Special qualities put Diana Rigg at the top

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 9

Special qualities put Diana Rigg at the top

By

MICHAEL BILLINGTON,

theatre critic

of the “Guardian”

Diana Rigg was recently nominated b> "Time" magazine as Britain's best actress. It is a big claim, particularly for someone who has' never played such key roles as Shakespear's Cleopatra. Shaw’s Saint Joan, Ibsen s Hedda Gabler and Chekhov's Arkadina or Ranevskaya. All the same, it is a claim I would not dispute. Diana Rigg has proved herself in modern work and the classics as well as in all the media. But her particular forte is a combination of sharp, ironic intelligence with a hint of vulnerability. She looks good, speaks well and can move like a swan on water. What, however, makes her the ideal modern actress is her rare blend of challenging wit and real heart. She has most recently displaced those qualities in Tom Stoppard's "Night and Day" in which she played Ruth Carson, the wife of a mining engineer caught up in an African civil war. It was fascinating to see how Rigg caught both sides of the character. On the one hand, she displayed a cool, insolent mockery towards an Australian reporter who embodied all her fears about the foot-in-door tactics of the press. On the other hand, she was all yielding warmth when pole-axed by a handsome young journalist. Despite a pinched sciatic nerve, she played the role for most of the first six months of th run and showed how high comedy and true feeling can be artfully combined. Diana Rigg’s acting career, in fact, now spans

two decades. She was born 41 years ago in the northern England mining town of Doncaster and spent a lot of her childhood in India where her father was a colonial official. After studying acting at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art she had a brief spell in repertory, and in 1959 found herself a walk-on part in a Stratford on Avon company that included Olivier. Charles Laughton, Paul Robeson and Edith Evans. It was a crucial period at Stratford because Peter Hall was just beginning to transform a scratch team of stars into the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Diana Rigg was just the kind of bright young talent he was looking for. Half, in tact, once called her “the rudest small part actress I ever met.” But her tall frame, red haired beauty and air of sexual challenge made her instantly identifiable: parts such as Helena in "The Dream.” Adriana in "The Comedy of Errors” and Cordelia in "King Lear" quickly came her way. From 1960 to 1965 she was, indeed, a visibly rising star. Critics were full of praise. And gossip writers were beginning to call her "Britain’s most desirable bachelor girl.” What made her a star, however, was television. Quitting the RSC in 1965 she joined Patrick Macnee in "The Avengers” as the black leather clad karate chop heroine, Emma Peel. It was not high art, just good escapist fun. But Rigg brought to it a classy comedy style that was something

to do with height, timing and breeding. In Britain Kay Kendall was the last person to have it. And, like her. Diana Rigg an undeferential sexiness, a suggestion that she is every bit as good as the next man or woman. Undoubtedly “ ihe Avengers” turned Diana Rigg into a household name and

face. And the memory lingered on. I have seen her walking down a New York street, some years after the last series was shown on United States’ television and being offered a carnation by a flow'er vendor who instantly recognised her. Television also led to movies but, with the exception of "Hospital." in which she co-starred with George C. Scott, few of them have used her talent for thoroughbred comedy. Fortunately Diana Rigg came back to the stage, and for much of the 1970 s has combined leading roles at the National Theatre with commercial successes in London’s West End. At the National she was Dottie in Stoppard’s “Jumpers” in

1972 — which required her to sing, dance, disrobe and display showbiz glitter. She was also a startling Lady Macbeth; a painted Mary Queen of Scots with a lust for power; an admirable Celimene in Moiiere’s “The Misanthrope." skittishly frivolous and deliciously cool; and an impressive heroine, chalk

faced, white knuckled, pillar clawing, in "Phaedra Britannica” which transposed Racine’s “Phedre” to 19th century British India. The big question surrounding her, however, is whether the heavy tragic roles are within her compass. They require not only voice and breath but also a capacity for suffering and an intensity of attack that are not all that common, Diana Rigg herself has said: "In tragedy you must thoroughly enjoy your misery, relish it. There is a masochistic element to it. The big lesson I learnt from doing ‘Phaedra’ was; enjoy the unhappiness.” She has certainly shown in “Macbeth” and “Phae-

dra” strong hints of the tragic dimension. But in Shakespeare, Shaw and Stoppard she has demonstrated that she is temperamentally more at ease in comedy where her unique combination of irony and vulnerability makes her capable of switching easily between the roles of aggressor and victim.

She always reminds me of those lines in T.S. Eliot about lovely woman stooping to folly and pacing about her room again alone — “she smooths her hair with an automatic hand and puts a record on the gramophone.” She is the very incarnation of modern woman— independent, assertive but also glad now and again to compromise her ideals for the sake of a long-term relationship.

At the moment Diana Rigg is professionally free but privately very much attached to a theatrical entrepreneur and their two-year-old daughter. Whether she graduates to the rarefied atmosphere of the big tragic roles, time will tell. Meanwhile she has shown repeatedly that she is versatile, beautiful and capable of appealing simultaneously to head and heart. In short: Britain’s best actress.