Interview with Michael Fry
Michael Fry is the Deputy Director of East 15, University of Essex. He has worked as director and writer across the country including Liverpool Everyman, Nottingham Playhouse, the Young Vic and the Lyric Hammersmith. His adaptations of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Emma and The Great Gatsby have been performed throughout England and America.
Prior to East 15, he was Senior Lecturer in theatre at Coventry University and was Co-Artistic Director of NOT The National Theatre, for whom he directed Simon Gray’s Japes and April de Angelis’ Wild East.
Michael Fry’s chapter on Complicite in British Theatre Companies (1980 – 1994) focuses on the first fifteen years of the company.
Connections to the GCSE, AS and A level specifications
- Social, cultural, political and historical context
- Influence
- Significant moments in the development of theory and practice
- The relationship between actor and audience in theory and practice
PC: Théâtre de Complicité started as a group of four with Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, Marcello Magni and Fiona Gordon. Then it became Complicite led by Simon McBurney. How do you think Complicite have changed and developed over their thirty year history?
MF: The continuity which was accepted even when they began was that it was always Simon McBurney driving it and it is still him driving it. The work that Complicite have done over the last five years is mostly unrecognisable from the work that they started doing initially: both intellectually different and an entirely different scale. This is because Simon has changed and developed as an artist himself. When they started they were like any other small scale touring company at the time: playing tiny spaces for no money. Now they are a sought after act that tours worldwide. Different from mainstream but also entirely mainstream. Early on it was purely a kind of street theatre and spontaneous: “Lets make whatever is in our minds work today”. The shows were devised over a period of time but they developed and changed very much in response to the audiences that they would play. Today I’m not sure that they do change the show in response to the audience because, like it or not, their shows are more mainstream.
PC: Are there any specific examples of that street theatre mentality, the live interaction between audience and performer, shaping particular pieces of work?
MF: Yes the British Council had paid for them to take A Minute Too Late to Chile in 1984. But there was a big language barrier: the kind of places that they went to in Chile, the audiences spoke no English and had little education. They really had to find a way of transcending language: focussing on what excites people. How can you draw people’s attention theatrically? What draws them in? How hard do you work? What is your energy level? What is your physicality? What is your connection with a whole group? You may decide to focus the whole group by focusing on one individual and making the whole group watch. They were put in a position where they had to spontaneously work out what drew audiences to them; what made them hold an audiences attention; what made them stop what they were doing and focus on this group of rather idiosyncratic people. That trip impacted on how they developed their performance level, their energy level and informed performances over the years that followed.
PC: That is fascinating in relation to their current context and their approach to connecting with audiences. With the live streamed version of The Encounter they connected with people on their screens at home.
MF: Did it work for you?
PC: Yes I enjoyed it on one level: the artistry of it and the storytelling but there was a distance, I didn’t completely engage with that liveness in the same way that an audience member in the same room would have. You have to be there, in that moment to fully appreciate the power of a performance like that.
MF: Simon, and indeed all the original company, have extraordinary stage presence, which I think is something that you can’t teach. A performer either has stage presence or they haven’t. Simon in particular has extraordinary stage presence. It may have started in stand up and comedy at Cambridge, where you learn how to control, as well as engage an audience. It was definitely developed when he went to study with Jacques Lecoq in Paris at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq.
Summary
- Early on it was purely a kind of street theatre and spontaneous.
- On an early tour to Chile they really had to find a way of transcending language: focussing on what excites people.
- Simon, and indeed all the original company, have extraordinary stage presence, which I think is something that you can’t teach.
