1 00:00:10,500 --> 00:00:14,820 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Big Tent. Live events. 2 00:00:14,820 --> 00:00:16,290 We hope you've enjoyed the summer. 3 00:00:16,290 --> 00:00:23,970 Insofar as there's been a summer and we hope and we are delighted to continue our live event online series brought to you by Torch, 4 00:00:23,970 --> 00:00:31,230 the Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities as part of the humanities cultural programme itself, one of the founding stones for the future. 5 00:00:31,230 --> 00:00:38,880 Stephen Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, a centre here in Oxford which will have public engagement with research and with performance. 6 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:43,170 Dance. Music, theatre. Cinema. At its core. 7 00:00:43,170 --> 00:00:48,240 My name is Wes Williams and I'm a professor of French literature at the University of Oxford Fellows and Edmund Hall. 8 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:53,730 And I'm also officially, as of next week, the director of Torch. 9 00:00:53,730 --> 00:00:58,650 This term's big tent live event series will bring together each week researchers and students, 10 00:00:58,650 --> 00:01:05,670 performers and practitioners from across the different humanities disciplines. Our aim here, as regular viewers will know, 11 00:01:05,670 --> 00:01:12,600 is to explore together important subjects and to ask challenging questions about areas such as the environment, 12 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:18,480 medical, humanities, ethics and A.I., the public and the private and the common good. 13 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:25,470 And we'll celebrate storytelling and music, performance and poetry, identity and community. 14 00:01:25,470 --> 00:01:32,280 If you would like to put any questions to our speakers during the event tonight, please pop them in the comments box on YouTube. 15 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:39,090 We encourage you to submit these as early as possible, and I can then ensure that they inform and enrich the Q&A part of our discussion. 16 00:01:39,090 --> 00:01:44,920 In about half an hour or so. Now onto our excellent speakers tonight. 17 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:48,760 I can't tell you how excited and honoured I am to host and welcome. 18 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:55,440 Joining us for the first event of this term's online series, Katie Mitchell and Ben Whishaw. 19 00:01:55,440 --> 00:02:02,490 I'm going to embarrass them both by saying a few words of introduction before we start our conversation. 20 00:02:02,490 --> 00:02:07,190 I'll start with Katie Mitchell. Whose unique style, rigorous. 21 00:02:07,190 --> 00:02:14,310 And some say uncompromising methods have established her powerful reputation as both a maker and a thinker, 22 00:02:14,310 --> 00:02:20,570 as someone engaged in an ongoing, innovative exploration of the possibilities of life performance. 23 00:02:20,570 --> 00:02:23,810 Her work is well-known to audiences across the globe. 24 00:02:23,810 --> 00:02:33,060 In a career spanning 30 years, she has directed over 100 productions, including text based theatre, opera installations and multimedia work. 25 00:02:33,060 --> 00:02:39,690 From her early days as an assistant director with Paines, Plough and the RISC to her recent success with Land Melody, 26 00:02:39,690 --> 00:02:44,630 Lamar created that the day he moved Jinno in Paris and Orlando. 27 00:02:44,630 --> 00:02:53,250 At Belen's, shall you know, Mitchell has become renown for bold and innovative productions which make rich use of multimedia in life. 28 00:02:53,250 --> 00:03:02,910 And, as we should say now, locked down performance as well, working with ancient classical texts as well as achingly contemporary writers and themes. 29 00:03:02,910 --> 00:03:07,740 Katy has collaborated with the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre, the RNC, the Royal Court, 30 00:03:07,740 --> 00:03:15,570 as well as theatres across Europe and indeed the US to produce work which provokes and inspires in equal measure. 31 00:03:15,570 --> 00:03:20,610 Many awards include the evening fan of Best Director Award, the British Academy's Presidents Medal. 32 00:03:20,610 --> 00:03:27,250 In 2009, she was presented with the Order of the British Empire OBE for her services to theatre. 33 00:03:27,250 --> 00:03:34,660 She read English at Maudlin College, and we might reflect on whether that was that was not good training for her life and work in the theatre. 34 00:03:34,660 --> 00:03:42,220 She's also enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the university over the years, including a stint as a visiting chair and opera studies in 2016 17. 35 00:03:42,220 --> 00:03:46,450 And I'm thrilled to say that today's conversation marks the beginning of her time here 36 00:03:46,450 --> 00:03:51,880 as the first ever visiting fellow in theatre in our humanities cultural programme. 37 00:03:51,880 --> 00:04:01,300 Welcome, Katie again. I'd also like to welcome Ben Wish all this evening, a multi award winning actor in film, television and theatre. 38 00:04:01,300 --> 00:04:07,190 Ben trained at Rada and his work quickly brought acclaim, including a much lauded Hamlet at the Old Vic with Frevert. 39 00:04:07,190 --> 00:04:13,510 None way back, it seems to me in 2004. He has worked with or been directed by. 40 00:04:13,510 --> 00:04:20,080 And we might come back to that Katie Mitchell multiple times, including The Seagull at the National Theatre in 2006. 41 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:23,170 And recently, Norma Jean Baker of Troy at the shed in New York. 42 00:04:23,170 --> 00:04:29,290 I think just last year in television, his work ranges from BAFTA winning performances in Richard, 43 00:04:29,290 --> 00:04:36,340 the second as part of the amazing hollow crown for the BBC in 2012 to his extraordinary and multi-way award 44 00:04:36,340 --> 00:04:44,290 winning portrayal of Norman Scott in a very English scandal in 2018 amongst many film roles from Bright Star, 45 00:04:44,290 --> 00:04:52,060 where he gave an exquisite account of Keats. By way of aerial, both there and not there in Julie Taymor as Tempest and Paddington, 46 00:04:52,060 --> 00:04:56,500 delighting audiences young and old as the voice of the refugee bear in the hit movies 47 00:04:56,500 --> 00:05:03,730 2014 and 17 all the way then from Hamlet to cue it all their Bond films since 2012. 48 00:05:03,730 --> 00:05:09,760 Skyfall. Welcome back and thank you for taking time out from what I know is a hectic schedule today. 49 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:17,450 My pleasure. Lovely to be here. Katie and Ben, you've generously agreed to discuss your work across and between different media, 50 00:05:17,450 --> 00:05:22,120 and I think we agreed it might be useful to have as a focus for our collective thinking. 51 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,400 This question, that's sort of a blessing all of us at the moment, 52 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:33,620 which is life performance in many ways in which liveness can take many forms lovingness can take on film, on stage, on Zoome and so on. 53 00:05:33,620 --> 00:05:39,030 But before we get into kind of nitty gritty stuff, I thought it might be useful just to have. 54 00:05:39,030 --> 00:05:45,540 No offence from the horse's mouth, if you like, how you got to be working in the ways that you are now. 55 00:05:45,540 --> 00:05:50,370 How did you come to theatre? How did you come to directing Katie? 56 00:05:50,370 --> 00:05:53,990 How did you come to acting, in a sense? How does one get to be Katie Mitchell? 57 00:05:53,990 --> 00:05:59,440 How does one get to be beneficial in terms of performance life that you've led? 58 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:06,500 Take your drama. Take it off. Yeah. Well, when I was a young person, I really want to be a visual artist. 59 00:06:06,500 --> 00:06:12,390 So my dream was to be a painter. And I don't think I had a very good teacher. 60 00:06:12,390 --> 00:06:21,680 And so I was made to feel that because I couldn't represent a tree beautifully or do a sort of line drawing of a nude beautifully, 61 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:25,200 that I didn't have the right to be an inside the visual arts field. 62 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:36,840 So I sort of move sideways into theatre as a sort of second best and then found that very sort of addictive and yeah, very, very interesting form. 63 00:06:36,840 --> 00:06:44,580 And then the big influences on me after the move from visual arts to theatre were always work from abroad. 64 00:06:44,580 --> 00:06:53,400 So I didn't really feel any connexion with any of the work that was happening in the U.K. as a young woman in the 80s, 1980s. 65 00:06:53,400 --> 00:07:01,440 So most of my influences came from a very big trip I made to Eastern Europe, to Russia, Georgia, Lithuania and Poland, 66 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:08,190 where I researched directors training and saw amazing practitioners and learnt a lot 67 00:07:08,190 --> 00:07:14,100 about Stanislavski and also seeing work that was coming into the UK from abroad. 68 00:07:14,100 --> 00:07:22,630 Anyway, I then did about 15 years of working on naturalism in mainstream tax based theatre, 69 00:07:22,630 --> 00:07:28,350 but I always wanted to go back to a more sort of visual arts influence, 70 00:07:28,350 --> 00:07:34,380 making work that was to do with the crossover between theatre and other mediums. 