But we do have a play by a woman coming up.Īll the work we do around casting is about putting together the most exciting, diverse group of people. It’s not necessarily that those actors have not been sent plays by women it just so happens that they’ve responded to plays written by men. It’s really tricky: what gives us the freedom to offer cheaper or free tickets is casting. As a commercial company, do you feel absolved from the need to consider representation? The Jamie Lloyd Company has yet to stage any plays by women. She’s certainly not going to be doing a middle-of-the-road production. She’s an incredibly powerful artist, and really up for challenging expectations. Next year you’ll be staging Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, starring Jessica Chastain. I want to make sure I do all of the plays. I guess I’ve been terrified of being boring – and maybe trying too hard to combat that, throwing everything at it. Also, stripping things back and intervening less as a director was a really significant lesson for me. That yearning was a surprising and amazing thing to discover. They’re frequently horrible to each other because, actually, they want to connect.

What did you learn from spending so long immersed in Pinter’s work?Īwful loneliness unites all of the characters. Actually, they’re incredibly close: Zawe calls them “the thrupple”, because they do hang out all the time.Ĭharlie Cox, Zawe Ashton and Tom Hiddleston in Betrayal, directed by Jamie Lloyd. Betrayal was beyond anything I’d imagined – but can you imagine doing that play if you hated each other, or the men were trying to out-alpha each other. It’s like putting together the ultimate rock band. How do you know when you’ve found the right actors? Maybe it’s Downton Abbey syndrome: Americans are so intrigued by English repression.Ĭhemistry is so important for that play. Charlie ’s character says “How are you?” and Zawe says “Oh, not too bad” – and for some reason it gets a big laugh. Does Pinter’s work land differently in the US?Īudiences are ready to laugh more. Your production of Betrayal is now on Broadway. It’s just another example of someone trying to keep theatre as the reserve of the elite. It makes me really upset and angry that anyone would want to diminish that. My experience of younger audiences is they’re incredibly disciplined, engaged and passionate. Your production of Doctor Faustus starring Kit Harrington attracted criticism of the behaviour of young audiences.Īll this belittling you read – normally written by middle-aged white men – it’s just nonsense. We’re being very careful about targeting particular community groups and state secondary schools: I worry sometimes that accessibility is a box-ticking exercise, whereas it’s got to be a very considered approach. You’re offering 15,000 free tickets to first-time theatregoers…īeing the son of a truck driver and a cleaner, I didn’t go to the theatre when I was a kid.

Cyrano de bergerac martin crimp