Tristan Sturrock on Don John
March 15, 2009
“This is really the director Emma (Rice)’s childhood,” Tristan Sturrock explains. “It’s to do with the whole Winter of Discontent. It goes back to a story in which she had a big loss with a mate in 1978 and it had a massive impact on her. She just had a hunch – an inkling – about that time. After talking, she and the designer, Vicki (Mortimer), felt that it was a good setting point, with the disco and rock, that would sit well with the piece. There wasn’t anything political about the choice – it’s just that it seemed right for the world that she wanted to create.”
Sturrock is playing the rampaging protagonist in Kneehigh Theatre’s Don John, produced in association with the RSC and Bristol Old Vic, during the latter part of its national tour, which reaches the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 17 March. He is telling me why Rice, the Cornwall-based company’s artistic director, chose to place her remodelling of Don Giovanni in the England of 1978. The tale, he feels, has an almost proverbial relevance not only to its new historical surroundings, but also contemporary problems. “I think that, almost bizarrely, it’s significant of what’s happening now – the ultimate impact of selfishness. The character of Don John – this devourer, this complete animal – smacks of selfishness and a lack of care, and I think there’s resonance in that in terms of what was going on at that time also.” He goes on to observe that the uneasy bleakness of the setting provides a vivid backdrop: “There’s something quite dark, as well, about that time, with the power cuts and strikes. There was a real sadness, and I think that those are the sorts of things that Emma was trying to take note of – those colours of the time which sit with the story well.”
I raise the issue of whether the periodisation will affect how the character of Don John is perceived, both by audiences and other characters, since a twentieth century hedonistic womaniser might be seen more as a “bad lad” than a despicable reprobate. However, Sturrock says that the setting and precise way in which the events in Don Giovanni have been paralleled guide the production past this pitfall. “There have been several adaptations of the story that emphasise the ‘bad lad’ idea, and I suppose that, once you’re in a contemporary setting, it tends to go down that road,” he admits, but continues: “The setting, with all the feelings of that time, combined with the way that we’ve chosen to play out the events, because of themes like rape and the abuse of this chorus of women, is incredibly dark. You’d struggle to find a light next to it now.”
Despite this, however, Sturrock admits that Don John is nonetheless an enjoyable character to play in some respects. “It’s always a kiss of death playing a character that could be irresistible but just acts with complete abandon and that air, and absolute celebration, of freedom without thought of the cost to anyone else,” he says. “There is something irresistible about that and when you play it it’s so seductive, but then, nonetheless, he’s also just f****** awful! It’s a really double-edged thing. He has to have some charm – he cannot just be an out and out s***, because that wouldn’t make sense.”
Rice has stressed the prominence of the musical subcultures of the late ‘70s, as well as specks of Mozart, in Don John. Sturrock regards the music, composed by Stu Barker and performed by a four-piece band with visual support from South West dance company CScape, as the show’s skeleton. “It’s underscored basically all the way through, and the score that Stu has written is key to the whole piece,” he notes. “We have scenes that are trying to go against what the music is doing, which adds a huge dimension or layer – another character. Because it’s underscored, pieces or songs can just erupt in a moment. We always try to avoid that difficulty of songs just happening and introduce them more organically. The music has a massive, eclectic blend going on, with disco, punk and all the genres of the time but, because it’s all unified by the score, it doesn’t feel jumpy. It’s a massively important part of the show – it really drives things.”
-Tristan Sturrock was talking to Simon Walker
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