Interview: 'It's Just Camp At Its Highest Form!': Actor Mason Alexander Park on MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

After playing the role of Ariel in The Tempest alongside Sigourney Weaver, Mason Alexander Park is now taking on the role of Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing. The two shows are a part of Jamie Lloyd’s season of Shakespeare at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Recently, we had the chance to speak with Park about their experiences over the past few months in the two plays. We discussed what it has been like working in London for the first time, working on two shows at once and even why they think Shakespeare is still popular, centuries after his death.

So how did you first get started in the world of theatre?

When I was very young, my parents, for fun, put me in this theatre camp, a children's summer programme that is only about a week long... There was just something about the collaborative nature of how they structured that week that always stuck with me. It was very much about giving kids the tools and the ability to create plays together, learning how to do all of the things involved in making a play, whether it was costumes or writing or stuff like that.

When I was closer to twelve or thirteen, that's when I started to actively audition for silly little things. And then my first paid job was doing a regional theatre production of Peter Pan at North Carolina Theatre when I was very young - I got to fly on my 13th birthday! I met a bunch of actors who made their living travelling the country and doing regional gigs or tours, not necessarily being the lead in a Broadway show all the time. And that was very eye-opening for me. It made me realise that it was a vocation that I could pursue without having the need to become massively famous to be successful at it.

And then you came over from the States to the West End. What was that like?

That was such a nice, unexpected gift! I had worked in London before, but only on television. I was shooting a TV show here during the pandemic that we just wrapped last year, the second season. So The Sandman was this Netflix show that brought me to the UK for the first time as an actor.

Although, when I was in high school, our school was selected to come and perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I remember coming and seeing a few West End shows on that trip because we spent a few days in London. My first West End theatre experience was seeing Billy Elliot, and it was so much fun.

But I've always loved London. I've always loved London's reverence for theatre and performance art in general. And I was lucky enough to see the production of Cabaret before I was asked to do it. So when I got a random email asking if I had interest in playing the Emcee, it was a really big moment for me because it was something I had always wanted to do. It was one of the easier yeses I've ever given! And then that brought me here longer than any other job had previously and made me feel like I was a part of some community. It was an amazing experience.

You became a part of the Jamie Lloyd Company with the Shakespeare productions at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. What made you want to be a part of them? 

Mainly Jamie - he's a really remarkable individual. He's a fantastic person, a phenomenal director but also just a fantastic friend and a great person to be in a room with. We had met to discuss other projects a while ago, and it was through the process of us meeting and talking about other things that we had wanted to do. He was also mapping out this season and had the idea that I would be a decent Ariel in The Tempest, so he pitched that to me and told me Sigourney was doing it, and it was another immediate yes. I've never done Shakespeare before! 

Throughout the rehearsal process of Tempest is when Jamie had the idea to ask if I wanted to also do Much Ado. And that was just another one of those things where it was right place, right time - he wants me to do it, I hadn't had anything lined up in those dates yet and I was having such a good time with the company of people that we have been working with that he could have asked me to do anything and I would have said yes at that point! So that's how it happened - all by happenstance!

You're currently in Much Ado About Nothing. Can you tell us a bit about this particular production and the role you play? 

So I play Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing. And in this production, there have been certain shifts and changes to streamline it, to make it really accessible, to make it really fun. So the production feels a bit like a party. It's part 90s concert, part disco rave and part Shakespeare. And it's such a fun thing to watch the audience immediately engage with the piece because of the way that it's presented.

Much Ado is a fantastic show to begin with, but there was something really amazing to be said about this group of individuals and this version of it that makes it feel so alive and unique. And I'm very grateful I get to thread the needle a little bit in the piece and sing some really silly songs. It's been so much fun! It's just camp at its highest form, and it is so silly. It's nice to do something that's silly for a change.