71 00:07:34,380 --> 00:07:42,750 And so I then have my a breakthrough show going into live cinema, which then off what I would consider my real career. 72 00:07:42,750 --> 00:07:59,070 That's me. I was EUBAM. I got taken to an audition for a youth theatre when I was 13 by my dad, 73 00:07:59,070 --> 00:08:03,990 and it was a youth theatre in a town just down the road from the village I grew up in. 74 00:08:03,990 --> 00:08:12,170 And I was quite a shy. Thirteen year old and I think my dad must've thought it would do me good. 75 00:08:12,170 --> 00:08:20,400 And I liked acting. I done acting at school, but I. Had never explored it further than that anyway. 76 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:27,330 So I went to this audition and I got into this youth theatre and it changed my life in a way. 77 00:08:27,330 --> 00:08:38,220 And we did extraordinary things there. We did Greek plays and we did adaptations of books and we did devised pieces. 78 00:08:38,220 --> 00:08:47,790 And anyway, I guess it became the thing I loved most and. 79 00:08:47,790 --> 00:08:56,400 Then I decided is why I wanted to do and then I went to Rawda when I was 19. 80 00:08:56,400 --> 00:09:05,440 And then I guess I was just extremely lucky and. 81 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:07,960 And I go, I got some I got some nice work. 82 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:17,680 And one thing led to another, and then you meet wonderful people and I've and wonderful people like Katie who you. 83 00:09:17,680 --> 00:09:25,840 I've been fortunate enough to sort of build them, you know, you keep working with over time, so. 84 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:28,700 Well, that's what's happened for me, really. Thank you both. 85 00:09:28,700 --> 00:09:37,850 I'm I'm really interested in your saying that you theatre was a way into this for you and you and that list of things that you mentioned. 86 00:09:37,850 --> 00:09:47,320 So kind of ancient text, but adaptations of things divide things, stuff things to me that there's so well, 87 00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:50,860 you don't always get a chance to do that as a professional actor because you're 88 00:09:50,860 --> 00:09:55,390 too busy working with ready made scripts or working on readymade stuff. 89 00:09:55,390 --> 00:10:04,570 Is that is that a shame for you? Do you think that you would like to do that kind of devising, making, adapting work again? 90 00:10:04,570 --> 00:10:10,130 Or once one's become an actor, does one just do the one thing? 91 00:10:10,130 --> 00:10:17,430 No, I would like to and I feel like I have had experiences that have felt close to 92 00:10:17,430 --> 00:10:21,540 what I experienced as a teenager at the Youth Theatre with Katie actually, 93 00:10:21,540 --> 00:10:24,900 and some other people. No, I. 94 00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:39,190 I've enjoyed. I've enjoyed. Sometimes having experiences where a text is just the beginning of a of a process and a launch pad. 95 00:10:39,190 --> 00:10:44,440 And then it's something that's made kinds of collectively. Not as much as I would like, but it does. 96 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:48,730 But I've tasted it and I appreciate it very much. 97 00:10:48,730 --> 00:10:55,390 Yeah. Because in case you come back to you and you have what you say, your your, as it were, real career post live in a moment. 98 00:10:55,390 --> 00:11:04,720 That's about adaptation, remaking, reworking as much as it is about just staging a ready made plex isn't it. 99 00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:13,810 Or my oger in jeopardy. Yes I think it is because of course the first live cinema show I did was Virginia Woolf, The Waves. 100 00:11:13,810 --> 00:11:20,350 And in fact my wish to do that stemmed back to my time at Oxford where I did a special paper on Virginia Woolf. 101 00:11:20,350 --> 00:11:30,670 So I would say there's something gorgeous about being free, a little bit of the of a play text and having the problem, if you like, of a novel. 102 00:11:30,670 --> 00:11:35,770 And in that case, the problem of a novel with no dialogue and no narrative, really, 103 00:11:35,770 --> 00:11:45,630 and then collaborating in a different way with performers and one's creative team to push the boundaries of what the form of light performance can be. 104 00:11:45,630 --> 00:11:51,640 I mean, that doesn't mean I didn't really relish many of the journeys I took with various play texts. 105 00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:56,050 You know, our journey on The Seagull band was really, you know, fantastic. 106 00:11:56,050 --> 00:12:01,510 I just think it sort of just going through the threshold into different types of material 107 00:12:01,510 --> 00:12:08,590 creates different types of working processes and relationships and different form outcomes, 108 00:12:08,590 --> 00:12:14,440 which I find more exciting probably than the well-made play text. 109 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:23,600 But maybe that also is just a natural weariness. Having done something for 15 years or sort of a curiosity about new forms and departures. 110 00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:33,490 Yeah. Do you have to get into a different sort of head and Harton body space to work on a text like The Seagull? 111 00:12:33,490 --> 00:12:36,250 In other words, that that sort of already exists. 112 00:12:36,250 --> 00:12:45,310 That's been around for a long time, that a lot of people have their own versions of and so on, then say something that's never been made before. 113 00:12:45,310 --> 00:12:55,240 Does it matter to either of you, really, that this is something that has kind of a performance history or a collective history about it? 114 00:12:55,240 --> 00:13:01,960 Do you feel responsible for that performance history or like collective history or do you think. 115 00:13:01,960 --> 00:13:11,120 No, this is an encounter between me or us and the group of people and putting on this this story here and now. 116 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:18,410 So it was a bit of a long question, but we'll just question Ben. Ben, you go. 117 00:13:18,410 --> 00:13:22,190 I, I, I would try not to. 118 00:13:22,190 --> 00:13:30,400 From an actor's perspective, I would try not to think about the performance history. 119 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:35,410 Of course, you can't be completely ignorant of it, but I wouldn't go and watch. 120 00:13:35,410 --> 00:13:37,660 Not that that would be necessarily possible into it. 121 00:13:37,660 --> 00:13:45,490 I wouldn't want to have my, you know, go back and watch other actors interpretations or read about them or anything. 122 00:13:45,490 --> 00:13:53,900 I wouldn't find that helpful. And you want to sort of come to it. 123 00:13:53,900 --> 00:14:00,420 In yourself at this point in time, bringing yourself to it. 124 00:14:00,420 --> 00:14:04,730 So now I try. I try not to think too much. 125 00:14:04,730 --> 00:14:13,010 We try and treat it like people say like it's a brand new thing. But but also, I'm always aware, 126 00:14:13,010 --> 00:14:27,210 particularly with plays that are older texts and that the director is probably going to be bringing in choices and will hopefully. 127 00:14:27,210 --> 00:14:34,060 And so you open to that as well. Yeah. And. 128 00:14:34,060 --> 00:14:37,300 But Katie, Katie, I suspect for you. 129 00:14:37,300 --> 00:14:45,550 You might be more aware and that might it might direct you more strongly about where you want to take the production. 130 00:14:45,550 --> 00:14:52,180 Having been aware of the history of the plague. Yes, I think I think it's a director compared to the actor. 131 00:14:52,180 --> 00:14:58,240 I think you have to be mindful of the production history and particularly when you're dealing with Chekhov, 132 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:09,680 because the with that particular writer and those particular plays, the production history has sort of got tangled up with the original material. 133 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:18,220 So that production history, which really was of late 60s, early 70s Royal Shakespeare Company way of staging it was very slow, 134 00:15:18,220 --> 00:15:28,320 contemplative pieces of drama that has been mistaken for the actual original Russian radical material. 135 00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:35,260 So when you sort of trying to work out how to conceive and stage a play like The Seagull, 136 00:15:35,260 --> 00:15:44,080 you're already been forced into a conversation with the production history and the material you've got somehow cut your way through both. 137 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:47,920 And I think that that was I remember in the preparing of The Seagull, 138 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:55,000 that was quite a challenge to work out how to present it in a way that tried to cut away the barnacles, 139 00:15:55,000 --> 00:16:03,790 if you like, of the production history and just get back to that sharp, very avant garde shock of a symbolist play. 140 00:16:03,790 --> 00:16:05,980 And I think we we really tried, didn't we, Ben? 141 00:16:05,980 --> 00:16:15,260 When when I brought that idea to rehearsals, we really tried to work with that and we were thoroughly told off. 142 00:16:15,260 --> 00:16:19,060 Now, you were thoroughly trained as critical. Yeah, yeah. 143 00:16:19,060 --> 00:16:24,370 Yeah. For that attempt, it was very interesting. We were made it, didn't we, at the National Theatre in London. 144 00:16:24,370 --> 00:16:31,450 I then went a couple of years later to Copenhagen and repeated exactly the same production. 