Podcast Transcript
John Bell “Some Achieve Greatness”
SPEAKERS
Nicole Abadee, John Bell
Nicole Abadee
Hello, I'm Nicola Abadee and I write about books for Good Weekend. Welcome to the Books, Books Books podcast in which I interview the best writers from Australia and overseas about their latest book. Thank you for joining me. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the country where I live and work and from where I'm joining this conversation, the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present to the elders of all communities and cultures across Australia, and to leaders of the future. You can listen to this podcast all of the episodes at nicoleabadee.com.au or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Today, I'm delighted to welcome John Bell, an actor, director and theater manager and is one of Australia's most respected and loved theatre personalities, to Books, Books Books, to discuss his latest book "Some Achieve Greatness," lessons on leadership and character from Shakespeare and one of his greatest admirers. That book was published here in May by Pantera Press. Now I'll tell you a little bit about John. After graduating from Sydney University John joined Sydney's Old Tote Company in 1963. He won a scholarship that enabled him to spend five years with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. When he returned to Sydney in 1970, he co-founded the Nimrod Theatre Company, which he ran as artistic director until 1984. Then, in 1990, he founded the Bell Shakespeare Company, which quickly became an Australian institution performing in theatres, schools and communities across the country. As Artistic Director until 2015, John has produced some 15 of Shakespeare's greatest plays. In 1997, he was recognized as one of Australia's living treasures, and he has won countless awards for his contribution to Theatre in this country, which is second to none. John has an honorary doctorate from the University of Sydney, New South Wales and Newcastle. And his memoir, the time of my life was published in 2003. John, welcome to Books, Books, Books.
John Bell
Thank you very much.
Nicole Abadee
John, you fell in love with Shakespeare in high school, thanks to two very fine English teachers and a great desire to act. What play was it that you read or studied first, and were you introduced to it by reading it or by performing in it?
John Bell
The first play I came across by Shakespeare was Midsummer Night's Dream and this was at Maitland Maris brothers when I was about, I guess, 14 years old. That teacher we had was the football coach as well as the English teacher, a big man with a big voice. And he loved theatre, he loved Shakespeare, he loved performing. And so he threw down a copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream on each desk but instead of saying let's read the play, he said, I'll do it for you and he acted out the whole play. Not in one sitting but in a half an hour every English lesson, marching up and down the aisles playing all the roles, describing the sets and the costumes and the pratfalls and the gags. He loved playing Bottom that was his favorite part, his turn as the queen of the fairies wasn't quite as convincing, but he put his heart and soul into it. And we couldn't wait for the next English lesson and the next chapter of Midsummer Night's Dream. And then after that, he took us off to the movies to see all the Olivia movies the Henry the V, Hamlet, which he preferred. And if it were a live show came down - which wasn't that often being in Maitland, we marched off to the Town Hall to see some sort of touring company. So I got a love of Shakespeare very early on and I responded to it and he could see that I was interested and he encouraged me to go into the local of Eisteddfod and start performing.
Nicole Abadee
John, when did you first perform and manage Shakespeare's plays and which play was it and what role did you play?
John Bell
Well, I had so much at school you see because my second English teacher was also inspired. And I had him in my later year, my last two years of high school, and he was a great lover of theater. And he said to me, we're going to put on a play night in the Maitland Town Hall, which was a rarity. The Maitland Maris brothers had never had a play night. It was very much devoted to maths and footy, not to theater. So he hired the Town Hall, they said, you can go ahead and arrange the program you can choose whatever plays you want to do and you can design the show, the costumes and the sets etc, and I'll hire all the stuff from Sydney and we will put on a show. So I chose Oedipus Rex, and my favorite scenes from Henry the IV, which we were studying at school, and a pantomime, which I devised with myself as the chief clown. And then he hired all the costumes and he arranged the lighting and we had two glorious night's in the Maitland Town Hall. And I realized many years later, of course, he did that just for me, it wasn't for the school or for the other kids, it was all for me and that's an extraordinary gift, and I only wished that he was still alive and I could thank him properly because I didn't realize until much later, just what that had cost him to do that, and what he invested in me. So that was my very first experience of performing Shakespeare live. At university, I did some more I did, I played Coriolanus at university and Melvolio and that really, those four years of university were a very heady time because there was a lot of theater talent around at that time. I worked a lot with John Dadum, and the late Virgina Barret Kenneth Horler, the late Kenneth Horler, Ron Blair. And we did a lot of review and contemporary plays, and also a fair bit of Shakespeare. So there's your four years of university, we're an education, in many ways, in life and in academia, and also in theater.
