Le Figaro
Interview and review. Unattributed, translated by Bridget Collin, 3 April 2004

Donnellan, The Man who Loves Actors

Declan Donnellan's real passion is for actors. You might say that, for a director, that's par for the course. But it's by no means guaranteed these days, where the job, a relatively recent development, is often practised by people more anxious about their egos than wonder-working. For Donnellan, it's understood: the theatre is primarily for actors. "Actors," he says, "are the most fundamental element in the theatrical process."

Were you to ask him to talk about Shakespeare, that worshipped author, venerated and unceasingly studied and performed, and about the Othello that he is producing in Paris at the moment, he would stop you immediately, before even talking about the play, to sing the praises of the actor who plays the Moor of Venice: Nonso Anozie, British, of Nigerian origin. "He just is Othello!" Right. That is to say? "It's impossible to describe. I hate adjectives like I hate 'ideas'. Let's just say it's like this: he's inspired me, and there's nothing more precious for a director than to be inspired by the people he works with."

Evidently Declan Donnellan is also inspired by his texts: the greatest, most sumptuous texts if possible, that is to say those capable of producing a kind of intoxication, those which invite the actors and the public to what he calls a "communion". A term which is hardly surprising coming from this man who, when talking of the drama, willingly uses religious metaphors, defining the theatre as "a sacrament" which "brings him peace". A strange and paradoxical description, it might be said, when you learn how strongly he regards his job as a risky one "since a production is never definitive, it's always a 'work in progress'. Theatre is a living art, right? So, it changes every day."

This Englishman, of Irish origin, gave up a career as a lawyer. It was indisputably a good decision. Especially if you believe, for example, the great Peter Brook — little suspected of laziness or sycophancy — who commented, in 1991, about his production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, that: "Of all the versions of this play that I have seen, Declan Donnellan's is by far the best. A celebration for the spirit!"

Ah, Shakespeare! Donnellan will have devoted his career to him. Nearly one season in two, since his first Othello in 1982, Donnellan, co-founder in 2002 of the Academy of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, has produced one play (and sometimes operas, notably Falstaff with Claudio Abbado in 2001) by the Elizabethan: Macbeth, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest and that Twelfth Night that we saw recently with a company of extraordinary Russian actors. Shakespeare, clearly, is the man. But also plays by other word-magicians, the great lyrical voices: Sophocles, Calderon, and also Michel de Ghelderode or Tony Kushner. And the French playwrights: a Cid which had huge success and an Andromaque of which this modest man is particularly proud: "Imagine, an English premiere, after three hundred and fifty years!" Musset, as well, with "On ne badine pas avec l'amour" which he translated himself.

Donnellan has things to say about the classical repertoire. But exegesis is not his first concern. "Shakespeare," he considers, "was first of all an actor who wrote plays. Like Moliere." Donnellan has found happiness in Russia, a land which returns the love he feels for it; he is an Associate Director of the Russian Theatre Confederation. His productions of Pushkin's Boris Goudanov and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet at the Bolshoi were hailed with that generous fervour so characteristic of the Slav. "Well, yes, I suppose I'm liked in Russia." The Russian soul, twinned with the Irish soul? Not exactly; in any case, surely not for sentimental reasons, that psychological disposition that Donnellan hates so much. "But with the Russians there is," he says, "this inclination for the group. That can be dangerous sometimes but in the theatre it's so precious. The actors, the company, the Russians understand that straight away, which isn't always the case with the English and the French."

Still this idea of a group. "The job of a director is to respect individuals and help the actors to work together." A cheering point of view that Declan Donnellan has developed into a book, The Actor and the Target... which deals with the breath, the target, patience, modesty and attention. Like an allusion to Herrigel's famous little book, Zen and the Art of Archery which, for simple reasons of efficiency, exalts those virtues which seem to have influenced this great director.

Invitation to Ecstasy

What theatrical joy! After seeing Declan Donnellan's production of Othello, you are exhausted, ravished, you might even have wished that the enchantment would last longer, that time stood still, as Desdemona sighs, "Kill me tomorrow/ Let me live tonight". The exceptional splendour of this spectacle has several causes. The author, first of all, Shakespeare, to whom this stubborn director returns tirelessly, and this work which is perhaps, according to the director, "the greatest tragedy every written".

And then there is the traverse staging (the stage in the middle, surrounded by audience), giving the production an air of ceremony — which is not a synonym for boredom, but an invitation to ecstasy and communal jubilation. And finally, the essential: the actors.

They are Donnellan's first concern, before the set (non-existent, in this case) or the costumes. They are extraordinary: Nonso Anozie, a massive and fragile Othello, Caroline Martin, an impressive Desdemona, or Jonny Philips, who portrays a classic Iago. I should list them all. But what does it matter, as Donnellan, as has always been his taste, in spite of his attention to each, prefers what we call a company.

How well that functions, and with what efficacity! What mastery in this extreme, immoderate, dangerous play. Donnellan has got the hang of a problematic balance: to make the most accomplished artifice seem natural, to express the most extreme violence and grief, affectations and the baldest prose. On stage they cry, they groan, they curse, they weep tears that "soften the stones", without ever resorting to the hysteria or epileptic apings which are the temptations of such a text. Even the exemplary, long and painful denouement is managed magnificently here, after a wisely and musically orchestrated crescendo.

One regret, perhaps. The surtitles are hesitant and often approximate. Take one precaution: to read, if not to learn, the text before you hear it, so that the story won't be, as the great William says, "left unknown like mud".