145 00:16:31,450 --> 00:16:38,110 And it was seen in a completely different way as a sort of necessary relief that, you know, 146 00:16:38,110 --> 00:16:45,070 some part of the radicalism of the original material had been repositioned culturally. 147 00:16:45,070 --> 00:16:48,560 But such is this difference of making different plays in different countries. 148 00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:51,730 I come off the point so that in response to answer, yes, 149 00:16:51,730 --> 00:16:58,360 the production history in the case of such a major writer is quite significant in terms of how the director approaches in, 150 00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:02,260 conceives the material, but hopefully not in a way that burdens the actor. 151 00:17:02,260 --> 00:17:06,140 That's more just the director alone cutting through the jungle of it. 152 00:17:06,140 --> 00:17:12,640 Yeah. And Ben, presumably that's true for the Shakespeare work that you've done, say I mean, 153 00:17:12,640 --> 00:17:18,070 presumably I didn't you don't go and look at other people's versions of Hamlet before you do your Hamlet or other people's versions of area. 154 00:17:18,070 --> 00:17:24,600 Before you do you are you, in a sense, leave that job to the director in a way so that you can work your own particular craft? 155 00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:28,070 Is that is that right? I would choose to. 156 00:17:28,070 --> 00:17:34,080 I know other actors who like to know how it's been done before. 157 00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:38,700 So that you could do something different with it or say that. 158 00:17:38,700 --> 00:17:44,860 Yeah, well, I just think I don't know. I would rather just kind of. 159 00:17:44,860 --> 00:17:51,840 Yes. As I said, to come to it as much as myself and how it speaks to me. 160 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:59,880 At that moment in time, didn't you think that there's a different way that how the director looks at a play and how the act looks at a play? 161 00:17:59,880 --> 00:18:06,990 Quite different. I was reflecting on this recently with my students and I was saying it's like if you imagine as the director looking at a play text, 162 00:18:06,990 --> 00:18:11,450 it's like looking at a house with lots of entry points or doorways. 163 00:18:11,450 --> 00:18:15,300 One's marked Hamlet, the others marked Ophelia. Then it's Polonia. 164 00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:22,110 And as a director, you've got to walk through all of the doors of all of the characters and then work and they all fit together. 165 00:18:22,110 --> 00:18:30,330 And that's quite a burdensome and complex task. Whereas the actor has it has a burdensome concept, tough, complex task, but different. 166 00:18:30,330 --> 00:18:36,710 They just go through one door rigidly, just state hamlet, door, corridor. 167 00:18:36,710 --> 00:18:41,400 And they say in that one, I wonder whether one symbol for in a way. 168 00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:47,570 I mean, I do I do think you are responsible for the whole plane. But. 169 00:18:47,570 --> 00:18:55,130 Or at least I dunno. I think you have to be aware of the production you're in, and I think this is something I've enjoyed working with you. 170 00:18:55,130 --> 00:19:13,240 Katie, is that it's rare that an actor in your production in one of your productions knows the kind of production he's in and the load he's in and. 171 00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:21,280 It's not going to be a production where every single act is slightly in another in another production, which I've seen. 172 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:29,230 I think everybody has seen a lot of when there's this jarring. Thing going on when no one's quite on the same page. 173 00:19:29,230 --> 00:19:35,050 And I love that. So that and that is to do with being aware of. 174 00:19:35,050 --> 00:19:37,930 Having an overview of the whole thing. 175 00:19:37,930 --> 00:19:49,450 But you're right in that basically you have to be completely immersed and absorbed in the way your character is seeing things. 176 00:19:49,450 --> 00:19:57,580 But a little bit how we build character using the Stanislavski technique means that we construct characters for all biographies, 177 00:19:57,580 --> 00:20:02,770 for all of the characters, and all of those biographies have woven together. 178 00:20:02,770 --> 00:20:09,550 So you couldn't play Hamlet without knowing when you first met Ophelia and the actress 179 00:20:09,550 --> 00:20:14,080 playing Ophelia couldn't be playing it without knowing when she had first met you. 180 00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:20,620 And all of those sort of biographies and woven together. And I think that creates a real sense of sort of shared past. 181 00:20:20,620 --> 00:20:24,670 And from that comes a sense of shared focus, doesn't it? Which is really useful. 182 00:20:24,670 --> 00:20:28,750 Good old Stanislavski. OK. You've got ahead of me. I was going to ask you about Stanislavsky. 183 00:20:28,750 --> 00:20:32,480 But I was gonna get that through the Russians. But we can get that through Hamlet. Well, if you like. 184 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:45,640 No, I think you should. I think as we've talked about The Seagull, I am a little bird told me, Ben, that you're very interested in WFTDA, the Idiot. 185 00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:53,400 And in ways in which one might sort of transform that into something like a performance piece. 186 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:59,770 Here's a kind of test for you both. How would you start doing that from a kind of Stanislavski perspective? 187 00:20:59,770 --> 00:21:00,580 What would you. 188 00:21:00,580 --> 00:21:07,270 Because doesn't does the novel tell you everything you need to know in terms of all the relationship you've just been talking about getting? 189 00:21:07,270 --> 00:21:14,000 You know, who who meets who went on to win, or do you have to sort of write out even further from the novel? 190 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:18,800 Basically, how do you transform the area into a show with the help of Benin's Lafsky? 191 00:21:18,800 --> 00:21:22,730 Well, a big thing that would. This is another thing I really love. 192 00:21:22,730 --> 00:21:33,150 And I don't mean to sound like I'm just sort of praising Katie endlessly, but that is unusual for an actor to have this kind of experience. 193 00:21:33,150 --> 00:21:39,050 So what was brilliant about Katie's process is that. It's very clear. 194 00:21:39,050 --> 00:21:44,830 You begin the same. It wouldn't matter what the source material was, you begin everything the same. 195 00:21:44,830 --> 00:21:49,970 It would begin with questions, really, Casey, wouldn't it? Like you established the facts. 196 00:21:49,970 --> 00:21:51,410 You'd go through the thing. 197 00:21:51,410 --> 00:21:59,750 And right then you'd to through the text and you'd write down the things that you can certainly know about the characters and the world. 198 00:21:59,750 --> 00:22:10,020 And so that's where it sort of all begins. You you get you collate as much information as possible and then. 199 00:22:10,020 --> 00:22:19,620 And then you see where the gaps are rund. And what happens is a sort of filling out of a backstory, isn't it, Katie? 200 00:22:19,620 --> 00:22:31,450 Which becomes a really. Completely addictive sort of process for me and for most actors, I'd say, what with you? 201 00:22:31,450 --> 00:22:33,390 You're married to Katie. 202 00:22:33,390 --> 00:22:40,190 Some of you admitted yourself, because my lovely daughter just came in and I didn't want the sound of her use in the background. 203 00:22:40,190 --> 00:22:41,780 Forgive me. Forgive me. 204 00:22:41,780 --> 00:22:51,770 Yes, it's it's it's a classic she Stanislavski technique where you just go through text and you look for all the facts about the past, 205 00:22:51,770 --> 00:22:58,580 not the present. You're not doing the present analysis. You're looking for the past and then anything that you you can't really understand. 206 00:22:58,580 --> 00:23:07,880 You ask a question. So if we take the Sego, I don't really know the idiot well enough to know the idiot well enough to talk about that. 207 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:11,420 We take the seagull or maybe Hamlet. We take Hamlet, you know. 208 00:23:11,420 --> 00:23:16,460 When did Ophelia first meet Hamlet and where and what happened? 209 00:23:16,460 --> 00:23:19,460 That may be a question that you ask. 210 00:23:19,460 --> 00:23:28,280 And then you you try to answer it as simply as you possibly can cross referencing the text and looking for the simplest impression. 211 00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:34,910 The text gives you the answer. And then you answer it. Then masses of questions like that and then masses of facts. 212 00:23:34,910 --> 00:23:38,780 And then at the end of that, you've got a list of facts and all your answered questions, 213 00:23:38,780 --> 00:23:44,690 all about the past, and then you just assiduously put them in chronological order. 214 00:23:44,690 --> 00:23:51,110 And the all the time you're building the past in order to play the present, it's not. 215 00:23:51,110 --> 00:23:55,190 It just helps you play all the present action. The building of the past biography. 216 00:23:55,190 --> 00:24:00,170 It's not a diversion it or it's not a sop to the actor. 217 00:24:00,170 --> 00:24:10,220 So it's to help them play the present. So it's a very it's a very particular rigorous technique, which is one of many steps that stand house. 