My mother (Jennifer Kendal) was 13 and an erudite student, when her father Geoffrey Kendal asked her principal if she could take a year off school in the Lake District, as both her parents were to tour India with their new theatre company, Shakespeareana, and wanted her to be with them. The principal said there could be no better education than travel, and gladly gave her a year’s leave, promising her a seat in school when she returned. My mother never did return to school!
Years later, Kendal wrote in his autobiography, The Shakespeare Wallah , “Being an actor must be the best job in the world. It combines all the things that a person need look for: health, romance, travel … the positive tragedy of failure, and the will to overcome it. It provides good companionship, and interest in literature, architecture, music, and dancing — in short, just about everything that most people strive for.”
Spreading the beauty and magic of Shakespeare was his passion and he was fortunate to share this with his family and thousands of people across the subcontinent!
Text and images courtesy: Sanjna Kapoor