I had long admired the work of French Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay, and so when I was asked if I'd like to direct something at the Royal National Theatre studio, I found this play and did it.
In a way, looking back at it, I can understand why I was drawn to it for my first stab at directing in the professional theatre: just like the films I have directed it's about people trying to communicate and finding a way to get along. That's all I am really interested in, really, when it comes to directing. I just want to see people in a certain situation, watch them struggle, and the come to some form of resolution.
When you work at the RNT studio you have access to the amazing actors in the main building, but I was also allowed to being in a few from outside too, so I was really spoiled. I gave the play a Scottish setting, as I think the sensibility and the issues in Tremblay's work really resonates with the Scots. So I had some great Scottish actors like Ralph Riach (who had been in the year above me at drama school, had played my boss in Taggart and would also play Tiresias in the Bacchae with me fifteen years later!), Myra McFadyen, who had been in Sleeping Beauty with me at the Tron in Glasgow, Jo Cameron Brown, Sally Dexter, Mandana Jones, Mark Lockyer, Barbara Horne and Hilary Lyon.
This is the only play I have ever directed thus far.
