¶ In Conversation Gerald Freedman- Master of Play "The Antipodes"

What attracted you to direct at the Globe?

The whole dream and vision of the Globe project. 

I have a long association with the Globe, from its very early stages. As Sam Wanamaker was raising money, I was asked to sit on various panels. I was an associate artistic director of the New York Shakespeare Festival and I've always directed and loved Shakespeare.

When I came to the first season at the Globe, I saw two of the plays and they really made me want to cry. Just to see actors performing on the stage was thrilling and liberating. I'd directed theatre in Central Park, but the Globe was different - it wasn't outdoor theatre. 

At the Globe, there's this wonderful sense of bigness, a large space both to cover and to sound in, and yet there is also a great intimacy with the audience. In the park in New York there was always this wonderful energy and vigour that came from being outdoors - but there was never that sense of intimacy that the Globe uniquely provides.

Many people are still focusing on 'the reconstruction of the Globe', the tourist attraction, rather than the way the Globe conditions how we perform the plays - the vigour, the energy, and the vocal qualities that performing at the Globe demands. I don't think of the Globe as an old form of theatre - to me it's very new. It's different than any other theatre - and that difference excites me very, very much. 

Why "The Antipodes"?

Mark Rylance suggested The Antipodes. I was in America when he called and said, 'I'm sending you a play.' When I hung up the telephone, I was feeling great - then I thought . . . sending me a play? It can't be Shakespeare - you'd just open a book. I didn't dare call back and say, 'What do you mean, 'sending me a play'?' I waited for days and days until 'it' came, and 'it' was The Antipodes. I had never heard of it, I had never heard of the author; but Mark convinced me to give the play a chance. With each reading, the play has become clearer and clearer to me until I've come to love it. 

I thought, how could people have ignored this play for so long? It is so modern in its subject matter - in the way it treats relationships. We recognise all of the behaviour displayed in The Antipodes. On the first page there's a doctor who is asked to cure a patient who has delusions. The doctor doesn't treat him with medicine; instead, he treats his mind. The doctor is the first practising psychiatrist on the English stage. 

The play really is a screwball comedy. The stakes are so high, and the characters are driven to such extremes, that they become quite insane. It reminds me of a Marx Brothers comedy, and I'm keeping that in the back of my mind as I'm forging ahead with the production. 

What are the challenges of directing "The Antipodes"?

It's a challenge to recreate what I think is the spirit of the play - the energy of it. One tends to approach a period text with a little reverence. The challenge is to use a fresh approach. The play was originally conceived to entertain an audience, to reflect a behaviour that people could recognise. 

Although the play was written in the 1640s, it is very, very sharp and contemporary. Sometimes when performing the lesser known plays of this period, actors don't have faith in the text, and they begin to exaggerate. That is not my desire for this production. I do not think that 'phoney' behaviour is funny. I want the actors to understand the antic, mischievous spirit of this play - but I also want their acting to reflect truthful human behaviour.

Is there anything that you've learned from watching plays from previous seasons at the Globe that you will try to work with or experiment with yourself?

What I've seen in the best of the acting at the Globe is that acting can be 'real'. Actors can bring the audience right down into the palms of their hands. Yet, the acting requires a rigour and attack that artists accustomed to proscenium stages don't always understand. Another thing that I've observed is that it is of no use to yell on the Globe's stage; yelling doesn't make the words any clearer, nor does it fill the space. The key is good vocal projection. 

The pillars on the Globe's stage can cause a sight line problem, but they also create physical, imaginative solutions to scenes. You can't stick somebody behind a pillar for a long time and expect everyone in the theatre to be happy. So, how do you move around them? Those are the kinds of challenges I've met before. I look forward to that. I am also looking forward to working on a platform stage, and the fact that we don't have scenery - just suggestive scenery. It's all props. I love that.