TheCherry

OrChardAn interview with Director

João Garcia Miguel

aberysTwyTh arTs CenTre PrOduCTiOns

29 OctOber/Hydref, 7.30pm01792 60 20 60 | www.taliesinartscentre.co.uk

taliesin Arts centre, SwanseaCanolfan y Celfyddydauaberystwyth arts Centre27 & 28 OctOber/Hydref, 7.30pm01970 62 32 32 | www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre

An interview with João Garcia MiguelInterviewed by Gill Ogden, Aberystwyth Arts centre

Joao has directed numerous plays in his home country of Portugal as well as touring across Europe. With a background in the fine arts as well as performance, he brings a strong visual aspect to his productions, often featuring movement and live music. His specialism has been the radical rewriting and interpretation of classic texts including Sophocles, Shakespeare, Chekov, Virginia Woolf and Jean Genet. He is Artistic Director of Teatro Cine de Torres Vedras and of Festival X (Portugal).

What made you decide to do The Cherry Orchard?It’s a classic text with a beautiful story and the plot, as I read it, gave me a chance to talk about the theme of change. Change is a consequence of the natural development of things and of the creative spirit that supports life in itself. So when the new world comes, it should include some of the old world as well in order not to destroy or break the balance of things.

What does it have to say to us today?I think it talks about the need of a true and conscious attitude towards the past. The speed of life nowadays increases the distance from tradition and leads us to an empty world. We need to evolve in both directions: the new world and the old world, the future and the past, and to work on solutions that are inclusive and creative

How do you help actors to develop their characters?I try to work with their sense of the developing self awareness, to increase the ability to understand better their own body and their own skills. As far as possible we constantly work for the development of the creative spirit that inhabits the body.

You are using some live music in the performance – what helps you decide what sort of music you would like?The music we are developing in this play is a natural consequence of the body language and the sound of speech. The music is a way of exploring and works to help search for the roots of the sound of words. We also develop the music as a source of dramatic ambience in a deep relationship with the emotional plot of the scenes.

Why do you like using film and video with theatre?My work is much about theatre and its inner qualities such as communication and the developing of perception. Video and film contain in themselves possibilities of different viewpoints of the subject and bring usually perspectives that engage the audience with the action. The world today is full of video and film images and they make up part of this new world we are entering. So the use of them can be very performative and they help to evolve theatre as a form of art.

If you could have spent as much money as you liked on the set and costume, what would it have looked like?I love the idea of a theatre as a form of art connected with people, a form of art which produces close encounters between the actors and the audience. So if I had a large budget, I would use it for a site-specific performance, probably looking for a beautiful old farm house with a cherry orchard The actors and the audience would be mixed like a real living dream.

Do you think live performance will continue to have a role in today’s digital age?I think so and probably more than ever live performance has great importance in the preservation and developing of the new world. There are some ways in which the relation to the body and to the social behaviour of mankind can be focussed and developed by theatre and performance. I think theatre as a form of art is linked with the quest for a sense of togetherness; the interchange and sharing of thoughts or emotions; the intimate communication of the simplest act of existence and sharing life. The digital age is just one more step in that quest of mankind, in the search for human nature to evolve. It brings us the methods and opportunities never available before.

What production or play would you like to do next?I would like to do next Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht and Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Both these classics both from different ages reflect distinct perspectives of the world. One, Mother Courage, talks about the war and the extremes behaviour human beings develop to survive: a mixture of imagination and suppression of emotion. The other play is based on a text about a prince who is imprisoned all his life by his father the king in order to not fulfill the fate written in the stars. When he finally gains freedom he confuses reality and dreams in a way that can be seen as the essence of the spirit of art. He use his power in order to be a better and wiser king, to reject fate, and to make people happy.

The cherry Orchard opens at Aberystwyth Arts centre on 27 & 28 October and then tours to taliesin Arts centre, Swansea on 29 October.