What the Nurse Might Have Said

Harriet Walter, one of our most acclaimed Shakespearean actors, has played most of Shakespeare’s women.

In her new book She Speaks!, she reimagines what these women might have said. The result is an inventive, fun interpretation of the plays, perfect for contemporary audiences.

Walter gives us a taste of what:

• Gertrude longed to say about her husband in Hamlet
• why Lady Macbeth felt she deserved to be Queen in Macbeth
• how Olivia’s crush causes her to question her sexuality in Twelfth Night
• and many more!

She prefaces each chapter with her notes and guides to her eye-opening, occasionally laugh-out-loud takes.

In the excerpt below, Walter turns to Romeo and Juliet and imagines what Juliet’s nurse might have felt after Juliet’s death.

THE NURSE
Romeo and Juliet

Juliet gave me my break into radio drama because aged about thirty I sounded thirteen. It was the first and only time my childish voice came in handy, when the BBC cast me as Juliet alongside Bill Nighy as Mercutio and the brilliant Elizabeth Spriggs as the Nurse. Liz was bliss to play opposite. Usually in radio drama, you stand side by side and speak into a microphone holding your script like a barrier in front of you. Other actors drift in and out of the corner of your eye and, like it says on the tin, we perform on air with nothing but our breath and our voices to play with. In contrast to all that, Liz felt solid, in the room with me, a well-cushioned shoulder to cry on—I did quite a lot of that—and a brilliant example of comic timing.

I think the first Shakespeare play I ever saw was Romeo and Juliet, with Judi Dench playing Juliet and one Peggy Mount playing the Nurse. I was very young and hardly understood it, but what I do remember was both of these actresses’ voices. We all know what Judi Dench sounds like and can imagine how that unique timbre would have stayed with a child. Peggy Mount is probably only remembered by very few people reading this, but she had a fierce, almost manly voice, and because of this usually played comic stalwarts—the harridan wife or the barking matron. She was “no beauty,” as they say, and like all actors she was cast according to her voice and appearance. I am convinced her looks belied her and that there was a soft and serious person underneath.

She was perfect for Juliet’s nurse, who has also been typecast. She is the clown with the heart of gold who becomes a turncoat at the end when she encourages Juliet to forget Romeo and marry Paris.

So here I want to dig below the comic surface and let her tell her side of the story. We know only that she has cared for the thirteen-year-old Juliet since infancy, and that she had her own daughter Susan, but

Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me:

How does she view the Capulets? What is it like to breastfeed a baby that is not yours? To have lost your own daughter and then have a second “daughter” taken out of your hands?

ANOTHER MOTHER’S GRIEF

But first a revelation:

You think I’m all “Oddsboddikins!” and “Lordie!”
A “Lawksamercy!” slap-and-tickle fool,
Old saws, wives’ tales and country cunning bawdy,
But silly souls have deeper feelings too.

My ladybird, my lammikin, my own—
Well, not quite mine, but more of mine than hers—
My Lady Scarce a stranger, cool as stone,
Her mother’s milk a dribbled, curdled curse.
My own breasts teemed with juice enough for two,
Juliet and Susan suckling either side.
Sweet playful stems to lovely blossoms grew
’Til fever claimed my Susan and she died.
Poured all my tears and love in Juliet’s way
Within the womb-like safety of our nursery.
Her parents’ swooping visits, once a day,
Were formal things, unnerving and quite cursory.
For so it is in families of quality
A girl-child is for breeding, not for knowing,
It’s pedigree that counts with the nobility:
Some spineless scion needs her for his sowing.
So when my J. met R. I was delirious,
A rebel child at last to break the mould,
The unsmooth course of love however perilous
Can carve new fissures in the walls of old. But then—
Oh curse my cowardly compliance!—
When things looked bleak I let my darling down,
Encouraged her to go for the alliance
With Mr. Safe-and-Bland, that bit-part clown.
And now the pain! I’ll never be forgiven.
My ancient limbs must ever bear my fault.
All labours lost as she to death was driven,
Oh fatal loins that led to such a vault!

Postscript from the Nurse

This was prompted by the fact that the famous “balcony scene” where Romeo and Juliet meet privately after the masked ball is somewhat misnamed. Shakespeare only tells us that “Juliet appears above at a window.” She sighs to herself, “Ay me!” Romeo’s response inspired the title of this book—“She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel!”—and the most romantic scene in literature takes off.

A CORRECTION

I see why Mr. Shakespeare took this story:
To show the healing power of lovers’ alchemy,
Two stars forever staged in tragic glory—
Although he never specified a balcony.

About the Author

Dame Harriet May Walter DBE is one of Britain’s most esteemed Shakespearean actors, and the recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award. Walter is also well-known for her appearances in Sense and Sensibility, Atonement, Downton Abbey, The Crown, Succession, Killing Eve, and Ted Lasso, among many others. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of t he Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.

Harriet Walter is in conversation with Susan Feldman of St. Ann’s Warehouse on November 11 at 7pm in Brooklyn at POWERHOUSE Arena, accompanied by readings from actors Jenny Jules and Noma Dumezweni. Learn more.