Nicole Abadee
John, over the years, you've been delivering talks and presentations on the subject of Shakespeare and leadership in various different places for some time, how did that come about? How did you come to be giving talks like that, and who, who were the people you were talking to about that?
John Bell
Well, as the head of the Shakespeare Company, I was called upon to make first night speeches after every play every opening night. And I would say a little bit about the play and about the production. And I was invited in from one of those evenings to come and give a talk at a corporate lunch about Shakespeare and his connection to leadership and to business and so on. And they've caught on and I became invited, invited to several of those kinds of occasions. And one such there was a publisher, President, Mr. John Green from Pantera press, who said, "Look, why did you put all that down in writing, and I'll publish it." So that's how this book came about. But I've been doing this kind of talking about Shakespeare leadership now for, for some years off and on.
Nicole Abadee
John, in your introduction, you write about your first real experience of leadership and that was when you co-founded with Ken Haller and Richard Wherrett the Nimrod in 1970. In 1974, the company moved from darlinghurst, from the stables to larger premises in Belvoir St, and you write about how you tried to run the company on democratic lines. Could you tell us a bit about that and how it worked out?
John Bell
Well, it was a great idea and it didn't work out all that well, in the long run because we were a small group of people, we tended to share our ideas and enthusiasm among the group and reach consensus by around the table. And as the company grew larger, we maintained that kind of connection with the rest of the staff, until we had about, I guess, 20, or 35, people on board, all in all, with the workshop and the actors and the front of house, people and so on. And so we'd have regular company meetings, and we invited suggestions and comments and feedback from the whole company about what the company was doing and where we're heading. And until it came to the point where the company meeting took on the mantle of we are running this company, we are the illustration, and everyone's voice is the same as everybody else's. So that the lady of the box office or the lady in somebody in, in wardrobe, or one of the carpenters could suggest a play and how to do it. And that had to be given due consideration, which I didn't mind, I quite enjoyed the sort of the party until it became taken for granted that the company would vote on company policy and, and, and context and, you know, repertoire. And that's when it got a bit silly. And it was very silliest, when somebody tried to move the notion that selling tickets was elitist, and all tickets should be free. And that's what I thought we've gotta shut this down, it's gone too far. This is not what it's all about. And I learned from that, that what a company really wants is someone at the top and listens, everybody can weigh all opinions and agendas, and then make a decision. And that you can call it a benign despotism, or whatever you like to call it, but I think that so a company has to run, people wants to be led, and they want to have someone at the top who knows what he or she is doing.
Nicole Abadee
And you did lead that company in 1984. And you said that in your book, you vowed you'd never lead a theatre company again. In 1990 you were persuaded clearly a little reluctantly, to start to run another Theatre Company, The Bell Shakespeare Company. You were the Artistic Director there until 2015, for 25 years, and you say not surprisingly, that in that period, you learned a lot about leadership and also about life. What was the most challenging situation? Do you think that you had to deal with as the head of Bell Shakespeare Company? And how did you get through it?
John Bell
Well, we had many, many challenges in the first seven or eight years, because we have no government funding. We had no corporate sponsorship. So we depended entirely on donations and private supporters, little by little government money sort of trickled through for special projects, etc, but no guarantee of any further funding. So it was pretty hairy. That's first seven years, they'll be weekly board meetings about can we play next week to ages or can we afford to go to Melbourne etc, etc. Eventually, we managed to get on a good financial footing, which has been maintained. But I guess our biggest crisis and accounting what year this would have been off the cuff, but about, I guess, 15-16 years down the track, it would have been, we lost our General Manager, rather suddenly. And we had to decide whether we advertise immediately for a General Manager, and our chair, a very smart woman who'd been involved in, in the corporate world in human resources. Said "why don't you try running the company by committee, and see if you can do without a General Manager?" So we thought we'd give that a go. That would mean each section of the company, whether it was workshop or wardrobe, or finance, or marketing, would meet and bring ideas and suggestions. And then my fellow Artistic Director, my Co Director, and I would come to a decision. So before we did that, we thought, let's talk about the whole company individually. And so we had them in one by one, to come and talk to us, myself and my partner about what they thought about the company where it was heading, where it could be improved their own job satisfaction, and what they would like to be doing. And they each got about a half an hour interview, and we collated all that. And then at the end of that process, we fed it back to the entire company. "This is what you all said", we didn't name names, but "these are the ideas we received. And these are the ones we think are really important, we're going to act on immediately." And so that process worked quite well for maybe a couple of months meeting by committee and everybody chipping in and feeding ideas to my partner and myself. And we realized we'd need a General Manager, after all, someone who could the mind of the shop, while we're out in rehearsal, or on tour, or whatever we're doing. Someone to just hold on to the reigns. Let's look at the process of company meetings and people floating blue sky ideas, everybody allowed to speak up, but not this was the stiplulation, feeling, they were and therefore empowered to decide on policy. They could feed into policy and suggest, they would assume that this was going to be a sort of a collective. And that process has worked very well. We shifted people around. We invented jobs that suited their own personalities and their wants. We found a new general manager from among the ranks, someone who had been a company manager until then and she is still in that job and did it extremely well. So the whole process of just listening to people, letting them open up and give out all their ideas and suggestions was a very healthy exercise. And it taught us a lot about the company we will try to run and how we could do better.
