Interviewed by Steve Rowland

Nikita Milivojevic and Amalia Bennett, director and choreographer of Henry IV part I, part of the Globe to Globe Festival.

Nikita Milivojevic was born in 1961 in Indija (in the province of Vojvodina) and is
currently regarded as one of Serbia’s leading theatre directors. In the 1990s his
committed productions had a lasting effect on his country’s theatre and his
courageous and unusual interpretations of classics enabled him to move forward
into the new millennium.

Milivojevic, who ran the renowned international theatre festival BITEF in Belgrade
from 2005 to 2009, has received all his country’s most significant theatre prizes. He
has also directed in Sweden, Slovenia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and the USA.
Productions such as “Ivanov” and “Crime and Punishment” (Amore Theater) were
great successes; for his production of “Three Sisters” also in Athens (Katia
Dandoulaki Theater) he won the Director of the Year Prize in Greece for the season
2004/5. Nikita Milivojevic is professor for directing and theatre at the Arts Academy in
Novi Sad.

Amalia Bennett is a freelance choreographer based in Athens, Greece. Trained at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London, Bennett has worked at Rick’s Theatre, Sweden; Dusseldorf Schauspielhaus, Germany; and the Venice Biennale. Her recent productions include Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Elektra, the National Theatre of Greece’s Titanic Electro Dance Tragedy, and the National Theatre of Northern Greece’s Equus. She also teaches movement for actors at the Drama School of the National Theatre in Athens.

London, May 12, 2012

Rowland:

How important is it for you to be here?

Milivojevic:

Wow. Listen, it’s, for all of us, I guess actually that to be in the Globe Theatre in London its something like an incredible experience because for the people from the theatre, the Globe is like a meeting place. It’s something like I don’t know Delphi in Greece or something like that, a very particular place to have a performance and the premier and that somebody invites you from the festival, its amazing for me.

And actually, this idea — I’m fascinated in this idea about the festival, 37 plays, 37 countries, 37 languages. It’s really fascinating.

Rowland:

What important about that?

Milivojevic:

Actually, there is something like this idea that you are going to see how the whole planet plays the Shakespeare and why Shakespeare is important for the whole planet,  I saw for instance, two guys from Zimbabwe how they played Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s amazing. It’s an incredible experience. So different things, so different perspectives, so different way of thinking; and I think it’s also good for London, for the Globe Theater, to see all of these different things. And it’s also very good for me as a director. I mean, to meet all these people from all over the world in one place, it’s fun and it’s amazing.

Bennett:

It’s great.

Rowland:

Does it change either your own perspective as a director or do you think its  having an impact in changing many directors the idea, just the idea, the idea that that Shakespeare can belong to the whole world?

Milivojevic:

Yeah. It’s always exchange something, I mean perspectives, ideas. I mean as a director, I know how much I like and I enjoy when I see some good performance, clever solution, nice ideas. I feel like, wow, it’s so nice to see something like that. So that’s how we live in the theatre. We need — we need this kind of exchanging all the time. I know how we work together and how we exchange so many things. And this is maybe the most beautiful in the theatre; to see other guys — how they are doing, what they are doing, how they think and to meet them — now, we were talking about this how — how much we like the festival actually because the festival is a meeting point … such different people, ideas and it’s alive. It’s nice to be here together.

Rowland:

Tell me a little bit about the role of theatre in general in your country, in your life and like why are you a theatre director? Why aren’t you a film director? Why aren’t you something else? Why is your heart there?

Milivojevic:

Okay. I can tell you for instance that I remember the time when I was a student and then after that, I remember that theatre in Serbia — theatre is an art was always very, very important in Serbia, like you had a chance. And it was like one voice which is not so — so familiar, one stronger voice, one voice that is in the theatre. You can see and you can hear the things that usually it’s a little bit — it’s hidden.

And that’s period of socialism, Tito’s period. After that, Milošević’s as well. It’s a — somehow social thing. You have to know these things to realize how much the theatre was important as art. So, I was growing in this kind of the theatre that if you have something strong to say, you make your performance. If you don’t have reason, strong reason to say something in the theatre, don’t make a performance.

Performance wasn’t anything for fun. We don’t have this kind of experience. And we didn’t have any commercial theatre in this way of thinking. So that’s something what’s marked me, also that was very significant for me. And of course, you change your opinion many, many times in a life, you know, also in to the theatre and everything. And now, I’m thinking about Henry VI; we had a premier but still I have the same feeling that I have to find the solution of why one place important for me. If I know why it’s important for me, I think that maybe I find the solution, why it could be important for the audience as well.

