Who was Quentin Crisp? George Nichols is the Assistant Director of Tom Stuart’s new play, After Edwa
Who was Quentin Crisp? George Nichols is the Assistant Director of Tom Stuart’s new play, After Edward, a response to Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II for which George is also the Assistant Director. In this blog he looks at key characters from After Edward that were real people. At the heart of this he and the cast have been asking how much they should impersonate these real people and how much they should interpret them. Quentin Crisp (played by Richard Cant in After Edward) was born into an inauspicious suburban family, the son of a solicitor and agoverness; however, he went on to live an extraordinary life. He is now bestknown as a raconteur, writer and actor whose appearance and personality defiedgender norms. Crisp recounted that he was the subject of much bullying inhis early life because of his effeminate behaviour. After leaving school in the1920s Crisp moved to Soho where he met other young homosexual men and foundmore freedom to be able to wear women’s clothing and makeup. By his own accounthis appearance shocked Londoners and led to him being the victim of homophobicattacks. During this time Crisp also sold sex as a rent boy, he said in aninterview later in his life that he was ‘looking for love, but found onlydegradation’. In the rehearsal room we’ve talked a lot about the effectthat Crisp’s early life might have on his character in After Edward. We keep returning to the feeling of personal invalidityfelt by the characters because their way of being goes against the grain ofsociety. As one character says ‘the world is made for white, maleheterosexuals’. Before gaining public recognition, Crisp tried to enlist inthe army in the early 1940s but was given a medical exemption on grounds of‘sexual perversion’. It was in this period that Crisp became a life model forartists, something he would continue to do for 30 years. Crisp’s fame came later in his life, following thepublication of his book The Naked CivilServant and its subsequent screen adaptation starring John Hurt. Followingthis he toured regularly with his show AnEvening with Quentin Crisp, where he would perform for the first halfbefore taking audience questions in the second. Crisp also became successfulacross the Atlantic and eventually he moved to New York. In New York, as inLondon, Crisp’s name and phone number were listed in the public directory.Crisp saw it as a duty to answer all calls and turn up to all invites, so aslong as you paid for it all you had to do was pick up the phone to have himover for dinner. This aspect of his personality was something thatfascinated us. Was it because he loved conversation, or did it cover a hole inhis personal life? We know from his own admission that he never quite feltloved or cared for. It’s here too that we see distinctions between thecharacter of Quentin Crisp in our play, and the real life figure. Crisp died aged 91 near Manchester as he was preparing forthe revival of his one man show AnEvening with Quentin Crisp. Throughout his old age he had remainedthoroughly outrageous and thought provoking and Richard Cant’s performance marriesthese elements to a deeply affecting softness that makes Crisp sparkle. After Edward opens in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 21 March. Photography by Marc Brenner -- source link
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