218 00:24:10,220 --> 00:24:16,310 And then after you built the past, you build the place and then you build the immediate circumstances, 219 00:24:16,310 --> 00:24:21,380 which was what just happened 24 hours before the scene. 220 00:24:21,380 --> 00:24:26,480 And then you analyse the present action using tools called events and intentions, 221 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:31,280 which are very familiar to lots and lots of people, very plastic Russian tools. 222 00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:37,770 Where were the main changes in the scene? And in between the changes, what were all characters playing to each other? 223 00:24:37,770 --> 00:24:41,930 So it's very, very simple and gorgeous system, but it's very detailed. 224 00:24:41,930 --> 00:24:49,130 And the thing about working with Ben, I mean, he's just incredible. He's very, very, very detailed as a performer, 225 00:24:49,130 --> 00:24:57,740 which means that he's not only works very closely on a very detailed analysis of where all the changes, both micro and macro, are in the text. 226 00:24:57,740 --> 00:25:02,060 But he can also calibrate all of the psychological logical shifts of those 227 00:25:02,060 --> 00:25:07,220 intentions around those changes in a way that's just so refined and nuanced. 228 00:25:07,220 --> 00:25:11,540 And he likes doing it. So a lot of people get a bit tired and contemplate. 229 00:25:11,540 --> 00:25:16,340 I've got a play, takes about 400 events and, you know, 400 intention's. 230 00:25:16,340 --> 00:25:21,050 That's really that's really dull. I won't play something simpler. But Ben is the opposite. 231 00:25:21,050 --> 00:25:24,680 He goes, I think he missed an event. Katie, can we have a 401. 232 00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:31,970 And then every single inch of what he's doing on stage in terms of playing, he needs to be precise about. 233 00:25:31,970 --> 00:25:38,330 And that that leads to a sort of density and complexity in terms of the psychology, 234 00:25:38,330 --> 00:25:47,600 which is sort quite is breath a breathtaking level of skill, which very few performers can achieve with breathtaking. 235 00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:52,410 I am sorry. Know, I agree. I think we can't just. This is the Ben Loves. 236 00:25:52,410 --> 00:25:57,030 I think there's an element in which it goes in the other direction, too. And I think I can see why. 237 00:25:57,030 --> 00:26:04,020 And I just I kind of more seriously, I wonder, Ben, you carry that sort of stuff over into film and TV work. 238 00:26:04,020 --> 00:26:08,350 So I'm thinking of the Norman, you know, the the the very British. 239 00:26:08,350 --> 00:26:10,350 I've forgotten the title now. But, you know, 240 00:26:10,350 --> 00:26:20,550 that was a character where it struck me that you were doing incredibly detailed work as part of that character rather than just sort of being. 241 00:26:20,550 --> 00:26:34,690 Oh, I do. I do. I do apply it. It's impossible to apply it in the same way and to the same degree because. 242 00:26:34,690 --> 00:26:38,550 Well, one in the case of a very English scandal, it was made fertility, 243 00:26:38,550 --> 00:26:47,470 there's not the time to do that kind of detailed work either beforehand or during the process. 244 00:26:47,470 --> 00:26:59,690 But. But I do apply it and I always think I always make a biography now. 245 00:26:59,690 --> 00:27:05,780 And I always work out the facts of the past and I will always fill in and I'll always work out. 246 00:27:05,780 --> 00:27:12,380 I always work out my intentions and events, even if on the day. 247 00:27:12,380 --> 00:27:20,770 You know, the whole thing turns out to be nothing like what you'd imagined, and you can't really use it. 248 00:27:20,770 --> 00:27:25,900 You've got it there as you got there in your back pocket kind of thing. 249 00:27:25,900 --> 00:27:33,530 Yeah. OK. We've been a sense already answered the question. Can you teach this stuff insofar as you. 250 00:27:33,530 --> 00:27:42,730 You both said, well, Stanislavski's. Method is one way of learning this stuff, at least. 251 00:27:42,730 --> 00:27:51,590 Neither of you have claimed that it's the only way. But you clearly both find it really, really useful as a way of kind of. 252 00:27:51,590 --> 00:28:00,610 In a sense, measuring and understanding the craft to use your title to the craft of it all, 253 00:28:00,610 --> 00:28:05,740 just to kind of put they put they put them put this little bit of the conversation, 254 00:28:05,740 --> 00:28:13,210 it seems to me that both of you seem to think of your work as craft, as made things, 255 00:28:13,210 --> 00:28:16,750 you know, like, I don't know, a goldsmith or a filled with my thought. 256 00:28:16,750 --> 00:28:23,140 You know, you're making stuff in an extraordinary detail that is beautiful. 257 00:28:23,140 --> 00:28:28,060 Is that fair? Well, I think that that's one thing I really love. 258 00:28:28,060 --> 00:28:34,780 Sorry again about this process of working then, because it does so to demystify things. 259 00:28:34,780 --> 00:28:40,000 Could you eat? And there is a lovely feeling of light, will you? 260 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,830 Because otherwise there are a million ways you could try to approach a text or anything. 261 00:28:44,830 --> 00:28:49,020 And if you've got if you've got these, it's a toolkit. 262 00:28:49,020 --> 00:28:53,140 And it is sort of like you can make it. You can apply it every time. 263 00:28:53,140 --> 00:29:02,470 And sometimes you don't need to. And sometimes other things will happen. And there's room space for the space, for other things to blow in. 264 00:29:02,470 --> 00:29:10,830 But you're not going to have that crisis of light fast. I don't know who I am, what I'm doing. 265 00:29:10,830 --> 00:29:14,520 What would you say this same Katie for? 266 00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:19,810 Yeah, I think it I think is is enormously important and useful to have a sense of. 267 00:29:19,810 --> 00:29:25,960 I think there's something about it. Maybe the most useful thing is sort of for the time that we're all together making a show, 268 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:31,410 everyone agrees to one way of working, because, as you say, well, there are so many different ways. 269 00:29:31,410 --> 00:29:38,260 And as you say, we don't claim that this is absolute. I think this is very tried and tested, let's say, 270 00:29:38,260 --> 00:29:45,850 because if you think that I learnt it from someone called Lev Dadin who studied with someone called Toff's to knock off. 271 00:29:45,850 --> 00:29:47,640 Who studied with Stanislavski? 272 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:55,870 It's close to transmission and then so many people have used these tools so that all of the weaknesses of the tools have been sort of eject over time. 273 00:29:55,870 --> 00:30:01,750 So they're really well-made tools and they're enormously useful for directors and actors. 274 00:30:01,750 --> 00:30:04,940 And I think the demystifying is really important. 275 00:30:04,940 --> 00:30:11,920 Just just going into the director's other tasks that they have to do, not just working with performers in in my mission, 276 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:22,830 would definitely to nail the skills both hard and soft skills so that the process of directing is demystified in order that anyone can do it. 277 00:30:22,830 --> 00:30:29,390 Because there still a little bit of salt resolution mystery around your directing, which can put a lot of people off. 278 00:30:29,390 --> 00:30:37,630 And there is a field dominated by one diversity group who don't understand themselves as a diversity group. 279 00:30:37,630 --> 00:30:47,320 And so I think it's the more you can demystify the processes and nail the skills, the better for access to the field, basically. 280 00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:52,000 And bringing a lot of people even like, you know, Ben describes himself to that youth centre. 281 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:58,600 You know, there he is, given the tools and off he goes. I mean, that's that's so important, you know. 282 00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:04,660 Can we talk about a different set of tools for a moment? And that's the tools that have to be developed. 283 00:31:04,660 --> 00:31:07,840 Well, you were already doing that. You've already worked with them, both of you. 284 00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:12,500 So great in terms of love, cinema and bone, in terms of cinema, TV and so on. 285 00:31:12,500 --> 00:31:19,060 But obviously, in the last six months to a year, the tools of that we're working with now, the tools of the screen, 286 00:31:19,060 --> 00:31:27,310 of the camera of live, of something called life performance, that is also not actually where people are present. 287 00:31:27,310 --> 00:31:37,990 Do you have thoughts on the difficulties of live performance now and the kind of digital performance offered exciting possibility? 288 00:31:37,990 --> 00:31:50,080 Or is it always gonna be a kind of second grade version of the thought of what you might call the holy grail of being there in the room with somebody? 289 00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:56,950 I mean, of course, this is different, but we can't make anything live at the moment. 290 00:31:56,950 --> 00:32:03,310 And that is going to be for a long period of time. And as we will know, more pandemics will come in the future. 