Nicole Abadee
And, john, you've talked about that in your book, that one of the aspects of leadership is holding company meetings, why are they important? Why is that such an important feature of of running an organization or a company?
John Bell
I think for several reasons. One is due to the company's ideas and agenda upfront. It's very easy for people to forget what the company is therefore, especially as people leave and new people come into the company, the message isn't up front. A lot of company culture and memory is lost with those who leave. And so you need a constant reminder of what we are here for what we're trying to do and you can reiterate that in various forms regularly, but also it's important that every department in the company hears what each other is doing. People in wardrobe don't know much about what marketing is doing. People in marketing don't know much about what the workshop is doing and hearing all their challenges and hardships and successes, it really feeds into the whole company spirit of everybody's pulling their weight in their own departments. And it's interesting to hear what they're doing and what, what they're achieving. So it makes it much more sort of, I suppose family feeling about knowing what every member of the company is doing, and how they're succeeding and what their challenges are. So it brings the whole company together in a very, very good way. So I think we are the two main reasons for having regular company meetings, and encouraging everybody to speak up. And in order to receive information firsthand, rather than on the grapevine to be told stuff from the horse's mouth at a company meeting, this is what's happening, these are the challenges, these are our problems. Otherwise, people start, rumours start and scare campaigns can get underway and people feel left out, or I didn't know about that no one told me. So that's worth avoiding that sense of deprivation, and builds a real rapport I think,
Nicole Abadee
John, something else you talk about, in this book about leadership, is the importance of knowing when it's time to go and having an firm succession plan in place. Could you talk a little bit about how you manage your departure from Bell Shakespeare?
John Bell
Yes, I had appointed over the years, people to work alongside me as an Associate Director or as a Company Director and one of those got a job offer from another company to take over another company. So she left and then I acquired another one. Peter Evans is now the, the Artistic Director of the Bell Shakespeare Company. I took Peter on as my Associate Director and he worked alongside me for five or six years before I was going to leave, so that he was well and informed and highly involved with what the company was doing, rather than just someone who walks into a new job, not knowing the company culture. So he was well imbued with the company culture, and were what we were trying to achieve, and was ready to take over seamlessly when I left. I was toying with the idea of leaving early on, it was hard decision to make. But when it came to 2015, I thought, okay, I'll be 75 I've been here 25 years, that's a very nice number, a good one to go out on. So I plan to leave at the end of 2015. And he had plenty of warning, and the company had plenty of warning that that transition would take place. Because I had seen other companies where the company artistic director left in rather hurriedly or unannounced, and the new person coming in had to really start from scratch and work out what the hell was going on. So I think a smooth transition is really important for everybody's sake and confidence. And also the feeling that you've done what you had to do. I thought if I stayed in it longer, I just kept repeating myself, and that wouldn't be a very worthwhile activity.
Nicole Abadee
Let's let's talk about an example from Shakespeare of a lack of succession plan or very poor succession plan. Talk to us a little bit about King Lear and how his failure to have in places succession plan lead to catastrophic events for him.
John Bell
Yes, well, King Lear you picked a very, very good example of a really terrible succession plan. King Lear has outstayed his welcome, we're not totally sure exactly how old he is but he's represented as being an age of patriarch, never mentioned, in his 80s I suppose, although it's never specified. And he has three daughters. And he decides he won't actually retire, he'll just split the kingdom up among the three of them. And then he will spend a few months here, a few months there, with his revenue of 100 nights, on extended holiday as it were, with no responsibility, but all the perks, and between the three of them, they can rent the kingdom. Well, it's a crazy idea, as soon as you split a job into three parts, you're going to get two gang against one, or someone trying to rise to the top in a triumvirate, is doomed, as we see in Julius Caesar. So that's a bad plan. Even worse, he makes it a love test. Whoever loves me most will get the biggest part of the kingdom, which is also inviting hypocrisy and treachery and double standards and to have the sisters do exactly that. Where's the third one? Cordelia refuses to play the game and so she gets balled out and exiled and sent off to France while the other two then start fighting over who's going to have the whole cake. And get rid of dad, because he's now he's in the way and He's useless. Ge rid of him and his 100 lights, charging and every weekend and taking over our place. So it's a terrible plan. Also, the idea of cutting your Kingdom up into three is, it's very contrary to what a leader should be trying to do. And in fact, it's a kind of, I suppose, compliment to King James it was Shakespeare's pipe dream, where that time was trying to unite England and Ireland and Scotland into the United Kingdom. So he was saying, the King Judge is doing the right thing and King Lear is doing exactly the reverse and making, doing exactly the wrong thing, A) by splitting his kingdom up, B) by having a terrible succession plan, and C) by inviting hypocrisy and lies and double standards, into decision making.
