20 Questions With... William GaskillDate: 18 July 2005
Veteran stage director William Gaskill - who returns after a ten-year absence to direct Carver, an adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories at the Arcola Theatre - talks about his Royal Court past, the fringe effect & ensemble benefits.
William Gaskill - former artistic director of the Royal Court and a founder director of the National Theatre and, with Max Stafford-Clark, Joint Stock Theatre Company - celebrated his 75th birthday last month. But far from slowing down, the theatrical veteran has returned to the fore to premiere a new stage adaptation based on the stories of the late American writer Raymond Carver.
Gaskill’s first professional production was in 1954, when he directed The First Mrs Fraser at the New Pavilion Theatre in Redcar. His first London production, of Margaret Gibbs’ The Hawthorn Tree, came in 1955 at the Q Theatre in Kew Bridge.
During his time as artistic director of the Royal Court, from 1965 to 1972, he oversaw premieres of plays by writers including David Hare, John Arden, Edward Bond and Arnold Wesker, as well as introducing many of Bertolt Brecht’s works to the British theatregoing audience. His own Royal Court productions included A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Macbeth, Three Sisters, Early Morning and Man Is Man.
In 1963, Gaskill joined Laurence Olivier at the nascent National Theatre at the Old Vic, where he directed George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer, which he followed with Sophocles’ Philoctetes the next year and Brecht’s Mother Courage in 1965. And, for the Royal Shakespeare Company, his productions Cymbeline and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
Gaskill’s work has taken him around the world, directing productions in various cities from Hamburg to Los Angeles. In recent years, he has worked extensively with drama schools including New York’s Julliard and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Carver was initially developed at RADA. It dramatises five of Raymond Carver’s short stories: What’s in Alaska?, Fat, Cathedral, Intimacy and Put Yourself in My Shoes. This first professional production of the piece has a limited season at north London’s Arcola Theatre.
Date & place of birth
I was born in Yorkshire on 24 June 1930.
Lives now in…
I’ve lived in London for a long time.
What made you want to become a director?
I realised I didn’t have any particular talent as a writer or an actor, but I wanted to work in the theatre.
First big break
The Royal Court, unquestionably. I went there in 1957. It was a year after Look Back in Anger. I went as George Devine’s assistant, but did productions straight away. It was a wonderful, exciting time. I was there for 14 years, I suppose. I started by doing a Sunday night play, A Resounding Tinkle, by NF Simpson, almost straight away. It was a new play and altered my whole way of looking at theatre.
Career achievements to date
I don’t know. I was very excited to be in on the beginning of the National Theatre at the Old Vic, and of Joint Stock. We did some great plays - Caryl Churchill, David Hare and others. And I’m proud to have worked on Edward Bond’s plays.
Favourite actors/actresses
Edith Evans was a favourite – I worked with her once at the RSC. My best times have been in groups, though, working with ensembles.
What other directors do you most admire?
I admire Peter Brook in his way. I was very influenced by Joan Littlewood, she was a wonderful lady; we were worlds apart but I admired her enormously. Of former colleagues, some of John Dexter’s and some of Lindsay Anderson’s work was very fine.
Favourite playwrights
There are lots of dead ones I love, like Chekhov, of course, and Marivaux. It’s silly to talk about Shakespeare, but obviously he’s on the list. Of modern playwrights, I’ve gone away from political theatre, I think. It’s old age. When I see the work of Max Stafford-Clark or David Hare, I feel distant from it. I like things that happen in small spaces and don’t lay things on the line all the time.
What would you advise the government - or the industry - to secure the future of British theatre?
One of the best things that has happened recently is that Nicholas Hytner has cheap seats at the National. If theatre is to receive subsidy, that’s where it should be going - not in more and more elaborate productions or any of those things. Most of the money spent at Covent Garden is just wasted. If you get audiences in, they should not expect to pay through the nose. I wouldn’t pay £35 to go and see a play.
What do you think has been the most significant change in British theatre since the start of your career?
