CELEBRATED Saint Lucia-born international actor Joseph Marcell is still waxing warm after being honoured with the prestigious 2022 Sam Wanamaker Award, for his role in enhancing appreciation of the words and works of William Shakespeare — Britain’s biggest bard, who inspired everlasting changes in poetry and playwrighting and significantly influenced the careers of many of the very-best actors in delivery on stage and screen.
Shakespeare’s Globe designated Marcell a year ago as the 2022 winner, but was unable to honour Marcell in June last year, no-thanks to COVID restrictions.
But the globally-respected London-based entity graced him with the prestigious global award in the British capital on June 17, before a packed audience – recipient included.
Three weeks later, the sheer import of the stage bard’s latest reward-by-recognition of his lifelong contribution to stage and screen, in and beyond London, is as timely a year later as when originally due.
The Globe’s Chief Executive, Neil Constable, not sparing in words, said Marcel was being honoured for his “outstanding contribution and dedicated career to the support of the world’s understanding of Shakespeare and his contemporaries… and is a shining example of The Globe’s Cause ‘to celebrate Shakespeare’s transformative impact on the world.’”
He also shared that Marcel’s “longstanding relationship with the Globe and Shakespearean plays, in a career that has spanned many roles and productions here, on tour and with other theatre companies, has inspired not only us, but also the next generation of Shakespeareans.”
Highlighting the Globe’s “enduring gratitude” to Marcel, Constable said the humble awardee “has been a true friend of The Globe from the days he first met Sam Wanamaker in 1984 – with a gleam in his eyes to build a reconstructed Globe Theatre – and joined his Artistic Directorship group of early Globe pioneers…”
“All this,” Constable added, “alongside his support to the Shakespearean Globe Centre USA Board and Globe Council, has left us with ensuring gratitude…”
In his trademark seemingly-unassuming manner of response, Marcell silently soaked-in the showered praises, saying: “I have always admired and respected the work of Shakespeare’s Globe…”
And he immediately reciprocated the plaudits, describing his related stage Alma Mater as “possibly the most innovative classical theatre company in Britain.”
The Wanamaker award was established by Shakespeare’s Globe in 1994 to celebrate its first decade of the founder’s work, that’s helped increase the understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s works, within the scope and quality of his pioneering mission.
The Globe was unveiled in June 1997 by Queen Elizbeth II and is considered one of the top Shakespeare-producing theatres in the world.
And 26 years later, it singled Marcell out for recognition in the first year of its next quarter-century.
Marcell that night joined what his parents would have described as ‘Good Company’, including previous awardees like Sir Peter Brook and Ann Nunn — the latter a retired history teacher from Birmingham who’d travel from the Midlands to volunteer at the Globe in London.
Aging gracefully every sunrise — and with no eyes on sunset — Marcell enveloped himself that evening in his typical aura of exquisite simplicity, in what seemed to be — to him — just another night of the good feelings of being showered with sun-shining tributes.
He sat before a stage he’d strutted and chanted words and moves on and from that lifted and flew him high, over time, to award-winning screen acting – and much-earlier than those landmark acts on both platforms that have long inscribed his name in Shakespeare’s everlasting creative image and likeness.
Following a sellout matinee performance of ‘The Comedy of Errors’, Constable walked on stage in the manner of a proud headmaster reading-out the school’s end of year report with pride, clipboard in hand.
The CEO recounted Marcell’s many achievements and associations with The Globe, first as an actor in ‘Coriolanus’ (2006) and ‘Under the Black Flag’ (2006) and later with ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ (2011), ‘Cymbeline’ (2015), ‘King John’ (2015), ‘The Tempest’ (2016) and ‘King Lear and Omeros’, in which he played the lead role.
‘Tempest’ and ‘King Lear’ gave Marcell the opportunity to perform in his native Saint Lucia, which, he says, will always remain with him, due to “the love, acceptance and celebration of one’s achievement by one’s own, that’s both magical and special.”
The night also celebrated Marcell’s 38-year Transatlantic association with The Globe in England and the USA.
As the highly-celebrated winner walked onstage to rapturous applause, his entourage included his wife Joyce, longstanding supportive and engaging agent Anna Dudley and longtime friend and colleague J. D. Douglas, who joined in the bursts of thunderous applause.
Occupying front-row seats as witness of history, Marcel’s family and close friends had been sworn to secrecy by The Globe, until presentation night.
But that night the words and adulations were simply voluminous by decibels.
Marcel’s long career includes (but isn’t limited to): the TV Sit Comedy ‘Fancy Wanders’ with Dave King in 1980 (on British TV long before ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ was even an idea), his supporting lead role in Britain’s first Black Soap Opera ‘Empire Road’ and becoming one of the most recognizable faces on World TV as ‘The Butler Geoffrey’ in the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’.
In all that, ‘The Fresh Prince’ has remained humble, as his short acceptance speech indicated.
His is a career that gathered admirers across generations, his sojourn into films including ‘Hero’ (directed by Pam Fraser Solomon), ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ (directed by Chiwitel Ejiofor), ‘The Exorcism of God’ (directed by Alejandro Hidalgo) and the forthcoming film adaptation of the book ‘Queenie’ – all assuring this surely won’t be Marcell’s last night in the sunlight of deserving peer and other gracious and grateful adulations.
Meanwhile, The Globe and the world continue celebrating the infinite Shakespearean spirt that’s driven much of who Joseph Marcell has been on stage – and still is, at home and on global platforms.