And if I’m not honest with this answer with me, with myself, I don’t believe that I can make a really good performance. So it’s something like that. And it’s not the same experience like here in London I guess but, in the Globe Theatre I mean, but at the same time I would say that I’m so, so, so happy. And so surprised to see all these possibilities, different possibilities, of the theatre like the Globe; to smell the food in the theatre, to see all these people how that movie, how they’re talking — it’s a live place. It’s something incredible. It’s such a new experience, such a nice experience and it’s extremely different from the things I said now, in Serbia. So it’s something like a round space, studio.  It’s like a Globe, we were talking, “my God all the time we have idea that the theater has to be the square.”

Bennett:

That suddenly changes the concept completely. And a circle is completely different to a square finally. There’s a kind of encompassing feeling about a circle whereas a square, it creates a distance between the players and the audience. It creates this kind of invisible world between the players, there’s darkness between players and the audience whereas here there’s a kind of all encompassing shape of the theatre. It’s such a different idea for us, a different experience.

Milivojevic:

Yeah, that’s impact. That’s something that you exchange. All the time you see something new and you compare with your experience, with your way of thinking and its changes you all the time. And that’s nice in the theatre. That’s nice in the life generally but in the theatre, it’s something else because all the time you are trying, you’re searching for your material. You’re searching for your ideas. And everything could be good for you. I mean for your ideas.

Bennett:

For inspiration.

Rowland:

Can either of you talk about the difference between entertaining people and kind of making them just be happy and forgetting or making serious statements with art in the theatre and do you have to do both? Or how do you see that?

Milivojevic:

Okay. Very, very often we are doing our performance together but on the same time we do a lot of things separately. So we have different orders. And she can say — she works really a lot, you know, she can say more about these things. But when we were together, I would say that because of our system, how we work and we like to work and what we find interesting and we chose really all the times some material that’ll inspire both of us.

Bennett:

I think communication. I think if there’s a word that maybe is the essence of whatever, whether it’s something essential or whether it’s entertaining, whether you make a person feel happy as an audience, I think the most important thing is to have a genuine communication with the audience. And it depends what you’re talking about. What the theme is, depending on what kind of dialogue that you want to set up with the audience, whether that can be something that’s a kind of like a humorous exchange or whether you want to give them as a deep message. But I think the most important thing is, is that you feel like you’re setting up a dialogue with the audience. And then depending on the scene, depending on what kind of dialogue this is.

Rowland:

But you performed last night, right?

Milivojevic:

Yeah, we had a premier last night. And yeah, it’s exactly what she said. For me the most important all the time is actually to exchange something. To create something exciting in the auditorium that they feel is exciting, the audience. So that’s what I’m looking for all the time, to find how to make them excited for some reason. And I think that’s my role in the theatre.

So I have to create something and to move in a different level of daily life. It’s a level of art. You know, it’s something that you have to find like metaphoric language. Language which is going to be full of imagination, full of fantasy, interesting and full of attention between the audience and the actors. So it’s something that really it’s a whole process how to make all these things. And I find that this is the most — most creative in our jump through the movement, through the text, through the costume, all these things together. It’s the whole, I mean, it’s a huge adventure. From the beginning up to the premier it’s like my God, it’s like you are a baby and you have to be an old man at the end. Whole life.

Rowland:

Did you find that sense of communication last night that you were talking about?

Bennett:

Yeah really. I mean I think this is another thing about that that  that you say maybe what’s the unique experience of coming to the Globe? I think this communication between the audience and the stage, it’s very direct.          

 You feel all the way through the play, you see and you feel exactly how people are responding to each moment. It’s not like you have to wait until the end to hear the clap when the lights come up that you suddenly get any kind of communication with the audience. It’s something that’s ongoing all the time. And I think for the people and for the actors on the stage, it’s completely different because they’re getting feedback all the time for every second of their performance, how things are going and that makes them adjust all the time their performance as well. That’s why this idea of a dialog is so much stronger here in the Globe because it really does become a dialog all the way through.

Milivojevic:

About last night, this morning I was thinking about this if I have to choose some moments from my theatre life until now, last night was the one that I am going to remember forever. That was an incredible and amazing experience and so beautiful that really, I was so happy.

Rowland:

Can you elaborate on that?

