Sir Ian McKellen, one of Britains leading actors, is also an activist. Robert Greig spoke to him on the eve of his visit to South Africa
IN Ian McKellens experience there is a clear connection between activism and acting. They involve similar performance skills, he told the Weekly Mail & Guardian in a telephone interview from London.
McKellen is coming as part of a National Theatre team to do writing, acting and directing workshops at the Market in Johannesburg in September and October. He will also be staging his A Knight Out, a one-person show first successfully performed on Broadway at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Stonewall Riots, a key symbolic moment in gay liberation — they marked one of the first times that American gay men forcibly defended themselves against police harassment.
Apart from being one of Britains leading classical and TV actors and theatrical knights, Sir Ian is an associate director of the National Theatre. He has played Richard III, which is being filmed, Salieri in the Broadway Amadeus, and seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His most recent films include Scandal (as Profumo); And the Band Played On (which opens in South Africa this week) and Six Degrees of Separation, where he plays a South African businessman.
McKellan is also a founder member of The Stonewall Group, which campaigns for legal and social equality for gays and lesbians in the United Kingdom.
I have never practised formal politics,
McKellen says of his activism, and never been associated with political issues. But questions of race and gender discrimination have involved me for many years.
McKellen asked whether South African actors were open about their sexual affiliations: I said not, in general. He commented: Being openly gay and an activist has never had any effect on my acting career except perhaps to make me more self- confident. I must admit that sometimes I have been frightened and thought: Oh God, do I have to be some kind of pioneer?
I havent really experienced discrimination. I tend to agree with Anthony Sher, who said: I dont want to work with anyone who doesnt approve of gays and lesbians. Naturally not everyone is cut out to be an activist in gay issues. But we can at least give a bit of spare cash to gay causes and read about gay issues.
What with changes in the Soviet Union, Ireland and South Africa, it is an exciting time for people to come out.
McKellen has never been to South Africa before. His A Knight Out, which will be performed at the Market, was the first show he had written himself.
It drew, he says, on childhood experiences of stand-up comics in the north of England at a time which was the dying embers of music hall. The largely autobiographical show traces his theatre career to the transformative experience of publicly coming out five years ago and includes what is described as a hilarious account of being knighted by the Queen.
McKellen uses the words of William Blake, AE Houseman, DH Lawrence, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Wilde, Tennesee Williams and living writers.
What I discovered about myself in writing the show is that Im a terrible show-off, he says tersely.