We had heard that Miss Simone Signoret (Lady Macbeth in the controversial production at the Royal Court) was a healthy eater, and lo and behold there she was in purple trousers and purple jersey in her room at the Savoy Hotel, tucking into Steak tartare, helped down with whiskey, in the middle of the afternoon.
She said she didn’t really like the raw meat; but she had been right off form the day before when she didn’t have it.
“It should be good for what it costs. Look how I eat it: it’s disgusting. I didn’t eat it yesterday and felt very weak. I attach virtue to that steak. It must cost me my day’s work, considering what it costs here. It should be on the programme: the steak was provided by…”
She was a blue-eyed tiger. Her accent was Franco-American. She began by speaking of the blasts she and the production received from the critics and of the subsequent row between the critics and the director, Mr William Gatskill.
“If I was doing it absolutely like a Shakespearian actress I would be doing something that’s absolutely un-natural to me. But perhaps for an English ear I am unbearable and I can quite understand that. And I can understand that they get cross.
“And if ever I should appear again on the English stage I will try and find myself an English adaptation of a Japanese no – that’s mime. Then I won’t be accused of murdering the wonderful Shakespearian language.
“But I’m not making a fortune, and neither is Alec. But after all, I am a foreigner and I have to smoke and eat and drink somewhere.”
This is an edited extract from Why Lady Macbeth needs raw steak by John Gale, published in the Observer on 6 November 1966.