Nicole Abadee
John, before we come to the various qualities of leadership that you talk about in your book, let's talk a little bit about Shakespeare himself. Why is it that he was such a great observer of human nature? How did he become such an expert in how human beings behave?
John Bell
Well look, I think that's instinct. I think one is born, empathetic or not. Interested in other people or not. I'd think he was a very great observer and listener who found people fascinating. He was curious about all sorts of things, history and nature of navigation and science and all those things. But above all, he was interested in people and he was obviously a great listener, because he catches people's inflections and dialect and ways of speech in an uncannily accurate way. And also, with that observation, comes a psychological instinct to understand why people are behaving the way they're talking like that. So there's psychological insights, quite extraordinary, and always convincing. So I think he was simply born with that talent, as any great artist is born with a talent. And his was in listening and observing and enable, being able to replicate the way people really behave.
Nicole Abadee
You also talk about in the book, the fact that he was very close to the center of political power, and that's what gave him such a particular insight into how politics work. Would you like to talk a little bit about that?
John Bell
Yes, well, when he first came to London, around the age of 20, he started working as a jobbing actor, with various theatre companies, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, for instance, and The Admirals Men, and soon he was asked to start patching up old plays and writing new ones. And little by little, he gained a great reputation as an actor and a playwright. And before long, he and his fellows were invited to become the Queen's Own Private Theatre Company, The Queen's Men. And so they were on hand throughout the year, whenever she wanted a performance, The Queens Men would have to rally, leave The Globe Theater and go out to Greenwich or wherever she was and put on a show. And so they were her private troupe. When she died, her successor, King James took over the company, and now they became The King's Men. And King James was a more demanding patron, he demanded many more performances. In fact, 11 of Shakespeare's plays were performed for Christmas, one year for King James. So he was an avid theater lover and a patron. And so Shakespeare is covering the very top of the tree, as the best troupe of actors and in England at that time.
Nicole Abadee
Let's talk now about some of the qualities that you've identified as being very important for leaders. We'll talk first about the good ones that you select, and then we'll come to some of the less attractive ones arrogance and entitlement. Let's start with courage. What does it mean for a leader to be courageous?
John Bell
I think to take responsibility, to be there, to be upfront. To be one of the team but to lead the team as you know, first among equals, if you like, to listen to advice and seek expert advice, but then act on your part what your conscience tells you is is the right course to take whatever people around you are saying. To, to having listened to good advice, then to have the courage to follow that, and trust your instinct, and do what you think is the right thing to do.
Nicole Abadee
John, which of Shakespeare's characters best demonstrates courage and leadership?
John Bell
I suppose Henry V is the closest to an ideal. He's not absolutely ideal because Shakespeare's too much of a realist to say, this guy was perfect. His invasion of France is on very flimsy pretext. And some of these tactics in the war were questionable but as a leader, he is able to inspire his troops, they are outnumbered, they're starving, they're demoralized. And he still manages to rally them to fight the most, one of the most famous battles in English history. Simply through listening to them moving amongst them as a as an equal, spreading a contagious optimism and confidence and being there for them when they need him. I think that's one of his most important qualities that they feel is available to them and cares about them and promises them that they'll be okay under this command. That, that takes a fair bit of persuasion, given this dire situation were found themselves in.
Nicole Abadee
He's also a fine orator, isn't he, you isolate that speech that he gives as one of being, one of the great pieces of really, inspirational oratory. How important is it for a leader to be a strong speaker, a good communicator, an orator?
John Bell
Well, I think the two things are a little bit separate, you can be a good communicator, without having to be a great orator and the main skill in communicating, of course, is listening, to listen more and talk less. So that's the most important aspect of it, if you have a honey tongue, like Henry V or Winston Churchill, that helps. It certainly helps to inspire people and encourage them but you can do more by example, you don't have to be a great orator, or a great wordsmith to be a good example of leadership. I think someone like Lincoln was a great orator. But others, like people, like Nelson Mandela, led more by example and fortitude, than through what they said. It was what they did mattered more.
