INTERVIEW: Peter Eyre joins company of ‘Wolf Hall’ on Broadway

NEW YORK — Peter Eyre, the accomplished theatrical actor, has taken over the role of Cardinal Wolsey in the acclaimed Broadway mounting of Wolf Hall, which features two plays that follow the trials and tribulations of King Henry VIII’s reign over England. The Broadway veteran, who was born in New York to an American father and British mother, had little time to rehearse the pivotal role, but the actor has taken to the ensemble-driven piece and performed the complicated character before intrigued audiences at the Winter Garden Theatre.

The play is a landmark experience that continues the audience’s fascination with such recognizable names Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Thomas Cromwell. The important saga in history was written about in a pair of successful books by Hilary Mantel; this theatrical adaptation, which played in Stratford-upon-Avon and London’s West End, shared the spotlight with a TV miniseries that stars Mark Rylance as Cromwell.

There’s a lot of Wolf Hall to go around.

Eyre’s introduction to the material happened rather quickly. “I was rung up by the producer,” the actor said recently in a phone interview. “I’ve worked with the producer before, and he asked me if I would take it [the role] over. I hadn’t seen the play or read the book. I had seen the film on television, and I know the period because I was educated in England. That’s why I know the Tudor history, but no I was just asked to come take it over.”

After reading the part on his computer, Eyre seemed impressed. His next thought was: “What the hell.”

The actor said he read the play on a Thursday, his agent made the deal on Friday and on Saturday he was meeting the director, Tony nominee Jeremy Herrin. Soon enough he was flying to New York and getting ready for rehearsals.

“I had very little rehearsal,” he said. “They use this expression on Broadway, the put-in, which I didn’t know. I saw this thing on the board, saying ‘Peter Eyre Put-In,” and I said to the stage manager, ‘It sounds like you’re changing an electric light bulb. I’m having a nervous breakdown.’”

His first set of performances included a Wednesday double-header, when Part Two, known as Bring Up the Bodies, was performed in the afternoon, and Part One, known as Wolf Hall, was performed in the evening. “So I did Part Two in the afternoon and Part One in the evening,” he said. “It was a bit confusing, but anyway I did it. On I go.”

The cast has supported him from the beginning: “When I did my first performances, a lot of them stood in the wings when I came out and kissed me and punched here. They were so sweet. It was wonderful.”

The narrative focuses on Cromwell (Ben Miles) and his behind-the-scenes politics with the king (Nathaniel Parker), Boleyn (Lydia Leonard) and, of course, the troubled cardinal. The first play centers on much of Wolsey’s contribution to the plot, and Eyre needs to deliver a range of emotions under difficult circumstances for the character.

“Well, it’s very well constructed in the play because Wolsey was a figure in history, and he’s in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, which I know,” Eyre said. “In this play, it’s very much dominant in the first part of the play, and all of the scenes from an actor’s point of view are very different. The first scene he shows up wily and sort of cynical and manipulative, and then the second scene he’s quite fierce and angry. And you see him sort of dealing with the situation in a very fierce sort of way, and then the third scene he starts realizing he hasn’t got the favor of the king anymore. And then in the fourth scene he kind of falls apart. As an actor, you have a good arch of different aspects to bring to the role.”

Because Wolf Hall, which concludes its limited engagement at the Winter Garden Theatre on July 5, is based on history, one would think research for the actors would be crucial. Although history informs the actions, the characters on stage are able to live and breathe their lives as dramatic constructs. This offers the actors freedom of interpretation.

“Well, I remember years ago when Glenda Jackson played Elizabeth I, I asked her if she did a lot of research, and she said, ‘No, I didn’t do any,'” Eyre said. “I said, ‘What did you do?’ She said, ‘I read the script, and I try to see what’s required. And then I try to deliver it.'”

Eyre has coupled his interpretation of the role with helpful historical anecdotes from Mantel, the author of the books. “She knows all the history, and she tells me all these things about Wolsey, which are sometimes very helpful,” he said. “They make your imagination work, but, on the other hand, I don’t feel over-awed by the fact that he’s an historical character. I try to play what’s in this particular play.”

Eyre is no newcomer to the New York theatrical world. He’s performed on Broadway, most recently in Hamlet with Jude Law. Other plays have included Terra Haute, Hamlet with Ralph Fiennes and his own work, Flaubert/Sand Correspondence Chere Maitre.

“I grew up in America until I was 14, and then my mother, who was English, wanted to go back to England,” he said. “Then I was sort of turned into a English person, but I have a strong relationship with America. I have family here, and I come here regularly. I love working here. … American audiences are so giving and so responsive. There’s a great feeling here that people go to the theater love going to the theater. It’s always fun.”

He added: “It sounds rather derogatory to say this, but in a way [Wolf Hall is] kind of a soap opera about all these people. It’s very, very plot-driven this play. … It’s a glamorous production. It’s a kind of spectacle, and I think the audience is engaged with that. I mean they seem to be very attentive and very responsive, and they laugh a lot. They clap.”

The actors on stage seem to work as a true ensemble, leaning on one another to deliver the narrative in an emotionally complex manner. “This company has an enormous amount of actors who are very, very young and incredibly energetic,” Eyre said. “And they shadowbox in the wings, and they dance and skip … Sometimes I’m sitting there thinking, God, I feel very, very old with all these people.”

Of the company of actors, some of who have been with the Royal Shakespeare Company production since its beginning, Eyre had many compliments. “It’s a particularly warm and friendly company,” he said. “Most of them have been doing it for a very long time.”

Miles, who plays Cromwell, offered Eyre some interesting thoughts on the experience of bringing Wolf Hall to life every week. “He [Miles] said the production is so complicated,” Eyre said. “You have so many entrances and costume changes, and putting on a beard and taking off a beard, it’s probably like being in a musical or something. He said when he first did it for about two weeks he suddenly realized he wasn’t really thinking; he was just doing it.”

After Wolf Hall ends, Eyre plans to act in a small independent film and return to the Edinburgh Festival. Until then he can be found on Broadway breathing life into historical drama.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Wolf Hall: Parts One and Two are currently playing in repertory at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City. Click here for more information.