In an odd way, the advent of the fringe was very significant. When we started at the Royal Court with the English Stage Company, we thought we were mainstream. It may be hard to believe that, but we didn’t think of ourselves as fringe. We did plays with 25 actors - epic pieces – on a large stage. The moment that fringe theatre started and we followed suit and started the Theatre Upstairs, something happened, it meant you have two kinds of theatre: small-scale experimental work and musicals. I think that’s not good.
If you hadn't become involved in theatre, what you would have done professionally?
I learnt a lot about theatre at University and got hooked early. I can’t think what else I might have done!
What's the first thing you saw on stage that had a big impact on you? And the last?
During the war, everything toured – so I saw a lot growing up. Gielgud’s last Hamlet stands out. But the first things I saw were amateur productions of plays, which I thought were wonderful and exciting. And I thought the ballet was wonderful in those days. I knew about plays and things from an early age, because my father was a teacher. Of things more recently, I am a great admirer of Merce Cunningham – but I’ve been a supporter of his for years. I first saw him when he came to London in 1974, and have been following him ever since.
Favourite books
Favourites? Nothing! I can’t answer that!
Carver is the first professional production you've directed in ten years. Why have you stayed away so long?
I got fed up with my own work. I found I was doing things that I wasn’t really enthusiastic about. So I stopped doing any theatre work for a year, and then I did an art foundation course. But I found it quite difficult to work as a painter by myself. I’d spent so much of my life working with groups and other people. I had to go back to working with others. So I went back to teach and work at RADA, where I’d worked before, and sometimes working in American universities, and I’d been happy doing that. Philip Arditti, who is producing this, was in the production of Carver I did at RADA. I came to see a show here at the Arcola of Tartuffe last year – and I liked it very much. First of all I like the space. There is no money – so it’s all about the art. The space smells good, it’s enjoyable to be in it.
Presumably you're a fan of Raymond Carver. Which is your favourite of his short stories?
I think Cathedral is my favourite. He developed as a writer, and about the time of Cathedral, his work deepened – it became more profound and wide-reaching and complex and seemed to have a lot of the quality of Chekhov, whom of course he admired enormously. It’s that part of looking at ordinary people’s lives, who are sad and disillusioned and all that, but seeing that there are possibilities. Of course some of the stories are not really theatre stageable – they’re best for films, like Robert Altman did with Short Cuts. That was a very free adaptation of Carver, but some stories wouldn’t lend themselves to the theatre at all. I’m always looking for projects to work on at RADA with students that would suit a largish group of actors. That’s quite difficult to find – there are lots of plays with four or five characters.
Why do you think Carver's stories lend themselves to dramatisation?
I keep coming back to Chekhov, but they do have that quality of capturing the way people talk and behave in an apparently quite trivial and conventional way, but underneath there is a lot more going on. No other writer says ‘just look at these people’ and makes a drama out of it. Chekhov was also a short story writer, of course. But Carver never wrote a play – he only wrote short stories and poems.
Carver comes out of your work with RADA students. How did you devise the piece?
It was not at all about improvisation. I never use that, not now anyway – I’m incredibly strict about the script. I haven’t written a word – it’s all Raymond Carver’s own words. I’ve edited and cut, but I’ve not changed anything. The stories I chose are ones with a lot of dialogue in them – that’s why I chose them. We did this about three years ago.
What's your favourite line from Carver?
There isn’t really one line – but he used the most wonderful punctuation! It was immaculate!
Can acting/directing be taught?
I don’t think directing can be taught, and I’m not sure that acting can be taught, either. I think you can give out the tools to work with. I only ever work on projects. I suppose that what I do is I teach actors how to respond to a writer, and teach them to understand that a writer chooses words in a very particular way.
How important do you think it is to pass your skills on to future generations?
I don’t think it’s important at all to pass on my skills to future generations!
- William Gaskill was speaking to Mark Shenton
Carver continues until 6 August 2005 at north London’s Arcola Theatre, where it opened on 8 July (previews from 6 July).
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