No one who witnessed Maria Ewing's premiere performance as Salome, Oct. 9, 1986, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, directed by her famous then-husband, Peter Hall, will ever forget it.
Wide-eyed to the madness, the lithe soprano played Richard Strauss' demonically obsessed sex kitten for all she was worth. She stalked the stage like a panther and seduced King Herod with a Dance of the Seven Veils that left nothing to the imagination. Her fascination with the imprisoned prophet, John the Baptist, was obsession personified.
And when she finally received his severed head on a silver platter, Ewing lifted the bloody remnant to her lips and kissed it with passionate abandon, only to be murdered a moment later at the hands of the disgusted palace guards. The effect was stunning.
Little did we know that somewhere in the wings, hidden in shadows, Ewing's 5-year-old daughter, Rebecca, was also watching – in horror. "The Dance of the Seven Veils didn't bother me, nor did the whole perverse thing with John the Baptist's head," recalled the now-23-year-old Hall. "But it was truly terrifying (as) a 5-year-old to see my mother hacked to death. Although I don't remember it, my dad tells the story that after the performance I said, 'I don't see why she can't just go off with the head at the end and live happily ever after?' "
With a heritage like that, it was probably inevitable that Rebecca Hall would follow in her parents' footsteps and choose a life in the theater. Now, after just two years of seriously pursuing an acting career, she is being hailed as one of the stage's brightest new stars.
Hall stars as Shakespeare's wittiest heroine, the love-conflicted Rosalind, in her father's first production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It," now at L.A.'s Ahmanson Theatre. It's a stark, wintry interpretation that was first presented at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2003 before moving to London, and most recently, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.
For Rebecca Hall, who can honestly say (as Rosalind) that "I am more than uncommon tall," the world of her parents had an enormous influence on the direction her life has taken. "I know I'm incredibly lucky to have been brought up in such a creative environment, to be able to have watched my mother in rehearsal when I was 5, to see how it all worked, and have all that experience under my belt as I was growing up."
There was, however, a brief period of healthy rebellion.
"I quite wanted to be an artist for a while, and I was on an art scholarship at the boarding school I went to. I thought I'd go to art college. But that didn't happen. I suppose that was my rebellious time, when I didn't want to be like everyone else in my family. But deep down I guess I always knew. I can't remember a time – except when I was rebelling – when I didn't want to be an actress. But I still draw and paint. And I think it actually helps my acting."
Most would-be actors in England make their way to drama school. Not Hall. She chose a more academically enriched path.
"I never went to drama school," she said. "I went to Cambridge University and took a degree in English."
It was at Cambridge that Hall found herself once again drawn to the stage. And when (at 18) she took on the demanding role of Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," her father was on hand to watch his daughter work.
"He decided I was pretty good," she said. "Up to that point he had never actively encouraged me to become an actress. But he never discouraged me, either. That's when he first told me 'You really should play Rosalind someday.'"
Jim Farber is arts critic for the Daily Breeze.