Clarke Peters: the actor on truth and the ‘timelessness’ of the Fool in ‘King Lear’
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“It must have been 1956,” says Clarke Peters, casting his mind back to when he first fell in love with acting. “Somewhere in the mid-50s. My father gave my brother and me two marionettes one Christmas. I think that’s where it started — to be able to sit in a bunk bed and try to tell a story . . . And I’m still here!”
Here, at this particular moment, means a rather spartan meeting room in the Almeida Theatre’s north London rehearsal rooms. The American actor, loved by many as the wise detective Lester Freamon in HBO’s The Wire and now 71, is taking a break from working on one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic characters: the Fool in King Lear.
He won’t be playing a jester. “I’m not going out with the four-peaked hat and the curled-up shoes and pantaloons and all that,” he says, chuckling at the idea. Rather he and the company, led by director Yaël Farber, are homing in on the Fool’s role as truth-teller. The staging is set in the modern day, but the Fool, says Peters, sits outside of that.
“There’s a timelessness to him,” he says. “His back-story becomes one of history — which supports why he does what he does now in this realm and this time . . . And I suspect that the reason why Shakespeare wrote him out halfway through is because that is kind of what happens to the truth.”
The Fool occupies a crucial space in Shakespeare’s mighty tragedy. He’s the only character allowed to speak the truth to the volatile monarch and the only one to whom Lear confesses his fear of madness. His care for his ageing master is palpable. Yet everything about this capricious outsider is mysterious: his background, his age, his sudden disappearance from the action.
Some see him as the monarch’s conscience, others as the spectre of Cordelia, the beloved daughter exiled by Lear for failing to flatter him. Why does Peters think the king tolerates this candid oddball?
“I guess because he’s so much a part of Lear’s consciousness,” he says. “You can lie to the world, but you cannot lie to yourself. I think that [the Fool] gets by because he has this far deeper relationship with Lear than anybody else. It’s like looking in the mirror. And [as Lear crumbles] for the Fool that is a mournful place to be in. It’s really heartbreaking.”
Meeting Peters, it’s easy to see why Farber might have cast him as this playful, profound character. He’s wonderful company — funny, warm, impulsive — and his conversation is punctuated by great frame-shaking bursts of laughter. But he’s immensely thoughtful with it. It’s still the comedians who tell the truth, he suggests.
“At a very young age I realised that comedians are the prophets of our generation. From Lenny Bruce to Dave Chappelle. And we need that. Everyone needs that.”
Many have commented on his stillness as an actor — it was one of the qualities that marked out his performance in The Wire — and he has talked about the importance of listening. But Peters is also a successful musician. As a young man he formed a soul band, in 1990 he wrote the musical Five Guys Named Moe and throughout his career, classical roles and straight drama have rubbed shoulders with musicals. He recently presented Black Music in Europe: A Hidden History for BBC Radio 4. Does that musicality influence his acting?
“Absolutely,” he replies. “There’s a lyric to the Fool: different pitches and voices, depending on the information to be imparted. To me, that’s music. And the rhythm — you can play with that pentameter. If you hang back on something, all of a sudden you get something that’s kind of like jazz, you know?”
Peters comes to Lear fresh from playing Ken in Truelove, a moving Channel 4 drama series in which a group of friends in their seventies pledge to help each other to die if the suffering becomes too great. Like Lear, Truelove coaxes its audience to consider ageing, mortality and the complexity of love in the face of that.
Peters loved the show for its depiction of older people as vibrant, sexy, funny individuals. But it also pitches them headfirst into the assisted dying debate. Ken has some hard decisions to make. Peters admits that playing him could be tough.
“It’s a difficult question. I’ve now come to the conclusion that if a very good friend or relative is lucid enough while on assisted living — something that is making them breathe, something that is making the blood course through their body — and they are able to say, ‘I do not want to be like this for the rest of my life, help me’, I think that, with some deliberation, I would probably flick the switch for them because that is their desire.
“And it’s obvious to me that is not the quality of life that any human being should have to go through. You can’t put your hands in the earth, you can’t feel the sun on your face, you can’t take a shower, you can’t be hugged, you can’t hug anybody, you can’t even eat your own food.”
But he adds that wherever you stand in that debate, the main thing is to think honestly about death. “I hope that Truelove at least sparks a conversation. I think that it should. I have no qualms about what the outcome of that debate is, as long as death is a subject that we look at. It is an inevitable part of life.” He breaks into a laugh again. “It must be good because no one’s come on back to say otherwise!”
Born in New York City, Peters grew up in New Jersey. But while he returns to the States often to work, he has said that the racism and tensions there make him feel less welcome. We talk about The Wire and its frank depiction of some of those problems. Things, he says regretfully, “have not gotten better”.
“For myself, I don’t know how they can get better, without a huge, huge re-education of all of America,” he continues. “And a revamping of the media and the education system in America. And what is that going to require? Some sort of revolution. But there’s no use in having a revolution if you don’t know what you’re going to evolve into. It’s frightening. The only thing I can do is grow vegetables in my little garden and make sure my friends have some place to be peacefully.”
Peters mentions his garden often. He and his wife Penny have a smallholding in Portugal and he lights up when talking about it — “We have fruit trees there, there’s water from the ground.” And as much as our conversation has revolved around death, it’s also living well that concerns Peters. Not for him Lear’s stated intention to crawl, unburdened, towards death.
“Sometimes, when people retire, they figure, ‘OK, well that’s it, that’s over and done with.’ No!” he cries, beaming. “Learn some shit, man! As long as you’re breathing, learn something, do something! You still have a body — go garden, go carve, go paint, go learn, take a class. Do ANYTHING . . . Age has nothing to do with life, or learning, or continuing to grow. Even the most ancient oak trees are still coming up with new leaves. Why are you going to give up?”
‘King Lear’, Almeida Theatre, London, February 8-March 30, almeida.co.uk; ‘Truelove’ is available to stream on channel4.com
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