On a mission to distill theatre and discover clearer storytelling, Ollie and Ferdy of Filter Theatre ask a million questions, so Naima Khan shoots them a few too.
Filter Theatre's latest production sees them set up residence at Lyric Hammersmith with an inspiring new adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters. Ferdy Roberts and Oliver Dimsdale take a break from rehearsals to offer an insight to the abstract ways of Filter Theatre.
Ollie and Ferdy Roberts aren’t dissimilar; they’re like the Morph and Chas of Theatreland. Sometimes cryptic, funny, terribly creative and ultimately better together: along with composer Tim Phillips, they are the founding members of Filter Theatre.
Drawn to Chekov's Three Sisters for its timeless relevance, they've aimed to produce something that highlights the text in an innovative, collaborative way. As Ollie explains, “we push in a direction that tells the story in a clearer way: that's the hallmark of a Filter show...What's radical about it will be the simplicity and economy of the story-telling and the setting. It resonates today: the themes are still strong without setting it in a youth club.”
“People still have the same dreams, the same thoughts, the same wants, the same desires, the same disappointments,” Ollie continues. “We talk about period. But Chekhov was writing about the period that he was in. He wasn't setting it in a period. For him there's no such thing as period. We're not bringing it bang up to date: we're not setting it in 2010.”
Left: Ferdy Right: Ollie's back
The last off-stage rehearsals were last week but there's no plan to stop: “We never really finish rehearsing. You go out on the pitch and train, hopefully you keep doing that, and you then have a means by which to work with each other to build and really develop a team along the way”.
Their 'team' is perhaps one of the most collaborative on the London theatre scene. The hugely talented cast includes Romola Garai (Atonement, BBC's Emma), Paul Brennen (BBC’s The Tudors) and Ferdy himself, playing Andrey, brother to the three sisters. Filter's approach to the production is exemplified in the rehearsal room: “Essentially what we're trying to develop in the rehearsal room,” explains Ferdy, “is a shared responsibility for the play. Normally you work with a director whose 'vision' you're trying to realise. What we're trying to do in this collaboration with Sean Holmes is make the director another skill in the room so that he responds to what we give him, as opposed to just us being director's puppets. You develop a team of players who support each other and make mistakes without being ridiculed...we really love sporting analogies!”
Why are Filter and Lyric Hammersmith so good together? “What's great about this beautiful, beautiful theatre? 550 seats! It's big! And they're taking quite strong, bold risks by programming. The Lyric haven't tried to influence how we as a company approach it. With other theatres you tend to feel that they want you to produce a piece of work that's in line with their brand, but with the Lyric they're holding their nerve with it and that's the most exciting kind of theatre. The Lyric invites companies to flex their muscles.”
As you might be able to tell, both Ollie and Ferdy have trained as actors: “We're just as much actors as collaborators,” says Ollie. “Sometimes,” Ferdy continues, “you feel a sense of the hierarchies in the room. As an actor I often feel that I'm not allowed to play and develop my own ideas and thoughts about the character and the play.”
Ollie agrees: “A lot of rehearsal rooms that I have experienced are essentially ones of benevolent dictatorship. ..we're really intrigued by pushing the nature of collaboration. In challenging ourselves and constructively arguing, we're going towards the right questions. You might find answers, you might not, but hopefully you'll get something really zinging. When the actors have a shared responsibility for the text there's a desire to make the composition of the whole thing work as well as the performances.”
“Great playwrights don't write for directors, they write for actors,” Ferdy declares. “It's been a strange process for me playing Andrey. I feel as though I haven't done any work. I couldn't see the difference between character and actor, they just were these people and it just so happened that they were called Andrey not Ferdy. As soon as it becomes technical from an actor's point of view I switch off.”
“There's a fascinating story about Harold Pinter,” Ferdy continues. “He directed The Birthday Party here (The Lyric Hammersmith) and he got panned. Then he directed at Scarborough, with Alan Ayckbourn playing Stanley. Pinter was only 27 and Ayckbourn asked Pinter during rehearsals, 'Before my first entrance, what am I doing upstairs? What's in Stanley's head?' and Pinter just turned around to him and said 'Mind your own fucking business.' I just love that story."
Three Sisters runs at the Lyric Hammersmith from 15th January to 20th February 2010.
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