Devilish classic signals WYP’s new direction

The times, they are a changing.

You might not notice it, because the change is evolution, not revolution, but make no mistake, the West Yorkshire Playhouse will look very different this time next year.

The way in which theatres schedule their seasons – some way in advance – meant that when James Brining took over as artistic director last year from previous incumbent Ian Brown, much of what we would be seeing on stage this spring had already been decided.

Dr Faustus, which opens tomorrow night, is the first real indication of the sort of work theatre fans can expect now that the Leeds native is at the helm of the organisation.

Brining, a Cambridge graduate, grew up in Leeds, but has spent the last decade of his career as a theatre director working north of the border, in Scotland, where they do things a little bit differently.

Brining had some major successes when he was running Dundee Rep theatre. Running the Playhouse is the biggest job of his life and, half a year in, he’s clearly relishing every moment.

He has also been, from day one, cagey about pinning his colours to the mast with any one particular production, insisting that it will only be when we look back at the body of his work that we’ll understand what he is trying to achieve at the Leeds theatre.

However, Doctor Faustus is a collaboration with the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, a theatre that has given birth to any number of hits that push at the boundaries. It is the first time the two theatres have collaborated on a play and it is no coincidence that the Scottish company is in the building a few months after Brining returned from up North.

“It’s a part of the mix,” says Brining, a man who is happy to give much away, but won’t be pinned down.

“But clearly, yes, I know the work of the Citizens Theatre and I am really excited to see what people make of the work we create together.”

The work the Citizens and the Playhouse are putting together is one of the great – and greatly controversial – plays in the Western canon. Marlowe’s story of a man who makes a pact with the Devil.

Colin Teevan is the celebrated playwright who brought Monkey to the Playhouse stage in 2008 and his original play How Many Miles to Basra? has also appeared in Leeds.

He is recognised as one of British theatre’s top contemporary writers – he established a playwriting course at London University’s Birkbeck college and writes for both screen and stage.

He has been given the mighty task of adapting Marlowe for this version and writing his own additional scenes for the play.

He says: “I have always loved working at the Playhouse whenever I have been here, Ian (Brown, the former artistic director) did some really lovely work at this theatre. I do get a sense that there is a feeling of a new audience to be developed in Leeds,” he says.

“There is a feeling in the building that there is space to find and develop a younger audience, an audience that is 18 to 35. It feels like work that is a little more ‘out there’ is being given space in the programme. Our Faustus is definitely going to be out there. I hope it appeals to them.”

The play is another collaboration between Teevan and director Dominic Hill, who have worked together on a number of projects in recent years. Hill worked as Brining’s joint artistic director at Dundee Rep for a time and Hill and Teevan won huge critical acclaim for a controversial but typically bold reworking of Peer Gynt.

“I think Dominic is a hugely exciting director. What we are both interested in is taking another look at classic stories,” says Teevan.

“What’s interesting is that the classics can often be considered safe, but when you consider how they were considered in their time... Take Doctor Faustus, we might think because it’s one of the classics of theatre, that there is nothing particularly radical about it, but this was a hugely controversial piece of work – it was the Blasted of its day.

“What we have done with this version is to seek to re-radicalise it and remind today’s audiences of why it was considered so shocking.”

The 400-year-old story tells of Doctor Faustus’ restless quest for knowledge and his insatiable desire for notoriety which drive him to make a pact with the Devil in return for the power to perform the black arts.

This life-changing decision propels him into a heady, celebrity-obsessed world, as magician and illusionist to the rich and famous.

Quenching sexual desires as his power grows, Faustus must question whether the price of his soul was worth paying.

The universal truths held in this classic cautionary tale resonate powerfully with the greed of today’s consumer-led society. The first liberty that director and writer have taken with the script is to make Mephistopheles a woman, with Siobhan Redmond taking on the devilish role.

“When Dominic first suggested it, I wasn’t sure how it would work,” says Teevan. “Then you meet Siobhan, who is this flaming redhead and you realise that not only is she perfect for the part, but that the story works perfectly well if that character is a woman – it brings out a lot of the latent sexuality in the story.”

The difficult middle section of the play, which some scholars believe might not have been written by Marlowe at all, has been entirely rewritten by Teevan. “It’s my name up alongside Marlowe’s on the poster,” says Teevan. “That really is as terrifying a prospect as it is exciting.”

The devil in the detail for WYP

Doctor Faustus is the first major sign of the impact James Brining will have on the West Yorkshire Playhouse programming.

He has also made Transform, the festival of new work that runs over a number of weeks in April, a more key part of the programming, his directorial debut for the theatre coming during the festival.

There are other hints through the season about what might be to come, but Brining says that in September, the first season programmed entirely by him, will be a truer reflection of his work.

Doctor Faustus, Feb 23 to March 16. 0113 2137700.

See tomorrow’s Yorkshire Post for an interview with Siobhan Redmond.