291 00:32:03,310 --> 00:32:11,680 So we have to have other systems. And so we have to sort of put my money to just to relinquish the holy grail of the live experience 292 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:17,920 and accept and welcome in different versions like this experience now of us communicating by Zoome. 293 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:25,600 We have to welcome in those versions because we still have the existential needs that live performance was fulfilling. 294 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:30,010 It was dealing with all the complex parts of what it is to be human, you know. 295 00:32:30,010 --> 00:32:33,580 And we still have those needs and we still need the narratives and we still 296 00:32:33,580 --> 00:32:39,270 need this reflections back on on our behaviour and experience and perceptions. 297 00:32:39,270 --> 00:32:45,940 And so we are going to have to find other ways of creating which are not us all being together in the same life space, 298 00:32:45,940 --> 00:32:54,530 but through different digital platforms. And I was already investigating that actually before the pandemic hit. 299 00:32:54,530 --> 00:32:59,800 And part of sort of an interest that I have in trying to reduce our carbon footprint, 300 00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,460 particularly when we're making big international touring products. 301 00:33:03,460 --> 00:33:10,600 And so I was working with a choreographer called Jerome Bell at a Swiss theatre in Lisanne called Videos. 302 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:17,260 And we were working up a way of making a show where there was no travel, 303 00:33:17,260 --> 00:33:26,260 which would mean there would be Jerome in Paris and me in London rehearsing via Zoome local performers in Lausanne. 304 00:33:26,260 --> 00:33:29,650 And then when it Tore's, no one moved. 305 00:33:29,650 --> 00:33:39,910 Basically, new local performers in the next city would work with either me and Jerome by Zoome or a new local director with a performance score. 306 00:33:39,910 --> 00:33:46,810 And I've been linked to literally zero movement and travel of either people or elements. 307 00:33:46,810 --> 00:33:48,970 So already I was beginning to think, you know, 308 00:33:48,970 --> 00:33:57,940 as time passes and the environmental catastrophe sort of crashes onto us, we need new systems for working. 309 00:33:57,940 --> 00:34:03,610 So for me, I think it's a really is an awful time full stop for everyone. 310 00:34:03,610 --> 00:34:08,500 But there are some advantages in it in terms of our sector. 311 00:34:08,500 --> 00:34:19,090 You know, I think make us come up with new forms of working and communicating and just have to relinquish the holy grail of the life thing. 312 00:34:19,090 --> 00:34:23,370 I mean, as you know, I would have so much life cinema that I'm not so mean. 313 00:34:23,370 --> 00:34:28,060 Do it like this is a moot question in your recent work anyway. And where, you know, what am I watching? 314 00:34:28,060 --> 00:34:32,260 Is this life? Is this in the same Plummers that more has been explored? 315 00:34:32,260 --> 00:34:38,350 Anyway, what you do. So I can see why you this does. 316 00:34:38,350 --> 00:34:45,900 You know, acknowledging the horrible mess of it nonetheless represent a kind of artistic challenge and opportunity. 317 00:34:45,900 --> 00:34:54,050 I wonder for Ben. Again, do you. Do you grasp this is as a kind of possible utopian even future? 318 00:34:54,050 --> 00:34:58,260 Or do you think, dammit, I want to be on in the room with people? 319 00:34:58,260 --> 00:35:10,270 I won't be in the room where it happened that Hamiltonians I to be completely honest, I have felt so sort of. 320 00:35:10,270 --> 00:35:17,010 Knocked for six by oh. And then I haven't. I'm still getting my head around everything. 321 00:35:17,010 --> 00:35:21,300 I mean, I'm really inspired to hear what you're saying, Katie, actually, but I mean, 322 00:35:21,300 --> 00:35:26,720 I haven't even really felt like doing any I mean, it's fortunate because there is no work to do. 323 00:35:26,720 --> 00:35:34,930 But I haven't felt like doing any work. I've been really feels guilty to admit that because so many people are. 324 00:35:34,930 --> 00:35:40,060 Having to work so hard. But I have enjoyed I have to confess. 325 00:35:40,060 --> 00:35:44,680 Sort of like. Having a fallow period. 326 00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:49,720 Mm hmm. So I feel I'm still in that time. 327 00:35:49,720 --> 00:35:55,120 I feel like I can't really answer it. I'm very curious to know because I think Kate Kate is absolutely right. 328 00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:59,470 This isn't going to obviously change any time very soon. 329 00:35:59,470 --> 00:36:04,810 So we're going to have to adapt. And I think maybe I could put a question to you that's come from the audience. 330 00:36:04,810 --> 00:36:07,360 I mean, we've already started actually thinking about some of the audience questions, 331 00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:15,360 but if so, if a project came to you, Ben, which was working on a livestream to play. 332 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:19,170 Would that interest you or would you think. No, I need to be again. 333 00:36:19,170 --> 00:36:26,560 I need to have the audience directly there with me? No, I would interest me if the people. 334 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,950 If the project was good and the people were interesting. Yeah. So if gauging comes along, is that right? 335 00:36:30,950 --> 00:36:36,420 We need to do something that's digital now. Yeah. Well, we've just been having that conversation. 336 00:36:36,420 --> 00:36:40,620 Plus just in our greenroom before, we were already opening up. 337 00:36:40,620 --> 00:36:46,470 But the thing is, it's not about having a challenge and an opportunity. It's a necessity. 338 00:36:46,470 --> 00:36:52,450 And I think that this really was struck to me, struck home to me when very early on during lockdown, 339 00:36:52,450 --> 00:37:01,720 a friend of mine had been part of a conversation going on apparently in Manchester about a new building, a new performance building that was opening. 340 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:09,220 And the architect had been sent back to the drawing board to make the building work socially distance. 341 00:37:09,220 --> 00:37:18,010 And I think that was in must be March. Someone mentioned this to me and I thought, oh, my God, I'm so serious for me. 342 00:37:18,010 --> 00:37:22,030 So it was a real turning point, I thought. It's long time. 343 00:37:22,030 --> 00:37:29,760 We're looking at the long term, not the short term. And then, of course, ones I've always got formal intellectual curiosity. 344 00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:36,700 How is it possible to make this experience that we have normally together when we're separate? 345 00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:42,880 What can that you know, what can that be? Mm hmm. And that is intellectually interesting. 346 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:48,470 OK, so again, you've answered one of the questions, which did have you used quarantine time to progress as an artist? 347 00:37:48,470 --> 00:37:53,500 In what way? Oh, my God. Well, I use coincidence time. 348 00:37:53,500 --> 00:37:58,540 I thought, what should I do with my time? A show after show went down. 349 00:37:58,540 --> 00:38:03,700 I've had a lot of fantastic use of my time, actually. I've spent most of my time teaching young people. 350 00:38:03,700 --> 00:38:15,520 Actually in many, many different countries. Teaching, mainly directing, but sometimes acting in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy. 351 00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:20,230 I'm going to be teaching people in Norway. Copenhagen, Milan. 352 00:38:20,230 --> 00:38:25,780 Lots and lots of different groups. So it's given me access to the younger generation in a way that I've not had for a long time. 353 00:38:25,780 --> 00:38:33,250 And I really, really relished that. And I've taken a huge amount from that, including my M.A. students. 354 00:38:33,250 --> 00:38:42,270 Holloway. So I've done that, but also been able to build up projects which are looking at a different blend of digital and 355 00:38:42,270 --> 00:38:48,430 fair to say we're doing a show for the Shah Buna working with the British writer Chris Bush, 356 00:38:48,430 --> 00:38:53,110 where we produce 10 short films digitally. 357 00:38:53,110 --> 00:38:57,730 And where we introduce all of these characters and they go out in the spring of next year. 358 00:38:57,730 --> 00:39:05,680 And then in the autumn, you see all of those characters five years before meeting and having a dinner party. 359 00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:12,300 So it just so exciting to blend those. And then obviously, working on the Zero Travel Project, 360 00:39:12,300 --> 00:39:18,460 I've spent a lot a lot of time with scientists talking about the environment and also with the wonderful British scientists. 361 00:39:18,460 --> 00:39:18,700 Actually, 362 00:39:18,700 --> 00:39:29,830 Chris Rapley just drilling down again into what's happening and how we can make piece of theatre about that subject without emptying the theatres, 363 00:39:29,830 --> 00:39:35,180 because it's not a very happy subject. So I've been busier than normal. 364 00:39:35,180 --> 00:39:39,370 Yeah, I know you've been busy. Yeah. Not very exciting. 365 00:39:39,370 --> 00:39:41,380 I mean, again, we've talked a bit about this, 366 00:39:41,380 --> 00:39:48,070 but some of those projects we will probably help develop will be maybe in the next little while whilst your visiting fellow. 