Grabbing a few minutes with award winners is a joy. They’re almost always in a good mood, though there are exceptions, and delighted to talk about whatever successful production has won them such accolades.
The 2013 Critics’ Circle Awards was no exception. In a not so quiet corner of the Prince Of Wales theatre, Let It Be merchandise hanging in the background, we caught up with some of this year’s winners. Here’s what they had to say:
David Lan (Artistic Director of the Young Vic theatre which won three awards)
The thing about 2012 is it was gamble after gamble, risk after risk. The thing we’ve learned in running my place is we’ve really only got two ideas. One idea is we only produce shows that I want to see. The other is we only produce shows that we don’t know how to do. Every show we do, we try to do something we’ve never done before because that’s what keeps it alive.
Doing Wild Swans was a crazy idea; it’s an unstageable book. A Doll’s House is a great play, but how do you make it alive now? Three Sisters is the best play ever written, but how do you do it so that it feels like it was written yesterday? So it was, for me, a year of going “Are we out of our heads?” And yet it’s that kind of energy that makes people come and see the shows.
How does it feel for you as an Artistic Director when your team win awards?
It’s the best. I ask them to trust me as I think I know what I’m doing. Sometimes you’re wrong and you ask somebody to do something which they can’t quite achieve or I can’t quite support them in, so when you find that as a group of people – my producing team, the designers, the actors – pull something off in a way that a bunch of people like the critics get, it’s great.
Adrian Lester (Best Actor) and Lolita Chakrabarti (Most Promising Playwright) for Red Velvet
LC: It was an extraordinary experience because it was Indhu Rubasingham’s first play at the Tricycle as Artistic Director, it was my first play as a writer, Adrian hadn’t played at the Tricycle before, so it felt like a huge risk. To have gone from that point of view to this place where we’re winning prizes, it’s a big arc to have travelled, but it’s nice to be this end.
AL: When we met before [Official London Theatre interviewed Lester prior to the production] I was talking about the risk of it, the not knowing. You put all your chips in, play the best hand and wait and see. Part of that is definitely wondering what the critics will think, especially with a play of this nature. We knew that we got certain aspects of it, but we wondered if the critics would get it and it’s really nice to see that they have, because I believe the work that Lolita has created manages to say something in such a way that hasn’t been said before in British theatre.
It’s a second award for you, Lolita, after winning the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright …
LC: I’m saying numerous now (laughs).
AL: I’m happy with one. I’m not greedy.
LC: I feel very honoured. This has been a passion project of mine for a long time. I have battled with the subject matter, the form of it, how to tell the story, how to make it a dramatic beast rather than a biopic beast. It’s taken me many years of graft to get here, so it’s amazing to win the prize.
Are you hoping to transfer Red Velvet?
AL: Strangely all the work that’s being done in order to take the play to New York is very much on our side. No-one has come forward in Britain or in America and said “We loved it. We’d love to put it on in the West End.” No-one. So it feels like back to where we were when we were trying to get the play on in the first place.
LC: We are talking to people and we’d love to take it back to the Tricycle and then on to New York, but there’s nothing concrete yet.
Denise Gough (Most Promising Newcomer for Desire Under The Elms)
I’ve never done my work for prizes and I’ve been around 10 years, so this is lovely and it’s nice to put on a dress and have people tell me I’m wonderful, but doing the job was my prize. I have never had so much fun in my life playing a role. It was amazing.
What made it so amazing?
First of all Sean Holmes, who directed it. The guy’s a genius. But the part… on paper I’m not really her, but Sean let me be her and put my spin on her. There’s something much more feral about me than what’s on the page. What’s not to love; I kill a baby, I lose my mind, I get to have a few snogs.
How do you feel about the term Most Promising?
I’m not a newcomer, that’s not how to describe me, but the more I think about it I kind of am because this part changed everything. All the other roles I played led up to this one. This one changed what I believe I’m capable of. I feel like I’m only getting started. If this is the beginning it’s great because I’m in my 30s so I have enough behind me not to buy into any of the stuff that goes along with it. I just get to enjoy it now. When I was 23 this would have freaked me out.
Hattie Morahan (Best Actress for A Doll’s House)
It can be quite daunting taking on a play like [A Doll’s House] and you are very aware of the amount of times critics will have seen the play, so it’s a huge bonus to get a thumbs up.
You’re taking the show back to the Young Vic in April. Will you feel more pressure after your awards success?
I think I will have to not think about that. I think once we’re back again and onstage, I can’t even imagine that being in my head. It’s so all encompassing playing the part. If you think about it too much it is daunting, because you could have individuals coming who think “Go on then, give us your award winning performance.”
The role looks as if it takes a lot out of you each night. Did you want to return to it?
I Umm-ed and Aah-ed through the last run. Then in the final week of playing I became possessed with this absolute conviction that I couldn’t say goodbye to it. It was just exhilarating and I was discovering more and more each time. Five weeks wasn’t enough. I’m phenomenally excited to go back to it.
Tom Bird (Executive Producer at Shakespeare’s Gloe, which won the Special Award for its Globe To Globe season)
It was a hard sell [The season featured 37 Shakespeare productions in 37 languages]. It’s hard to persuade people in London at the moment to go to foreign language theatre. But having a few shows where the reviews were very good, people thought “We’ll give this a go” and they were very pleasantly surprised. We were delighted with that. The fact 83% of people who came to it were at the Globe for the first time was really thrilling, because that was Londoners who maybe don’t have English as their first language. That was totally thrilling because at the moment a lot of these people don’t come to the theatre, so it was great to be able to reach out to communities that might normally not go.
David Babani (Artistic Director of Menier Chocolate Factory, which won Best Musical for Merrily We Roll Along)
You consistently win acclaim for your musical productions. What’s your secret?
I think that the Chocolate Factory itself is the real key factor. I think because it’s a very flexible yet incredibly intimate space, it forces creative teams to work out how to put the work that the author intended first and foremost in front of an audience. I think the size of the building and the lack of budget works in our favour as long as we are picking shows correctly and working on really amazing material. The foundation that any great production needs is to have a great writer or composer or librettist. I think that is the real key and I think in the intimacy of what the Chocolate Factory has to offer for these productions there’s a really amazing chemistry that goes on between audience and performer that’s really special.
Are you hoping to transfer Merrily We Roll Along?
We would love to give Merrily further life. It’s completely sold out at the Chocolate Factory, and sold out incredibly quickly, so there’s definitely an appetite and winning Best Musical helps massively. We’re investigating and trying to sort out a theatre and seeing if we can get it into the West End sooner rather than later.
How do you feel about the success of first time professional director Maria Friedman?
I couldn’t be more proud. She has been so amazing. She has been so clear, so passionate, so warm, so supportive of her amazing cast and amazing creative team. I think Merrily is a very difficult piece for anybody to tackle, but for a first time director, for her to get the results that she got, out of her performers, her creative team and the production as a whole, is very special and she’s deserving of all the praise that’s been lavished on her and then some.