Milivojevic:

When you have a premier, as a director, you never know. Personally, I have a problem with the premier that, I never know where I have to sit, where I have to be. If I’m behind with the stage, I think that the actors are frightened to see me on the stage that all the time.

And it’s not my place to be on the stage, the backstage actually. If I am sitting in an auditorium, I feel — come on, I’m not like the other audience. I can’t see them and watch my performance like nothing. And I would say actually that this moment, it’s very, very strange moment, the premier. And they can play, you know, more or less good as we arrange or not. So many million of things depend. You can be satisfied with the premier or the premier is just a bad moment.

But yesterday night, it happened that everything together was just perfect. The actors they were playing, never like yesterday night. I was so happy, so satisfied. After 10 minutes, I said that they’re going so well. And suddenly communication with your auditorium, that’s something that you feel, it started so well that you say, yes. Now they’re like one organism. So I just wanted to say I have to pray that they continue until the end like this. But you feel that something is going very well. They exchange some energy and it’s going very well exactly like this and that’s a very rare moment in the theatre. And everything that they did that was just perfect and that’s why I was happy, that everything what we had as idea, suddenly that it was a premier for us. Not a premier in Globe but generally a premier for us.

Bennett:

First time in front of people as well. They never played in front of an audience before. That was the first communication with the whole play and any audience. The nice thing is I find here, especially for premier, because I’m used to premiers being very stressful because everybody comes to judge, everybody comes to have their opinion. And here, I just felt that people really came to see just out of curiosity, they didn’t come with preconceptions about, “Let see what they did now.” There’s a kind of generosity in from the audience’s point of view that the whole relationship starts in a very nice way.

Milivojevic:

Yeah. And that I would say that maybe somehow they were surprised with our perspective of Henry VI a little bit, surprised in a good way that the play became more alive maybe than they were expecting.

Bennett:

More comic for sure, because we tried to shift a little bit of perspective off like heavy historic material.

Milivojevic:

Exactly.

Rowland:

How do you do that?

Bennett:

We invented two characters, which are very nice guys.

Milivojevic:

Yeah. Time by time we put humor in this, of course on purpose; we had a very strong idea about these historical things. Generally, I have some distance in front of the history, some ironic distance in front of history. And I think that history is changing so, so quick and for new generation, for instance the civil war in ex-Yugoslavia during the ’90s; for my kids, for the new generation, they don’t know anything about this and it’s just passing like 15 years. It recently just happened, all these things. So many horrible things, destroyed one country. For new generation, they don’t know even the names of all these heroes and anti-heroes. And it’s okay, I mean that’s how history it works.

Bennett:

So we have, we have two characters that are two young guys and they comment all the time when like “Is it Henry V, Henry VI and his dad and what did he do and Richard III?” And they’re like, “Whew, all these names, what …” you know, why does it matter now anymore? And they’re mixing up all the time, you know, who’s the traitor, who isn’t the traitor? And they’re doing this ironic comment of the new generation on all of this bloody history.

Milivojevic:

Yeah. So that was the background of this idea. We used two messengers for this idea because actually I realized when I worked on Henry VI. From the beginning, when I start all historical plays; we had really great research.

I was reading all the time from the beginning all these things just to clarify what is this text or who is who and all these things. I realized actually that there is a moment in Shakespeare that’s I think in Henry the IV first part that for the first time he has Falstaff as a character. He discovered Falstaff before in Henry VI and these plays Richard II, you don’t have this character which means you don’t have this comic line which made a very nice balance with all these tragic bloody things. And with a Falstaff suddenly everything is alive, more alive, more acceptable, more — even more interesting.

And I like very much and I said, “Aha, it seems for me like Shakespeare found a way how to communicate better with the audience.” I said, “Probably I need something like this kind of Falstaff in the Henry VI to make a better balance with all these tragic things and…” And then I start to think in this way we found, little by little, our two messengers as a good character for this role and we start to call them Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That was our joke in the group. So these two guys became like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard’s famous play. And suddenly with this idea, they discovered million things. They are really great young actors and they used their chance to play with full inspiration, their inspiration, on this line and they create, they offer so many possibilities in the play.

And suddenly this idea became more reasonable, this idea Amalia said. How we actually how we deal with the history and all these things. So that was also a reason that the communication with the audience was good but on the same time that was a reason why I find that it’s interesting to play this play together in this way from this perspective, Henry VI.

And idea that if you have some, some comic aspect, it’s a very good for the play. For us, that was something that works for sure, and we have idea about this why it’s like this.

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