Nicole Abadee
John, let's talk now about decisiveness. How important is it for a leader to have good timing?
John Bell
Oh, that's very important. And it's sometimes accidental. Sometimes you don't know what's good timing until you've taken the risk. You can try to set up good timing, but you can be caught out you can be caught short. I think, whatever the situation, one of the worst things you can do is procrastinate, that really drains your whole team of confidence and energy. So it's better to be decisive, even if it's risky, rather than sit around and wait. That's one of the things that Lincoln found most infuriating with his generals that they would, they were refused to take on the enemy. And he would have to go from Battlefield to battlefield and ginger them up and sometimes take over himself. Because he actually got Ulysses S. Grant, and Stonewall Jackson on side, the other generals lacked that, that zest and that confidence. So good timing is really important. Sometimes it's fortuitous. You can't always make good timing. But I think it's better to take the risk and jump in rather than leave everybody dangling and worrying.
Nicole Abadee
John you make the point that of course the opposite of that bad timing can be fatal for later. Tell us a bit about Macbeth, and how was his bad timing that really contributed amongst other things to his downfall.
John Bell
Well, I think Macbeth and his wife are examples of people who are very charismatic, very successful, have all the qualities of being tremendously successful leaders. But both of them impatient, and over ambitious, and lacking, of course, in moral, moral compass to deal with things they do. But perhaps the biggest mistake they make is to say, well King's coming here tonight let's kill him tonight after dinner, and we'll blame somebody else - blame the groups or blame their sons for it. That's totally reckless. It's a very bad plan. nobody buys it for very long, and then they're just forced to cover up his tracks and try and get rid of people who know too much or they're suspecting and he becomes a kind of paranoid tyrant as a result. But if they're going to carry out the plan that they hatched, they should have waited for a better opportunity, rather than sort of jumping in headfirst and saying, we can get away with this. That's a kind of a criminal mentality.
Nicole Abadee
You give an example of decisive leadership with Henry V, and you make the point that he was ready to take very tough decisions. What did he do when he was faced with the treachery of three of his knights who were very close to him?
John Bell
Well, that's one of the aspects of Henry that is kind of ambivalent, I think. He has no hesitation in dumping people. If they let him down, or are in his way, the three knights that betray Him to the French, he executes on the spot without any remorse at all, which I think is one could say right and proper. What else does one do? If people have tried to have you assassinated, on the other hand, is dumping false stuff. And his cronies is a rather callous act, I think, and share someone who is ready to move on and dump old friends who are no longer useful to you, or who might bring you into disrepute. And perhaps one of the other cases is his execution of Bardoff, one of his soldiers or drinking buddies, who steals something from a church in France. And so Henry has his hand as an example to the others. You did touch private property when invading he force, but then we behave ourselves. So he's pretty ruthless when it comes to maintaining order and I think the one thing that weighs against him is he does break the heart of Falstaff, his oldest friend, because Falstaff just actually is no longer useful.
Nicole Abadee
Let's talk now, john, about charisma. You make the point that for a leader to be charismatic, it must be authentic, not not put on not costumed charisma. I'm wondering, is charisma enough? on its own? For a good leader? Or do you need something more?
John Bell
Oh, I think you need a lot more than charisma. I think charisma comes easy. It can be totally false face and false glamour. It can be manufactured so easily by a team of Spin Doctors and PR people. It's a worrying commodity. I think that people like Hitler, or Stalin or Mussolini had charisma, you can see it in adoring crowds gathered around them. But it was an evil force that they had. Real charisma i think is something that is bestowed on you rather than what you carry around with you. People. Give that to you. Once you have proved yourself to be to have integrity and honesty and trustworthiness, that is a charisma that you earn. It's nothing that you are necessarily born with it, you can work to, to achieve something and that in itself brings with it people's admiration or applause or whatever you want to call it. And service. charisma is something that you earn rather than a quality you're born with and people who are born with it, I am always a bit suspicious of because what's underneath all the tinsel?
Nicole Abadee
On that point, let's talk a little bit about Mark Antony and Cleopatra. They both had bucketloads of charisma. Did it help them?
John Bell
It didn't help them in the long run. No, they had a wonderful time, enjoying their charisma, but carried away by their own publicity if you like and saw themselves as being sort of the great romantic lovers. In the meantime, they ignored the the duties of state, they ignored the enemy coming up behind them. They wasted their opportunity in a life of decadence and luxury. So, you know, in Antony's case, he got the top job, but then he didn't have the self discipline or the the integrity to hold on to it. And he really whistled away his best chance. So he's a rather tragic figure I think. Someone like Octavius, who took over from him, was far more pragmatic and cold blooded, not nearly as attractive a drinking buddy, but a far more successful. leader of state,
Nicole Abadee
Let's look at it from the other angle. Do you think that you can be a strong successful leader if you lack charisma?