I feel like, as an actor, you want to do the really challenging, dark, amazing material that moves audiences, but there is something so beautiful and remarkable about getting to be a part of a piece that is so unapologetically joyous and infectious and leaves people in a place of like wonder and bewilderment, happiness and excitement. It's addictive, in a way, and it makes going to work so much fun for all of us.

A work party every night, not too bad! And so you were saying that you weave music in between the stories. What is it like to be the person bringing that music into the world of Shakespeare? 

It's good fun! When Jamie asked, I had a feeling that he was going to make me sing, but I didn't know what he was going to make me sing or how much! [Laughs] It was quite funny to watch him slowly introduce the actual concept to me throughout the rehearsal process - he's really slick and funny in that way. I'm sure he had a good chunk of it mapped out and just didn't tell me!

And what was it like going from The Tempest straight into Much Ado About Nothing?

It was really challenging in some ways. It was amazing that there were six company members that carried over to the next show, so we all were in it together. And the newer company members, and Hayley and Tom, were unbelievably generous and giving in their energy, time and patience, knowing that we were doing a show at night and then coming in the morning to rehearse.

It takes a second to be able to balance, especially genre-wise or just thematically, when you're doing pieces that are so on the opposite ends of the spectrum. It takes a minute to figure out how to do your job and how to do it as best as you possibly can. And with the limited time and sleep, it did become quite challenging, but in such an exhilarating way. How often do you get to do that nowadays? Rep theatre is not quite as prevalent as it once was. Very few chances in your lifetime will you get to work with the same director back to back and have the processes overlap. And you get to remain in your dressing room in one of the most gorgeous theatres in town for four months! It's such a gift to all of us that got to be a part of either of them and the ones that got to be a part of both. But it took some discipline and some patience, for sure!

And what is the process like for you to get into a character like Margaret?

It depends on the director! It depends on what's being asked of the actual actor and what's being asked of the character. In this case, Jamie understands people and he understands actors in a way that most directors I know don't. He's most interested in uplifting the individual, who a person is, and finding their entry point into the character through their individuality, rather than trying to supplant his idea of how the character should be on someone that he knows is talented enough to figure it out.

I don't necessarily see Margaret all that differently than I see myself. How do my body, my point of view and my ideas inform the needs of the script and the words that I'm given within the time of the play? It makes it a bit easier because you get to do whatever it is that you feel that you would do in the situation. If it rings true, then we keep it, and if it doesn't, then that's when the actor comes in and you go, “Okay, how do we make this track for an audience? How do we make this track for our character work that we're doing inside?” It's quite a personal experience.

And what is it about Shakespeare that you think has people coming back to his plays all these centuries later?

They're beautifully written and they have endured for so long that there's this magical quality to them - this incredible, religious quality to being a part of one of his plays. And to see the fanaticism around people experiencing it all these years later, it's really remarkable. I can't think of many things like it, besides certain operas or symphonies. There's nothing quite like it in the theatre world. And the fact that I'm still laughing at jokes that were written 400 years ago! [Laughs] You're like, “This still works! This is still a really funny gag, and this is still a supremely silly joke.”

There's something incredibly humanising about it. There's something really beautiful about thinking that, 400-plus years ago, people were finding the exact same things funny about life and had the same questions about life, the same fears and confusions. And that generational humanity is maybe what draws not only actors but audiences back to the words so frequently because it's a reminder of how human we all are, and how the human experience hasn't changed all that much since his time.

What do you hope audiences take away from Much Ado About Nothing?

I hope that they feel incredibly optimistic about the capacity of change that any form of love can have on another person or groups of people. The show is so joyous and so unabashedly ridiculous.

But I'd like to think that so much of that is this excitement and understanding of just how beautiful love as a concept is, and how we should be able to share it with as many people as we possibly can, and the little time that we have on this earth. So that would be the thing I would hope that people take away from it.

And finally, how would you describe the show in one word?

Exuberant. It would either be that or audacious!

Read our review of Much Ado About Nothing here.

Much Ado About Nothing runs from 24 February to 5 April at Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

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