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| Edinburgh : A&E : Festivals : 2002 : Conversations with Remarkable People |
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Interview
JF: A very simple and open question. Why physical theatre? Although I don’t like the term and put in my review that it is an inadequate umbrella term for a wide diversity of styles: SW: I know what you mean. To me all theatre is physical; otherwise it belongs on radio. And, a lot of what is staged does belong on radio. To look at it’s pretty ghastly. For me I was drawn to movement, and when I say movement I embrace the other art forms, whether its sculpture or painting or music. Theatre is an art form. And as movement…theatre at the beginning was that. It was movement. And I believe that over time, through the power of text and the power of the writer, it became inhabited by foreigners. Theatre is the home of the actor, it’s not the home of the writer, the director, the costume designer, the lighting man. And I think that Decroux, back in the early ‘20s started out from that premise. He was working with Jacque Copeau and Dullin and those type of people, and he wanted to strip everything away and work with the actor. And he came to the conclusion that the actor on stage was a pretty pathetic thing. And he wanted to build that back up, in order to invite the director and everything back, but they have to remember that they are invited guests. JF: What do you think that movement-based theatre gives to an audience that they can’t get from a standard text-based piece of realism? SW: I know with our shows, it does make the audience work. Because there is a lot happening. Even a scene of chaos, is completely controlled chaos. I like the idea of the audience having to work at something. And not to just sit back and consume, because we’re in a consumer society. It’s like Decroux said many years ago: ‘Take the spectator by the throat and give him a slap’. And I like with this type of theatre where there is a different input from everyone in the audience. Like sitting in a café; everyone sees something from a different viewpoint. It’s really like life. JF: In academe we call that a ‘plurality of meanings’. SW:Yeh, I like that! JF: For me physical theatre is about the physicality of the actor being transmitted to the audience. It finds resonances in my body. In that respect, it’s a very sensory experience. Which is challenging. SW: Most people spend their lives sitting down. And what they see in the show evokes memories. It might not be apparent immediately, but it comes back to you a few days later. I’ve heard from people that it keeps coming back, for weeks and years to come they are re-living it. JF: How do you choose your material. Because you’ve done work in such a diversity of styles. SW:What we are doing with The Government Inspector fits into what I call a family. It’s a family of work, and characters we have been developing for years, dealing with power and corruption, but also the spiritual aspects…they are all out there floating, they are obsessions we have, and they come out in one way or another in every show. But this is a world I enjoy and what I want to see. It’s the first classical play we’ve done, a classic text, usually we devise and improvise. But we have taken a year putting this together. JF: How do you get finance for that? SW: Well, I put this show together initially for the university of Bologna, and then we got some dates to perform in London, and a woman who saw it, and has a trust wrote us a large cheque so we could bring it to Edinburgh and pay the actors. JF: So you moved the School to London in 1995. Why did you leave Paris, which has such a wonderful tradition of movement-based theatre? And, why choose London? SW:No, Paris will always be beautiful, but there is too much buddy-buddying in French theatre and political figures. I was uncomfortable…and they were putting a lot of money into theatre buildings. JF: That has happened here too. SW: So we came to London to do a show at the South Bank and thought why not move the School here. There’s a lot of crap out there, but there is a lot happening too. JF: It still seems strange to me. British theatre is so word-bound, and what they are doing at the National is just museum pieces, and the RSC has gone downhill. SW: I worked for the RSC when Simon Callow was doing his stage production of Les Enfants du Paradise, and he brought me in, and one of the actors said to me: ‘Where were you thirty years ago?’ They want this training, but they are working in an industry and don’t have time to do the training. Some of them resent it at first, but when they start to do it there is a fascination, because they start discovering themselves. And there’s a great side to what is going on in London, but there is so much emphasis on making it. And that’s a killer. They have time for a workshop every now and again, but like Martha Graham said about dancing: ‘It takes ten years to be a dancer’. And with mime corporal it takes ten years before you have made it your own, before you can just do it. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a born actor. JF: Well, Peter Brook said that inspiration has to be worked for! SW: Yeh, yeh! Exactly. JF: You are now internationally renowned and I think you need the money that international touring brings in. But do you think there is a market for your theatre in Britain? SW:Well, I think The Government Inspector comes closest. If I’d billed it as Le Petit Dictator by Steven Wasson, we wouldn’t have got the audiences. It’s Gogol; it’s like Shakespeare; everyone goes to see Hamlet. JF: I just want to ask you about one last thing and that’s about French theatre. I have the impression that France, since the ‘20s, with Copeau and Artuad, has been so open to innovation. SW:Yes, all the giants in 20th century European theatre came out of France. And that’s incredible, because it is such a literary culture. Children read Proust at school. It’s amazing that you have had that coming out, in reaction to the Commedie Francais. If you look at Decroux, he made his living as an actor, and did his experimentation in his free time. He worked just get a pay cheque, so he could do what he wanted to do. JF: I always tell my students that if you think of one single actor that has dominated the development of the tradition in Britain, it is Olivier. But if you look for a comparable figure in French theatre, it is Jean-Louis Barrault, and he came from a mime background. SW:Yes, and even better was Louis Jouvet. He had an amazing voice. Decroux had an amazing voice. And it wasn’t affected. It was real. Watch the films. JF: Don’t you think that the voice is all part of it? The physicality, the beautiful voice washing over you…its all part of the sensual experience that is theatre. SW: Absolutely, theatre is a sensual experience. And Steven Wasson’s work is a testament to theatre as an art form, and one that is hard work, and doesn’t always bring you Oscar’s, BAFTA’s, Olivier’s, and sometimes doesn’t even bring in the financial remunerations. But it’s a life spent in a worthwhile pursuit of understanding and creativity. I’ll go for that, and I hope more audiences will too. It is a life-enhancing experience. |
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