INTERVIEW: Matthew Tennyson on playing Salomé
Matthew Tennyson talks to Gill Sutherland about taking on the title role in director Owen Horsley’s new production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, which runs until 7th September
How did you come to the role of Salomé?
“I auditioned for it after getting a call from my agent. I remember being on the bus back from first audition and although I wasn’t sure how to act or approach, I thought ‘I really want to do this play’. I knew that it was wonderful, and something that would push me, and I just got really excited. After a few more audition rounds and some movement work they offered it to me.”
Did director Owen Horsley have in mind who he wanted and how the role should be approached?
“It was [RSC artistic director] Greg Doran’s idea to mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, and Owen wanted to view the play through a gay lens, and wanted to cast a male actor in the role. There were a few reasons for that: to honour Oscar Wilde and his legacy; and tell this story about unrequited desire in a directly gay way felt the right way to celebrate him and to mark that. The other thing that Owen wanted to do was have a conversation about gender identity, trans rights and all these sorts of things. So the aim is to do something that has an ambiguity and a complexity to it that asked questions of the audience.”
How would you counter the feminist argument that you’ve taken a ‘woman’s role’ when there are so few female leads?
“I think that the place we are in now it’s really vital that both men and women are allowed to be seen in different ways. I’m not a woman and don’t fully understand the frustrations of the patriarchy, but I think men that don’t fit a specific masculinity are victims of this patriarchy too, and it’s important that we are reminded that we are more similar than the world tells us.
“I also think it’s really import to honour Oscar Wilde, because he was writing at a time when to express this story in a directly gay way just wouldn’t have been allowed. To do that now just feels like a very apt celebration of him and that feels important.”
Do you feel Wilde’s approval?
“I hope so. I’ve really grown to love Wilde during this because before I knew him as the author of Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest and as this very English and arch wit but I didn’t realise he has such a pure, profound direct understanding of people. There’s something so simple and yet wonderfully complex about Salomé it just feels very human.”
One minute Salomé is full of adoration, next she is demanding a beheading. What’s going on in Salomé’s own head?
“It’s a play about her sexual awakening. Salomé can’t be a child any more and has to stand up for who she is. She has decided to express her femininity and has put on a dress for the first time and that’s where we start the play. Her stepfather stares at her, and she realises she can’t take that anymore and she has to go — leaving the banquet hall — and she takes that leap and the rest of the evening is her running towards who she really is.
“There are many parallels I could draw with coming out... After seeing a preview performance a young woman whose sister is trans came up and said it was so wonderful to see someone on stage whose gender is ambiguous to be constantly referred to as beautiful. And I thought that’s exactly why we’re doing it and that’s why I want young people to come and see this play, so they can understand there’s not one specific mode that you have to fit.
“It is so moving to be playing someone who’s braver than I am, who stands up for who they are — it costs her but she keeps going.”
Why does she want the head of Iokanaan?
“When she meets him she falls in love with him and I guess it sort of blows her mind. It unleashes something so true and deep inside herself that it kind of sets her free, and then he violently rejects her.
“All she wants is to kiss him, and she finds a way to get what she wants; so she asks for his head hoping she will be satisfied. I have a line ‘you filled my veins with fire’ and she thinks if she kisses him then that pain and confusion may be sated. I don’t think she really gets it!”
The analogies to Wilde’s own sexuality are there…
“There’s Oscar Wilde in every character, he loves them and understands them. Apparently he wrote it as a stream of consciousness, and it feels like that. It is not like he’s this witty playwright, it’s like he had something inside him that he needed to vomit.”
Herod as the lechy stepdad and Herodias as the dysfunctional mum are very human characters, Salomé almost feels symbolic, and they can’t seem to relate to her…
“I’ve always been so close to my little sister — kind of obsessed with her — but I remember when she was 12 to age 16, it was like I couldn’t speak to her, I guess it was that transition from child to woman; and it’s a very interesting period and I think Salomé is in that period where she has changed from a child to a woman so her mum doesn’t quite know how to contact her, and her stepdad is behaving in bizarre ways around her. She is realising this position, and her new power.”
You face many challenges in the role –not least full-frontal nudity. How is that?
“I’m comfortable with it, I don’t love it. I don’t feel any more showy offy about my body than anyone else, but if feels like an important beat of the story. Because I guess the dance is a moment of saying f*** you to Herod, this is my sexuality, and then see how he deals with the truth of it.”
How is the cross dressing?
“It’s a funny thing to put on a beautiful silk floaty dress and pink stilettoes and have every one refer to you as beautiful. Because often when men dress up as women it’s done with a bit of a wink, you know it’s a bit of a joke so it’s acceptable. But this isn’t done like that; it’s played very directly and I just ask for people to accept me as a beautiful princess, and hope that people don’t laugh at me.”
It’s an intense role, are you managing to leave Salomé behind when you’re off duty?
“Yes, it does get in your brain a little bit because she is so relentless. It’s an intense energy to live with. I don’t know what my method of letting go is, but I do sit catatonic for about 40 minutes when the play is done.”
You are great-great-great-grandson of poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson [1809-1892]… I found a quote from Wilde praising Tennyson, saying he “loved him”. How is it having a famous ancestor?
“That’s amazing! I love that, I didn’t know he’d said that.
“I really like Tennyson’s poetry and I’m part of a Tennyson society, and go to events and I’m not particularly proud or anything, it’s not something I think about.”
There’s a lovely happenstance in a Tennyson acting in a Wilde play…
“When Greg [Doran] came and saw the run through he said he thought we had finally done Wilde justice, and that felt emotional… It would be wonderful if Wilde ever dreamed of his plays being performed with this openness.”
Random questions!
Favourite line in Salomé? It changes all the time. I feel very lucky to be able to stand on the stage and say “The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death”
Favourite play? Can I just name playwrights? Shakespeare, Ibsen, Checkhov, so many writers, Oscar Wilde now, my friend Robert Holman writes amazing plays. I love good writing.
What Shakespeare play would you like to do? I would love to do Richard II. Yes playing Richard!
Favourite temptress? Kathleen Turner. In the play I have a dagger and pink stilettoes — and I call it my femme fatale stater pack.
Song that gets you dancing? Macho Man by the Village People.
Whose head should roll in real life? Boris, Theresa May, Tory heads basically [we speak the day of the election results].
When was the last time you lost control? Last night at the after-show party on the dancefloor, it’s important to let off steam!