it fail.
Going forwards, what will be your involvement with Hall’s Croft and the preservation project?
Now that I’ve given the donation, I’m looking forward to coming back and enjoy the progress of the work and how the money has been spent.I know they have tremendous architectural plans already drawn up that they’ve been working on for the past three years. This afternoon I’m going over, and I’ll have a tour of where things stand now and what they plan to use the money for in the short term and then the long term. They think it’s going to be about a three-year project going forward with this donation to make sure that it stays standing.Right now there are big iron struts holding it up [but that are sinking]. They’ve got to figure out a way to make sure they can pull those out and it still stays up. That’s going to happen little by little after tons of reconstruction work.The first phase is getting rid of those struts, keeping it up, and then the next phase is they’re going to restore the interior so that it is historically and aesthetically as beautiful and valuable as it ever was and not let it just fade into the ground.
Tell me about your boyhood and your first encounter with Shakespeare and how you got the buzz, as it were.
I’d love to, because it’s very specific. My parents, when I was a boy aged around ten to 12, I was enchanted with this theatre and knew that I loved literature and was a big reader.I remember my father taking me to a Shakespeare movie, and it was very not him, that was not his area of the world, but he did it out of sheer kindness. And the next thing I knew, my birthday came along and my parents bought me the complete recording of Hamlet done by Richard Burton that John Gielgud directed. It’s magnificent. Burton is such a genius. And the sound of his voice doing all of that play…So I’m not going to lie, I memorised the whole play. I literally wore it out and had to buy another copy. And it inspired me, it’s just so glorious. I listened and listened, and that really got me hooked.
You’ll have seen many productions and plays and actors since. What stands out – any more wows and thunderbolts?
Well, way, way, way back to Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream [1970]. I was young, but I got to see it. And that was absolutely a thunderbolt moment, not just for me, but for the whole world. He gave us a whole new vocabulary for presenting Shakespeare, which has really been the vocabulary ever since, taking it out of its sort of fustian setting that served them well; all that Beerbohm Tree era [theatre practitioner known for lavish Shakespeare settings].But Peter Brook dragged it out of that period. I go to the RSC all the time. Last night, I saw The Merry Wives of Windsor here, and it was fabulous. It was the best I’ve ever seen. Falstaff [John Hodgkinson] was brilliant.
You’ve obviously got an amazing body of work, and Shakespeare ripples throughout. I love the fact that you always have a Shakespeare quote included in each work. What comes first, the play or the quote?
The play, absolutely. Even if it’s not about something theatrical, somewhere somebody knows enough Shakespeare to quote him.
I love what I do. I’m so lucky. I’m about to tour with my new play Murder on the Orient Express – an adaptation of Agatha ChristieThe tour begins this coming week in Salford, and then it goes on for 40 weeks. And so it’ll be fun.And heaven knows there’s plenty of Shakespeare in that. Poirot talks about Shakespeare in his very first speech. It worries him that when he sees the lovers, they remind him just a little bit of Romeo and Juliet, which did not end well.
On that note we will end – but Ken next time let’s meet at Hall’s Croft so you can update us.
That would be great. I'd love that.