Suzman, Janet

Suzman, Janet (1939– ), South African-born actress who has made an outstanding reputation for herself in England, mainly with the RSC, which she joined in 1962 after making her first appearance on the stage earlier the same year in Ipswich in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's Billy Liar. She was first seen in London in The Comedy of Errors, and came into prominence with her embattled Joan La Pucelle in Henry VI in 1963. A modern role in Pinter's The Birthday Party (1964) was followed by an impressive gallery of Shakespeare's heroines—Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Ophelia in Hamlet (both 1965), Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Rosalind in As You Like It, and Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing (both 1968), her Katharina and Beatrice both being seen also in the USA. In 1972 she scored a striking success as Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, endowing the character with vocal strength, voluptuousness, and a mettlesome intellect; in the same year she also played Lavinia in Titus Andronicus. She gave a sensitive performance as a dilapidated South African whore in Athol Fugard's Hello and Goodbye in 1973. Outside the RSC, she played Masha in Jonathan Miller's production of Chekhov's Three Sisters in 1976, and a year later was seen in Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan at the Royal Court and in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. She returned to the RSC in 1980 as Clytemnestra and Helen in The Greeks, based mainly on Euripides' Trojan plays. She appeared in Fugard's Boesman and Lena at Hampstead in 1984, as Racine's Andromache at the Old Vic in 1988, and in Ronald Harwood's Another Time (1989). She was formerly married to Trevor Nunn.