Theatre

You’re going to do ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ at the Royal Court later in the year. How do you feel about acting?
'I must say that I believe that acting is a very nerve-wracking activity at the best of times.'

Do you think it’s an art form?
'Well it needs great, great skill, discipline, and imagination, and courage. Now whether that all adds up to being an art form, I don’t know, I’m not a linguistic analyst. But it seems to me that it’s creating, through interpretation, of course – you’re interpreting something, a text I take it, or at least it used to be in the old days – generally the text doesn’t get the same respect that it used to now at all. On the continent, for example, I’ve seen a couple of productions of my own plays in French and German, and one in Bulgaria (which was memorable), in which I didn’t recognise the plays at all. In fact, in Bulgaria, I was taken to see my play "The Homecoming". We sat in this theatre, a lot of enthusiastic people waiting for the play to start. Play started. And after about ten minutes I said to myself: "They’ve brought me to the wrong theatre! This is not 'The Homecoming'." I was about to say to my interpreter "What the hell is going on, this isn’t 'The Homecoming'! " when suddenly I realised what was going on. Which was that there are two dead people mentioned in the text of "The Homecoming", and they were on stage, ghosts.' Feature continues

The wife and her lover
'That’s right. She was a dwarf, and he was a giant, and they were doing all sorts of bloody things, and I didn’t know where we were at all. So there’s a great deal of distortion that goes on, particularly in the new field over the last ten, 20 years I would say.'

What do you think that’s about?
'It’s about directors’ and designers’ theatre. They regard – you talk about the term "art" – they regard their production as the work of art. The text is more or less irrelevant, you can either use it or not use it, or discard it, or kick it into the dustbin. It doesn’t really matter. You use an image that the text gives you, if you’re a director, if you’re one of these whizzkids, and you get on with it and make your own theatre. So I think directors’ theatre is very, very perilous. It’s also very arrogant.'

Indeed. Because it suggests that the trouble, care and art that has gone into the writing is in some way…
'…Irrelevant. Immaterial. Yes, you take about three or six months to write a play, and then they kick it all over the place. It doesn’t happen every time, not as far as I am concerned. But I’ve seen it happen three times.'

I think actors respond to a challenge with great relish when they know why it is that they’re being challenged to do something
'If you’re a writer what you want is for the actors to relish the language. I was once acting in "The Homecoming", and I was acting with a great old friend of mine called Terence Rigby. And the director, who was a young director – it was his first production, actually – after a couple of weeks came to my dressing room one night and said: "Harold, look, I’ve got something to say to you on behalf of the author." I said: "What’s that?" He said, "Well, quite honestly, you’re getting too many laughs." I said, "Oh! Am I? You mean I’m overplaying?" He said: "I don’t think the author would approve." So I said, "Oh my goodness! I’ll keep my eye on that." And I went on stage that night, and I didn’t get one laugh for about thirty minutes. And Terence Rigby met me in the wings and said: "What are you doing?" I said: "What am I doing?" He said: "You’re playing it right down! Nothing’s happening! There’s no relish!" So I thought: "He’s right." So I went back on stage and relished everything, and started to get more laughs.'

It seems to me that when we rehearse your plays, the word ‘tension’ is the one that comes up again and again and again
'Yes, I mean, I suppose you know my characters one way or the other are going through layers of tension a good deal of the time. But I’ve never thought about it in these terms precisely. I tend to feel great identification with my characters in a way, when I’m writing, and I just try to follow their own – the clues they give me, and their relationships.'

What do we mean by stagecraft?
'It means having a bit of nous, a bit of common sense. As a matter of fact, it also means a kind of boldness. When I was acting with Donald Wolfit, a Shakespearean actor-manager in the 1950s, I was only part of the chorus in "Oedipus at Colonus", and we were all downstage and he was upstage, and he had his back to the audience – we all had our backs to the audience. He had this great speech, the first half of which he delivered with his back to the audience. Then he suddenly turned, and his cloak went smack, it was the most brilliant moment. Whether that’s stagecraft – it means a man who knows his onions, who knows something about theatrical effect. I mean there is such a thing!'

So how does an actor know when an action is for effect, purely for effect, because it feels like it’s going to make an impression on the audience? When does an actor or a director know how to draw a distinction between an action that will draw attention to itself, and an action that will develop the tension?
'That’s a very good question. And I quite agree, I am not talking about effect for effect’s sake. It’s about something that actually comes from the state of affairs, from the situation, and it means that you have to describe and define any given moment with the utmost precision. I mean again, we’re sitting here with our legs crossed. I remember Peter Hall, when we worked on a production of "The Homecoming", being very, very concerned about actors who suddenly decided to do that [uncrosses legs suddenly] at any given time. He said: "You can’t do that, because that’s taking away the focus from the moment before, or the moment." '

And the focus we’re talking about there is the audience’s focus
'It’s also the actor’s focus on what they’re doing. It’s just a question of economy of expression, you know, economy of means.'

So why do you think this has become such a difficult concept? Because, actually, it does seem as though that’s quite a hard thing for a lot of people to grab hold of.
'Well, the word "discipline" doesn’t mean what it did once!'

No. But I’m curious, because to me it’s a cultural phenomenon. I suppose one could locate it in a number of different areas, but it suggests people don’t understand, people who are trying to tell a story don’t get that if you cut away what is inessential, you’re left with something that is essential.
'Well, precisely. But first of all, life is so full of noise, and movement, all our lives – '

[Footsteps outside] Even now
'We’re surrounded – those are footsteps. But generally, we live in a world of violence, noise, and frantic movement. And we’re encouraged to live with that and believe that is reality. That’s all there is. So that any stillness, as you said earlier, is really… people haven’t got the patience for that any more. You know, stillness meaning an attempt to understand what you’re doing, for a start, at any given moment.'

Just to stop and consider
'Yes. People are not encouraged to do that at all. Or to consider what other people are doing. I think this is a worldwide phenomenon. I mean, all we know is that Bush and Blair bomb the shit out of Iraq, killing thousands upon thousands of people, mutilating people all over the place. But we’re not encouraged to look at one mutilated corpse. Stillness indeed: a dead person. A dead child. That’s not shown on television. All that’s shown are the bombs being dropped by B52s miles up in the air, and a lot of noise, and a lot of light. And then we’ve won the war, as it were! Which we haven’t. But that’s all people are encouraged to understand: that the Good Guys are winning a fatal and disastrous war. So fundamentally, it’s a world full of lies, which masquerade as truth.'

Copyright © 2006 Harry Burton www.mataharifilms.com. This is an extract from ‘The Art of Rehearsal’, Harry Burton’s film collaboration with Harold Pinter.