By Julianne McShane
She’s playing all the king’s men.
An award-winning actress will portray nearly a dozen different men in “The Emperor,” a play opening at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene on Sept. 16. Kathryn Hunter said that she learned to juggle between the 11 male servants she plays by studying the book the play is based on, and extrapolating from there.
“These characters, you have to imagine their lives fully — you have to discover their backstory and what their attitude was about the emperor, and then when it comes to the moment, you just click in very quickly,” said Hunter, who is living in Fort Greene during her month-long sojourn from London. “I’m doing this production and it feels like I have to go and look after the guys every morning — I feel like a mom with 11 kids.”