John Bell
Oh, I think you can. I think as I say charisma is, It's a rather loose word actually, I'd rather say respect or admiration or the core approval of the people working around you that in in time can become almost legendary. Someone might say Millie Dunlop, for instance, people who play low status, they don't go seeking publicity. They don't go seeking glamour. But they carry on their job in such a way, they earn tremendous admiration from their people around them. And that in turn in time becomes a kind of legend. And they say that's something that happens after you've reached the top. You don't have to have it to get to the top. But once you've done something as remarkable as say, Millie Dunlop did, then he legend grows around you.
Nicole Abadee
Let's talk now John, about integrity and humanity. And you make a really interesting point which you illustrate with number of examples, that those of Shakespeare's characters who show the greatest integrity are not the main protagonists two are almost always male, but they're either what you call the inverted commas second rank characters, such as Horatio in Hamlet, and the women, Cordelia in King Lear, Porscha, Merchant of Venice. Let's start by talking a little bit about some of those characters Horation, Cordelia, Porscha and how they demonstrate their integrity.
John Bell
Well, I think with a case of Horatio he's the the ideal best friend, the one who's always there when you need him. Offers advice when it's asked for, is totally trustworthy and open and totally supportive. No questions asked. And that's a kind of male buddy, if you like best friend, and someone you can totally trust. With the case of people like Cordelia and say, Hermione in The Winter's Tale and Desdemona, they, the women there have extraordinary power of forgiveness and nurturing so the more female qualities that we do find in many of the male characters. They are what we identified largely as female characteristics. And they are amazingly, amazingly strong and constant. Cordelia is so abused by her father, but is totally forgiving of his rage and, and cruelty. Desdemona on her deathbed, forgives a felon and tries to save his life. Hermione in The Winter's Tale is totally forgiving of her husband's dreadful abuse, locking her in prison, taking away her child, etc, etc. So we find him in the women, there's amazing qualities of steadfastness and wisdom and
Nicole Abadee
Forgiveness,
John Bell
Compassion and forgiveness. Yes, yes.
Nicole Abadee
Why do you think that is John? Why do you think that Shakespeare has landed those most admirable qualities on either the lesser characters or the women, why is it that the male protagonists don't overall show that same degree of decency and integrity?
John Bell
I think he was looking at the male / female polarities, if you like, and saying the men have these qualities, the women have these qualities, the ideal person would combine all of those. So he's trying to find what we should all be, is to have all those qualities, given the society lived and in the kind of patriarchy that it was, so male dominated, all those male attitudes were very much to the fore. But I think throughout his career, he was trying to give women more of a voice and more authority. They start out being a bit over the top like Katarina the Shrew for instance, rebelling against male authority. Little by little, the women first have to assume a male persona, a male costume and pretend to be men, the authority, people like Porscha or Rosalyn,for instance,
Nicole Abadee
and of course there are men playing these roles. So it's a man dressed up as a woman dressing up as a man.
John Bell
Yes, exactly, exactly but the audience still understood this as a woman that we're watching. And that little by little the women do gain authority, not through temporal power, but through their own personal integrity, and, and intelligence. So I think he's trying to reconcile those two things. How can we have all these qualities in the one person? There was a certain dichotomy at work, because even though it was a very patriarchal and male and quite violent society, it was headed by a woman, Queen Elizabeth, who played being a woman up to the hilt, and used all her feminine charm and wit and diplomacy but refused to give in to a man. She wouldn't marry, she wouldn't give herself, she wouldn't obey, have anyone as her lord. And she kept maintaining that she was, to a certain extent, male herself, I may have the feeble body of a woman, but I have the heart of a king of England. So she saw herself as sort of a male figure, as well as being the Queen. So that was an interesting, interesting contradiction there. This patriarchy was dominated by a woman they had to pay court to.
Nicole Abadee
Before we move to the really poor qualities, arrogance and entitlement, let's talk about one that seems to me to swing in the balance. And that's ambition. You make the point, and I think we all know that, in some ways, it's very important for a leader to be ambitious, in other ways, it can become a fatal flaw. When does it move from one to the other? At what point does ambition become a bad thing in a leader?