367 00:39:48,070 --> 00:39:55,310 Ben, you talk about being follow. I find that a really interesting kind of Metropol, because, of course, it's also an environmental. 368 00:39:55,310 --> 00:40:00,410 You know, land has to be fallow for a while, but for the ground to be then fertile. 369 00:40:00,410 --> 00:40:05,560 But some of the boys suddenly you need to. I'm not your therapist, but I think you need to feel bad about. 370 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:12,580 We'll follow. My lead therapist told me it was all right. But it's also true. 371 00:40:12,580 --> 00:40:18,490 You've been filming and I wonder if I think you've been filming it is filming different now to what it's normally like. 372 00:40:18,490 --> 00:40:21,890 Nonetheless, you have to do a lot to be in bubbles and you have to work separately. 373 00:40:21,890 --> 00:40:28,840 Or I did one day off something that I had not quite finished in March, OK? 374 00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:33,660 I couldn't really say, but it was weird because you meet a whole bunch of people and nobody can see. 375 00:40:33,660 --> 00:40:47,070 Is this. Yeah. And. But, you know, well, it will get used to that and it will find creative ways around it. 376 00:40:47,070 --> 00:40:55,050 I know you don't. They bend when they happen. I'm having a zoom cool with a lack of lean in Paris and then zoom call their only mask. 377 00:40:55,050 --> 00:40:58,500 That's been e decked out that you have to wear masks in the office. 378 00:40:58,500 --> 00:41:04,960 And that was just really weird. Yeah. It's just to just see people's eyes is going to be a. 379 00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:11,120 Anyway, a. Here's a technical question then, which somebody is just sent him, which I think is really interesting to both of you. 380 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:16,830 Or rather, did you think the difference between the technical skills required for stage and screen 381 00:41:16,830 --> 00:41:22,860 action will become blurred in this kind of zoom world precisely because of face, 382 00:41:22,860 --> 00:41:27,780 you know, TV skills involved as much as anything else? 383 00:41:27,780 --> 00:41:31,110 And you've been working with that when the live cinema stuff. 384 00:41:31,110 --> 00:41:43,950 Will this this new domain in which we're operating mean that the skills about your technical skills for actors will become blurred? 385 00:41:43,950 --> 00:41:49,240 All right, if you don't think you're doing something different anyway than when you're acting on stage or on film. 386 00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:53,090 I think Ben may not agree with that. Ben, do you think it's different on stage? 387 00:41:53,090 --> 00:41:58,690 Adam? Yes. It's hugely different, isn't it? Yeah, I do. 388 00:41:58,690 --> 00:42:04,390 OK. So this livestream show that you're gonna do. Are you gonna be a screen actor or a stage actor while you're doing it? 389 00:42:04,390 --> 00:42:10,000 It's a really but it's a really good question because I do see what you mean of it. 390 00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,570 It is life. There's one go at it. 391 00:42:13,570 --> 00:42:17,020 You can't go back. Concrete cut. Yeah. Sorry. 392 00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:26,480 Series saying hello to me. I live Tecktonik thing about our private lives and our public lives. 393 00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:31,440 Is that like crunched together, don't they. Because it your situation at home. 394 00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:39,010 Thing. Yes. So it is it would be it was going to be a really interesting sort of mash up of the two. 395 00:42:39,010 --> 00:42:43,420 And something else because acting. I would. 396 00:42:43,420 --> 00:42:49,210 I can imagine like this on a zun call. It isn't like acting for a camera either. 397 00:42:49,210 --> 00:42:55,550 So it's it's not really it's a completely new thing. I think it's a neat I think new thing is the way of looking at it. 398 00:42:55,550 --> 00:43:00,910 And I think it's we've probably got a train for and think about it and reflect on how to do it really well. 399 00:43:00,910 --> 00:43:06,790 I think is probably quite complicated to do. Acting as you my students have to do a. 400 00:43:06,790 --> 00:43:14,140 My last year students, their final project because of the pandemic, had to go on to zoom and you can see them investigating. 401 00:43:14,140 --> 00:43:19,720 All of the challenges of it is really hard and some magic. See the actors crunching their way through it. 402 00:43:19,720 --> 00:43:24,810 You know, it's it's difficult, I think. 403 00:43:24,810 --> 00:43:30,240 I'm trickily, want to ask whether Stanislavski's gonna help you with that and I can see actually it probably will. 404 00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:36,600 Of course, because it's the same word. It's about how to be present in the moment as you feel. 405 00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:38,910 Well, the thing I think that's really exciting about it. 406 00:43:38,910 --> 00:43:47,670 If we think that there's about 200 muscles on the face and the muscles are the things that articulate a lot of the inner feeling or emotions. 407 00:43:47,670 --> 00:43:53,970 So there is a sense in which everyone is going to get the director's view of the acting, 408 00:43:53,970 --> 00:44:00,420 e.g., very close to the privilege of being a director as you sit super close to the acting. 409 00:44:00,420 --> 00:44:09,480 Yeah, you rarely see the detail of it. Yeah, that's part of my original wish to bring cameras into theatre is so that everyone sees that detail, 410 00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:16,650 A and B, the actor doesn't have to amplify it a bit for the people who are sitting 10 seats back. 411 00:44:16,650 --> 00:44:20,680 So I think there's something really gorgeous about the detail of Zoom. 412 00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,330 Do you think I mean, what could really I mean, this is a prelude to our project, isn't it? 413 00:44:24,330 --> 00:44:28,260 Then whatever it is, then you can really, really work on that detail. 414 00:44:28,260 --> 00:44:35,390 But also, there's something about the zoom is always putting people in their private spaces. 415 00:44:35,390 --> 00:44:39,000 I think there's something really interesting about this point. Yeah. 416 00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:47,930 Really, really interesting. I've been teaching all this time. I got a 14 year old teenager behind me always aware of that. 417 00:44:47,930 --> 00:44:55,380 And it's lovely to have her so close. But it's sort of it definitely modulates my behaviour in a completely different way. 418 00:44:55,380 --> 00:45:00,880 Yeah. I wonder also, again, in response to one of the questions that comes through, 419 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:08,100 going back to the diversity point that you made earlier about directors being largely from, you know, white and male. 420 00:45:08,100 --> 00:45:09,960 You didn't say that, but that's what you meant. 421 00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:21,720 I think there is this new mode going to democratise representation in a way to bring more people into the space of performance because, 422 00:45:21,720 --> 00:45:25,260 you know, we've all got this kid or haven't we all got this kid? 423 00:45:25,260 --> 00:45:29,730 I mean, we all have this kid. I think I think it I hope it does. 424 00:45:29,730 --> 00:45:36,720 But I hope also that that happens in the live performance. When we come back to it before we go away from it again. 425 00:45:36,720 --> 00:45:38,550 So I think yes, definitely. 426 00:45:38,550 --> 00:45:51,870 I think it could be a lovely interim platform for sort of people to be free to take charge of theatre for artists at a time this past, 427 00:45:51,870 --> 00:45:57,300 you know, and and and reimagine it. Yes, I think yes, I think so. 428 00:45:57,300 --> 00:46:01,290 That's Ben. Do you have thoughts on that? I just completely agree. 429 00:46:01,290 --> 00:46:11,130 And I think, you know. It's the thing of that you hear people talking about of wanting things to go back to how they were. 430 00:46:11,130 --> 00:46:14,750 Yeah, but I don't. I don't know, maybe that. 431 00:46:14,750 --> 00:46:21,270 And I and I think a lot of people don't. So it is a time. 432 00:46:21,270 --> 00:46:26,040 To really think about where we want it to go and what new work we might make and 433 00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:31,500 the kinds of stories and how we tell those stories and who is telling the stories, 434 00:46:31,500 --> 00:46:35,100 you know, it's all very exciting, really. Could all. 435 00:46:35,100 --> 00:46:40,870 It's all up for grabs. I hope I. I've got no interest in going back. 436 00:46:40,870 --> 00:46:45,540 Less must go forward. I completely agree with you. 437 00:46:45,540 --> 00:46:51,590 And then lots of really exciting new ideas, like localism, for example, which I find really, really interesting. 438 00:46:51,590 --> 00:46:55,350 So I see. What's that? What's that mean? 439 00:46:55,350 --> 00:46:57,420 Well, it is, as I understand it. 440 00:46:57,420 --> 00:47:04,770 I mean, just coming to it is the idea that basically you you start to function locally within your immediate community. 441 00:47:04,770 --> 00:47:12,810 So I was reflecting as as I was cycling through my local park and I just there was a young group of people doing Shakespeare in the park. 442 00:47:12,810 --> 00:47:18,150 I thought maybe that's what I would end up doing. I'll just be directing shows in my local park. 443 00:47:18,150 --> 00:47:21,480 And it's actually quite a nice thought, actually. Yeah. 444 00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:25,950 As opposed to travelling across the world with them are awful carbon footprint or they am not flying. 