Michael Boyd: 'I was either going to become a really annoying actor, or a director'

During his time running the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Boyd produced a raft of superb projects including The Complete Works festival, The Histories Cycle and Matilda the Musical. He is credited with bringing the company out of financial difficulties and since stepping down in 2012, he has directed a string of plays at the Ustinov Studio in Bath, has staged Tamburlaine in New York and has directed his first opera. He was knighted in 2012 and his production of Right Now (A Présent) is about to open in London.

How did you come across your latest project – the Québécois play Right Now (A Présent)?

I didn’t know the writer Catherine-Anne Toupin before this. It was Chris Campbell the literary manager at the Royal Court, who has translated the work, who found her on a trip to Quebec. She hasn’t had anything done over here before. I think she’s a real, serious voice. A genuine, fresh take on theatre.

What is the play about?

Right Now is a comedy, it’s quite a dark, erotic comedy though, about post-natal depression or grief. It’s refreshing. I think it’s a delightfully challenging play. I hope that you’d go through the evening thinking that you have got it and then you realise you haven’t. It’s a genuine piece of Francophone surrealism. You’re presented with conflicting visions of reality.

You’ve done quite a few pieces recently at the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal Bath – is the theatre beginning to feel like home for you?

Laurence Boswell runs the Ustinov, and we go back a very long way. There’s a trust between us, he has been very nice and said yes to the strange things [I want to do]. I am certainly happy with the prospect of doing the odd thing there. Laurence has genuinely brought the Ustinov to life and he’s having success on a lot of levels, he’s hugely increased the audience there, he’s also grown an entirely new audience especially for new international work.

Right Now has a great cast, some of whom you have worked with before…

Two of them are part of my Ustinov repertory company – not an official one, just with people I like. Up to now, Lindsey Campbell has been playing challenging but probably supportive roles, but this is her play. She has really risen to that challenge beautifully. And Maureen Beattie was in the very first professional production I ever did, which was at the Traverse. And it was the Traverse which produced this show and we’re headed there in April.

So this is a homecoming for you?

The Traverse was a very important theatre for me when I was a schoolboy and when I was at university at Edinburgh. It was the beacon in Edinburgh of interesting and progressive work. When I was at university the one in Glasgow was the Citizens Theatre and the one in Edinburgh was the Traverse. So it’s got a very important place in my heart.

Were they theatres that influenced your decision to become a director?

I think the Traverse and the Citizens were influential but of course in Edinburgh you’ve got the festival as well. It was just as much the Latin American Agitprop, the anti-Pinochet theatre companies and things like that, they were inspirational too.

Were you hoping to be an actor first off?

I quickly realised at university that I was either going to become a really annoying actor, or a director. I so admire actors for the way they can be so patient and open hearted. A director needs a different kind of open heartedness to be good. And I think I’ve learnt a lot of that from actors. But I couldn’t do it. My son’s an actor and I’m amazed at his stoicism at waiting for job offers.

How do you look back on your time running the RSC?

It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, just so enjoyable , really, really scary and challenging. It was about taking on a large organisation in trouble and trying to give it a sense of what it was about; to make it a happy place to work and build two theatres at the same time. I think my proudest moment was the box office staff complaining to me that I hadn’t given them a curtain call at the end of the Histories. And I thought brilliant, if they feel that it belongs to them that much then we’re getting somewhere.

Do you miss the challenge of it?

No, I don’t. I really, really enjoyed it. But with the combination of having run the Tron for ten years and then running the RSC for ten years, I kind of feel I’ve done my bit. It’s nice having lunch breaks.

There weren’t many of those at the RSC then?

No, there really, really, really weren’t. At its most absurd during a coffee break I grabbed five minutes meditation in the toilets and when I came out there was a queue of people waiting to talk to me.

Do you actually meditate?

I do meditate, I am really bad at doing it regularly, and when I do, I feel much better for it.

You stepped back very slightly for a year, but are you now doing more work?

Yes, I took a year out last year because of an illness in the family. I actually became a carer for a year but I am turning less work down now and I’ve found a new thing that I’m really enjoying in opera. I’ve only done one so far it was Orfeo with the Royal Opera at the Roundhouse and I really had a great time with that. I’m doing two more in the next two years. And apart from that I am mostly doing new work. I’m working on a new project with Tony Kushner later on this year and I’m working at the National on a musical, based on a Dave Eggers’ The Circle.

That sounds exciting…

It’s early days, Matilda took seven years to develop so God knows when and if The Circle will reach a stage, but it is good fun. It’s good and it’s on the button and it tells the story in a very Dave Eggers way which is incredibly clearly, boldly and accessibly.

Right Now (A Présent) runs at the Ustinov Studio until 19 March, the Bush Theatre from 23 March – 16 April and the Traverse Theatre from 19 April – 7 May.