John Bell
I think there's a line when, when ambition disjoins remorse from power, that's when it becomes bad. That ambition in itself is necessary, it's good, otherwise, nothing would ever be achieved, we're done. We have to have ambition in all sorts of areas, but when it disjoined remorse from power, that's when it becomes a fatal flaw. And so once you start ignoring people, and their needs and their wants, when you cease seeing them as people, seeing them as just numbers or instruments to play with, once you lose that humanity, then ambition becomes really, really dangerous. And we see within even the graph of the great tyrants of history, whether it's Starling or Mao, or Pol Pot or any of those people that people don't matter, any of them anymore, they're just they can be dispensed with. It's all about winning the game and, you know, building an empire of some sort where people become dispensable. So that's the, of course the enormous downside of ambition. And we've seen so much of that throughout history.
Nicole Abadee
John, let's talk about that, in the context of Caesar and Macbeth, how in both of those cases, their overweening ambition really contributed to their downfall, their hubris. Could you talk a bit about that? about Caesar? And then Macbeth?
John Bell
Yes, well, they're very different. Caesar is actually his main fault is his narcissism, rather than ambition. He has had an extraordinary career as a great military commander. He's been made console for life, which is a great honor but he wants more he wants to be he wants to be the king. And that is repugnant to all republicans, the Kings were kicked out of Rome generations before and they don't want to see the Monarchy restored. But nothing less will do for Caesar, he wants this the pomp and ceremony of a, an oriental despot. So it's nothing to do with power, it's to do with self glory, and status and an image of himself. He has all the power that he needs, he doesn't need any more. So it's more about, you know, the, the, the pomp surrounding him that is important. In Macbeth it's the other way, he wants power. And one can understand why in a sense, because he is one of a bunch of nobleman veins, who are more or less equally entitled to the crown. It's a kind of, not so much an elected monarchy, but anybody can be appointed to be king, you don't have to be in the line of succession, necessarily. And so he's vying with people like McDuff around him who could always also make a claim to the crown once King Duncan has gone. So you've got to get in first, I suppose is his message and whoever grabs the prize hangs on to it. So he's ambitious. His wife's even more ambitious. And that's that's the problem. If it hadn't been for her. I think he wouldn't have gotten through with the assassination of Duncan. He's, he's very, very trepidatious about about doing it but his wife's ambition really forces his hand. And she too is no monster she has a very, very delicate conscience and goes, goes mad with guilt not too all that long later. So neither of them are barbarians or brutal. They are just over ambitious, over impatient and I say lacking that moral compass that that stops them in time from doing one bad action but then of course leads to another and another.
Nicole Abadee
Let's talk now about arrogance. Had does Ceasar's arrogance bring him down?
John Bell
It's again to deal with the narcissism with not listening to anybody not taking note of other people. He's quite a shrewd observer of people. He sees that Cassius, for instance, is someone who he has to look out for he senses there's something dangerous about Cassius, but he's also so secure in who he is that he thinks that nobody can really touch him. Always I am Caesar. And when people petition him, he rebuffs them. He doesn't listen to people's needs, and he doesn't listen to good advice. He gets good advice from his wife Calpernia and it gets advice from the soothsayer. Beware the Ides of March the soothsayer in the press gallery and can see what's really going on and knows what's what
Nicole Abadee
I'm finding, because I'm thinking of Australian political leaders in recent time, who what you've said applies to,
John Bell
You can't help but think of Australian politicians reading all of Shakespeare's plays. But in the case of Caesar, yes, he doesn't listen, he doesn't realize that he's reached his used by date. He thinks that he can have total power and authority, without any really solid grounds for it, he's overriding tradition and convention, and he's really out of touch with the Zeitgeist and that's a fatal place to be in.
Nicole Abadee
John, one of the lovely things about your book is how frank it is. So as well as talking about these qualities and how they're, how Shakespeare writes about them, you talk about your own experiences, the director of Nimrod, and Artistic Director of Nimrod, and then of Bell Shakespeare and you say in this chapter about arrogance, that in the context of directing a show, or any project, there are two types of leaders, dictators, and collaborators. You say very disarmingly that you have been both, would you like to talk a bit about when you were a dictator? And what have you learned with the shortcomings of that approach?