445 00:47:25,950 --> 00:47:32,150 I'm on the wretched trains, but yeah. Look, it's basically as I understand it was, you know, more about it. 446 00:47:32,150 --> 00:47:36,980 It's a movement for for putting our energies into making environmental change. 447 00:47:36,980 --> 00:47:44,550 Your artistic contributions locally. Yeah. I just think working globally, that's really exciting. 448 00:47:44,550 --> 00:47:49,080 I mean, in a way, it goes back to the youth at the moment that you start with then. 449 00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:50,760 In other words, you know, 450 00:47:50,760 --> 00:48:01,290 the shows happening in your community with your community locally and being made in some sense for the community or with you with the community. 451 00:48:01,290 --> 00:48:08,100 I mean, of course, we have other kinds of theatre still going to go on and carry on as well. 452 00:48:08,100 --> 00:48:14,490 Other kinds of TV and filmmaking. But and local is interesting because I've just had a little note saying here, 453 00:48:14,490 --> 00:48:22,110 the countries represented in the audience at the moment Japan, Belgium, UK, China, Philippines, US, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong. 454 00:48:22,110 --> 00:48:29,700 So local will mean lots of different things in all the various different places in terms of the people who were online watching us now. 455 00:48:29,700 --> 00:48:39,720 And I suppose that that's, again, another question that's come through here, which is as well as sort of potentially democratising things. 456 00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:45,900 What's clear? You touched on this earlier, Katie, is that this sort of new digital space. 457 00:48:45,900 --> 00:48:50,800 It's kind of both somewhere and everywhere at the same time. 458 00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:57,000 And I wonder if we can just reflect on that for a few minutes, the sort of the local but also the global, 459 00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:04,020 the relation to either in terms of the project that you took. My ideas are kind of a transferable project from one place to another. 460 00:49:04,020 --> 00:49:12,450 Or, you know, you've done a lot of work in Germany. I hope you don't mind my saying your German is not amazing. 461 00:49:12,450 --> 00:49:17,380 In other words, you've nonetheless managed to transfer and you've worked in Russia and, you know, 462 00:49:17,380 --> 00:49:25,410 so you've transferred a kind of a way of being into something that is not rooted in a particular language or in a particular culture. 463 00:49:25,410 --> 00:49:30,310 So does that mean that the global is there or is each time? 464 00:49:30,310 --> 00:49:34,350 And do we need to be local wherever we are? I really don't know. 465 00:49:34,350 --> 00:49:40,770 But what I do know is that we have to stop flying and we have to stop consuming carpet like this. 466 00:49:40,770 --> 00:49:49,320 And therefore, that means we cannot have this international cultural travel and the products can't travel like that travelling and the productions 467 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:56,830 can't be made like they've been made with the with the highest cost for an international production is transport and accommodation, 468 00:49:56,830 --> 00:49:58,800 particularly transport. 469 00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:09,510 So I think it's just a great moment as fantastic to hear the number of country people from in and say this is like positive globalisation where, 470 00:50:09,510 --> 00:50:16,350 you know, we we all can meet across a lot of countries on Zoome and talk about different things. 471 00:50:16,350 --> 00:50:22,680 I think we can do locally and we can share ideas across this in a digital platform, 472 00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:28,620 but not necessarily have to travel anymore because the environmental catastrophe, 473 00:50:28,620 --> 00:50:35,540 which the pandemic is a sign of, it's not separate from the real elephant in the room. 474 00:50:35,540 --> 00:50:41,610 Yeah. Yeah. That's all. All those models are redundant. 475 00:50:41,610 --> 00:50:45,170 They've got to be changed. We've got to have new systems. 476 00:50:45,170 --> 00:50:52,460 And I think it's very exciting, the idea that I could be directing a show, an entirely different country and not go that. 477 00:50:52,460 --> 00:50:59,390 And vice versa. I think it's a very exciting possibilities. 478 00:50:59,390 --> 00:51:09,070 It was back then. Yes. To be honest, I've been such a hermit for the last six months. 479 00:51:09,070 --> 00:51:13,500 This is the first time I mean, I've done some Zoome calls with my family and things, 480 00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:19,380 but this is the first time these these are questions that I'm just starting to think about. 481 00:51:19,380 --> 00:51:28,500 Mm hmm. And I feel actually very inspired just by hearing you talk about them. 482 00:51:28,500 --> 00:51:32,490 So I'm open to that. 483 00:51:32,490 --> 00:51:40,880 I'm imagining it's much, much harder for a performer to embrace this than for director. 484 00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:51,860 Because, yo, I don't know. But your kind of stock in trade, what you work with is a kind of presence is being there in some way. 485 00:51:51,860 --> 00:51:58,310 So I can't see how you would say it would get quite as excited as Katie about not being somewhere. 486 00:51:58,310 --> 00:52:07,190 Well, I agree with Katie that we have to get used to not being somewhere. We think we know we're going to have to really change our behaviour. 487 00:52:07,190 --> 00:52:13,820 So I think I'm all up for embracing. What what what the change needs to be. 488 00:52:13,820 --> 00:52:17,030 Yes. But I think that's something they will learn about because. 489 00:52:17,030 --> 00:52:27,420 Yeah, you do think how can I act with somebody on a over my computer and how how do you have. 490 00:52:27,420 --> 00:52:33,690 What about physicality and presence? And, yes, everything else that's so important to them? 491 00:52:33,690 --> 00:52:37,680 Let's do a thought experiment then on this one just to finish off, because we're coming up to five two. 492 00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:44,280 So we've got about five more minutes. Sort of one of the questions that somebody is asked. 493 00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:47,580 Well, there's two more questions left. Let's take then a bit of thought experiment. 494 00:52:47,580 --> 00:52:57,850 So the ideas that we've just been discussing the last five, ten minutes. How would they have made the show that you did at the shed last year? 495 00:52:57,850 --> 00:53:05,510 Different. So if you could if some one of you could just say a sentence or two about what the show was. 496 00:53:05,510 --> 00:53:08,870 And I mean, I can introduce it if. 497 00:53:08,870 --> 00:53:23,240 It was Ben Carson's doing a Greek tragedy based on Helen's you ripped D and modernising it by imagining that Helen was Marilyn Monroe. 498 00:53:23,240 --> 00:53:28,370 Yeah. Crudely speaking, deformed by me, an actor. 499 00:53:28,370 --> 00:53:39,140 And I'm Renee Fleming. So it was a very peculiar set of ingredients. 500 00:53:39,140 --> 00:53:47,290 I think it's fair to say. Katie, would it? I think is such an interesting question because it would have worked brilliantly, I think. 501 00:53:47,290 --> 00:53:51,350 Yeah. In a way it could. It could have been really good on a digital platform. 502 00:53:51,350 --> 00:53:54,880 And I do have to say that I didn't even go to the US. True. 503 00:53:54,880 --> 00:54:04,770 I don't fly on principle. So, you know, we ready inside and you and we we rehearsed it therefore locally in the UK. 504 00:54:04,770 --> 00:54:08,570 So it was very there already had some some US elements of this, didn't it. 505 00:54:08,570 --> 00:54:14,330 I think it would work really well on a digital platform. Would you say. Definitely. And also because it was not. 506 00:54:14,330 --> 00:54:18,760 It had no. It wasn't a play. 507 00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:22,570 It wasn't an opera. It wasn't a poetry reading. 508 00:54:22,570 --> 00:54:27,830 It was not. You couldn't define it. So it was already in its own. 509 00:54:27,830 --> 00:54:32,360 Strange space, wasn't it? So it was already booked. 510 00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:39,350 So he got what it was already both ancient Euripides and very modern, and Culliton was already male and female. 511 00:54:39,350 --> 00:54:45,980 I mean, there was all sorts of binaries that were being, if you like, deconstructed through live on stage. 512 00:54:45,980 --> 00:54:51,240 Now you guys are saying, yeah, and we could do that on on Zumar, at least in a digital on a digital platform. 513 00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:55,310 That right. Yeah, I think, yeah. It would have worked. 514 00:54:55,310 --> 00:54:59,750 I mean, we'd have to rethink a few things. But you could totally perform the text. 515 00:54:59,750 --> 00:55:11,010 And Rene could perform the score and it would work with on on a Zune to be completely possible wouldn't it, Katie? 516 00:55:11,010 --> 00:55:15,040 Yeah, it would be quite exciting. Yeah. Quite exciting man. 517 00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:19,890 Yeah. OK, maybe we've hatched an idea. But but. 518 00:55:19,890 --> 00:55:25,430 But lovely. But you did that in the shed. Yep. In this new space in New York. 519 00:55:25,430 --> 00:55:34,710 Yeah. And I guess that comes to a kind of a final point, which is. 520 00:55:34,710 --> 00:55:40,800 So somebody said, how can you grow new talent and new spaces for this new performance mode? 521 00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:45,450 And in a way, the shed was already invented for that. So the shed. You know, I've not been that good. 522 00:55:45,450 --> 00:55:49,840 Yeah. Not great in principle. Don't fly, but because I've been in state for a while yet. 523 00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:53,950 But you've made the show or the show was made for that space. 524 00:55:53,950 --> 00:56:05,920 I think at least partly, wasn't it. Yes, it was. Yeah. So can you talk us a bit through a bit about how you make a show for a particular space? 525 00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:13,600 What the process of commissioning is? How does a show get made like that? The problem is I'd really like to answer that question. 526 00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:19,270 But the space was being built, so we didn't actually know the space. 527 00:56:19,270 --> 00:56:24,490 And that's when when Ben and the team and my associate him represent me over there. 528 00:56:24,490 --> 00:56:29,670 Lily McNeish went over. It was a building site, literally, and they had a on the task to rehearse. 529 00:56:29,670 --> 00:56:31,930 So in a way, it was such a strange, 530 00:56:31,930 --> 00:56:39,220 exceptional experience in relationship to building actually coming up around you as you're trying to tack it on the ground. 531 00:56:39,220 --> 00:56:42,510 Ben is it's hard to take it as a model, but how is it? 532 00:56:42,510 --> 00:56:50,770 It's hilarious because we all got sent home one day because it was the space was unsafe to be in their building. 533 00:56:50,770 --> 00:56:57,200 So it was just it was being built around us while we were rehearsing the final rehearsal. 534 00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:04,420 But that was very exciting. It was exciting. It was it was fun and funny and exciting and a bit scary. 535 00:57:04,420 --> 00:57:07,950 The projects come together in a whole variety of different ways, don't they? 536 00:57:07,950 --> 00:57:14,230 I mean, sometimes an organisation will say, do you want to direct this or do you want to act this? 537 00:57:14,230 --> 00:57:21,070 And sometimes you go to an organisation, you. So I would like to direct this or maybe go to someone, say, I'd like to act this year. 538 00:57:21,070 --> 00:57:24,940 But in this case, it had the weirdest evolution, didn't it? 539 00:57:24,940 --> 00:57:29,530 Because Ben rang me. You see, you explain it, Ben. The evolution of this project. 540 00:57:29,530 --> 00:57:36,040 You were in New York with Rene and Anne business. 541 00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:46,250 This is very odd. Yes. Yes. I was in New York with Rene and and Alex Poots, who is the artistic director of the shed, 542 00:57:46,250 --> 00:57:51,520 and and had written this text and asked if I would like to do for me I really love. 543 00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:57,400 And and she we'd worked on something else together. 544 00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:03,820 Alex Puzzo decided it needed another element other than just an actor and said he knew Renee Fleming. 545 00:58:03,820 --> 00:58:12,330 Maybe there was some kind of chorus because it was a Greek. Built from a Greek text and said you could have a singer. 546 00:58:12,330 --> 00:58:22,230 So Rene came on board. But then we had nothing else. We had no no way of transforming this text into a performance. 547 00:58:22,230 --> 00:58:26,840 And no one in the room had a clue how to do it. 548 00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:34,250 And that's when, you know, Katie Mitchell. She does opera and she does Greek and Greek plays. 549 00:58:34,250 --> 00:58:38,490 I'll ring her. And I did. And then that's. Yeah. And that's how it happened. 550 00:58:38,490 --> 00:58:44,090 So that's a very weird, very, very, very unusual procedure. 551 00:58:44,090 --> 00:58:48,110 Well, that's a shame, because it seems to me a perfect procedure. 552 00:58:48,110 --> 00:58:56,390 In that, you know, performer loves attacks, loves a writer's work, needs to then go and find some way of operating, 553 00:58:56,390 --> 00:59:02,500 making that happen, remembers having worked with somebody else who's kind of got the tools. 554 00:59:02,500 --> 00:59:11,280 Off we go. I mean, I suppose what lucky about that is that you also had the producer onboard or the. 555 00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:20,130 Yeah, I would say in retrospect it was a little bit the wrong or the wrong way round. 556 00:59:20,130 --> 00:59:24,800 It felt that way anyway. Maybe I shouldn't. We're running out of time and maybe it's too much. 557 00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,490 I'm just interested. I'll tell you why I'm interested, 558 00:59:27,490 --> 00:59:33,810 partly because precisely this is partly me thinking from our perspective in torture and in relation to the new humanity centre and so on. 559 00:59:33,810 --> 00:59:41,110 How do we bring together academic work, research into performance and the history of performance in the Greek into, 560 00:59:41,110 --> 00:59:44,070 you know, the history theatre with artists? 561 00:59:44,070 --> 00:59:52,600 And how do you generate that work in what will be a new space, you know, is gonna be a built space as well as a digital space? 562 00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:57,540 How does that work happen? And clearly, there are lots of different ways. 563 00:59:57,540 --> 01:00:00,060 But whether it leads with the power, whether it leads with the director, 564 01:00:00,060 --> 01:00:07,430 whether it leads with the performer and so on, what's what's the thing that makes that actually feasible? 565 01:00:07,430 --> 01:00:14,330 It is an idea. Connexion, isn't it, between either a group of artists or artists and academics. 566 01:00:14,330 --> 01:00:23,280 And it's a very fragile, tiny thing. So if someone has a hunch that some idea would be possible in the same way that Ben had this hunch and this hunch 567 01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:30,120 that you could with a fantastic opera singer like Renee Fleming that has to act like himself and Carson's taxed, 568 01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:36,260 if you could just get that fourth person there, then we'll those ingredients would coalesce. 569 01:00:36,260 --> 01:00:45,100 Yeah. But I think I think the seeds of things are quite fragile and you can often miss them as the seed of an idea. 570 01:00:45,100 --> 01:00:47,400 I mean, they just just you just don't notice it. 571 01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:57,340 So providing a sort of environment like you are with us and providing context like this for these sorts of conversations can often breed things. 572 01:00:57,340 --> 01:00:59,610 Yeah. We're back to fallow. 573 01:00:59,610 --> 01:01:06,040 You need some fallow ground to plant the seed and then you need the water, the resources and all the rest of it to make the seed grow, I guess. 574 01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:10,860 But yeah. Okay. We're running out of time. Have we forgotten anything? 575 01:01:10,860 --> 01:01:17,070 Is there anything you really want to think about that we haven't said? 576 01:01:17,070 --> 01:01:20,520 I don't think so. I think we've a really, really, really enjoyed this. 577 01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:24,900 And I think we know Snuffly really, actually. Thank you so much. 578 01:01:24,900 --> 01:01:28,290 Well, thank you. I think that yeah, we've sort of just about run out of time. 579 01:01:28,290 --> 01:01:37,110 Thank you to both of you are brilliant speakers for a wonderful and really actually, I think enriching conversation. 580 01:01:37,110 --> 01:01:41,310 I have to say thank you also to the viewers at home who sent in their questions. Are they home? 581 01:01:41,310 --> 01:01:46,830 There's all sorts of homes represented here in array and a whole range of different places. 582 01:01:46,830 --> 01:01:53,220 And also, thank you to the backstage crew, the people at Tortue who've made all this possible. 583 01:01:53,220 --> 01:01:57,930 But, of course, the biggest thanks. Go to our two speakers. 584 01:01:57,930 --> 01:02:04,030 Thank you again, Ben. And thank you all so, Katy. Thank you. 585 01:02:04,030 --> 01:02:11,120 Bye bye. Our next big tent live event will take place in two weeks time. 586 01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:20,840 On Thursday, the 8th of October at five p.m., we will be live from an Oxford venue with a world premiere performance from the Villiers Quartette. 587 01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:28,370 We'll also be speaking with Professor Dan Grimley from the music faculty, who will introduce and explain the significance of the performance. 588 01:02:28,370 --> 01:02:33,590 And Dr Joanna Bullivant, also from the music faculty who'll be chairing the evening. 589 01:02:33,590 --> 01:02:35,990 We hope you'll be able to join us again then. 590 01:02:35,990 --> 01:02:42,580 And if you want to catch up on any of the other previous events on Big Tent, they're all on the torch website. 591 01:02:42,580 --> 01:02:47,880 Thank you so much again for joining us one and all. And hope to see you in a couple of weeks time. 592 01:02:47,880 --> 01:03:00,101 Goodbye.