John Bell
Look, I think, most young artists, most young directors, feel the need to be the boss, I am the director, therefore, I direct. And this is my plan, this is my vision, this is how I want it carried out. And you're rather jealous of that and hang on to it. And you don't want anybody interfering with it, or making counter suggestions, or in any way, sort of subverting it. You want to impose your your vision on the whole project. As you get a bit older, you realize it's much more sensible to invite other people to get in the tent, to hear their ideas and suggestions. They may have better ideas than your own. Their criticisms might be well worth hearing and their enthusiasm will be encouraged by being invited to join the party and to speak, speak their minds. I learned a lot from one director, Michael Bunk Borganoff, of the directed Troilus and Cressida for us in 2000. And at the end of each week's rehearsal, Michael would sit in a circle with everybody and say now, how do you think we're going? How do you feel it's all proceeding, any ideas, any suggestions? People were invited to speak up, I thought that shows a man who is very secure in himself, who knows what he's doing, he trusts himself enough to invite ideas of criticism. And perhaps if it's a good idea, he'll take that and run with it. That is really a secure director. It not only shows his his sense of what what he's doing, it also encourages the rest of the team to feel invited in and to feel part of the project, rather than just people who are there to carry out instructions or carry out orders, and you're much more likely to be a valuable contributor if you're an enthusiastic one and when you feels appreciated. I've met other directors, a couple of European directors, particularly in my career, who the old fashioned kind of director, who doesn't call, just do this, do that. This is how you do it. And it kind of kills your enthusiasm, your spirit in a way, becomes something of an automaton, just a puppet carrying out the director's vision. Now that's not nearly as satisfying and the effect isn't as long lasting, because you're doing it by numbers rather than any real inner sincerity,
Nicole Abadee
John to what degree in the leadership roles that you have held at Nimrod and at Bell's Shakespeare, have you been influenced by Shakespeare and the leaders that he writes about?
John Bell
That's a rather hard one to answer. Simply, I think I've drawn a bit here and a bit there throughout the years, and as I've done, the plays over and over, my mind has changed about some of those characters and what they represent. And as you go older, the plays mean different things. You think, you know, Hamlet, when you're 20, then when you're 30 it means something quite different, when you're 40, it means something else again, so the plays keep changing and therefore, the lessons I learned from them, keep changing. Someone like Prospero, for instance, in The Tempest, can seem like a very frigid kind of tyrant. Or you can see him as someone who's benevolent, and, and charitable. Or as someone who's inspired. You keep finding different elements to a character as as you age and as you play them again, and again. So I've tended to, I guess, shift my ground a bit as a director, and as an actor, the more I study the plays, and I think that's probably quite a healthy thing to be ready to shift ground and change your mind and adapt as, as the circumstances change. I think that's a lovely quality of leadership is adaptability, flexibility, a willingness to say, Okay, I can do this better, another way,
Nicole Abadee
A willingness to learn.
John Bell
Yes, indeed.
Nicole Abadee
John, you write that, and I think we'd all agree, COVID-19 has posed the greatest threat really, since World War II, to our, to humanity. You make the point that Australia, and I would say, at least up until recently has on the whole been very well served by its political leaders in terms of how it has responded to COVID-19 and at least until we've got to this stage now, where there's some issues about the vaccination rollout, I think most people would agree that we have been well served by all of our political leaders. What is it that they have done right, really? What leadership qualities have our leaders shown, that have enabled them to lead as well and to steer us through this crisis?
John Bell
Well leaving aside the mistakes that I think nearly all of them have made. And they're not entirely to blame for those mistakes, because there are people that are advising them and circumstances keep changing and we keep finding out more and more about this particular plague. But the good points that I think that have shown themselves are a firmness of resolve, not to give into this thing, that to spread an enthusiasm and optimism that we can fight it, we can survive, we can manage this thing. Now, as I said before, they have made mistakes and haven't always been successful, but they haven't let down their resolve or their optimism. Whether that's genuine, or they're putting it on for us, it doesn't really matter. You look to a leader for that kind of inspiration and sense of security and, you know, we're all in this together, which we we get from the great leaders of the past too like Churchill and Lincoln, people who stand up and represent the will of the people and saying, we can all survive this thing. And I think if a leader doesn't have that quality, if they show excess anxiety or despair, or defeatism, that's the very worst thing they could project. And none of our leaders have projected that.
Nicole Abadee
John, finally, how would you like to be remembered as a leader? For what qualities?
John Bell
Benevolence I would say, first of all. You can do all sorts of things wrong, make all sorts of mistakes but I wouldn't like to be remembered as somebody who was unpleasant or cruel or heartless. I think it's the leaders who are benevolent and caring are the ones you remember most and are most grateful for.
Nicole Abadee
John, thank you so much for joining me today on books, books, books. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
John Bell
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Nicole Abadee
Thank you for listening to books, books, books. If you liked what you heard in this episode, please go to my website, nicoleabadee.com.au to listen to all the episodes and find out more about the podcast. You can also find me, Nicole Abadee, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and look for my reviews in Good Weekend. You can subscribe to Books, Books, Books at Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google and all the usual places. It would be lovely if you could go to any of these platforms and give Books, Books, Books a rating or review. Thank you. I look forward to talking books with you again soon.