“I like strawberries. I'm sure you do. And sometimes I like strawberries even as they are. Sometimes I like mashing them with with my fork, mixing things. Sometimes I like what one always has at this time of year in France in every cafe –- which is strawberry tarts. Now all of those are expressions of strawberries, but the real reason for strawberries to exist, is because it has grown out of nature. And the real reason for you to put it in your mouth is because you need food.
“Now in exactly the same way, a text is not an end by itself. A text has come from somewhere. It has come from an author. And if the text is really good, it comes from the author trying to express something essential through the text. Now that author makes that attempt to express something essential, maybe in another period, in another context, than ours –- and we're here today, and we're longing to eat that food. We're like the people who want to eat the strawberries and we can eat it in different forms. We can eat it intact, or mashed, or served in a flan. Now which do we choose to do? I think the whole question here is a purely relative one.
“In the case of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, I didn't change one single word. In the case of THE TEMPEST, we turned the whole play inside-out. It all depends on the aim and the context. Nothing else. To say that you can take a text and use it as a springboard – - the proof of that pudding is in the eating. If by taking and turning it inside-out, an essential truth that is buried in that text can suddenly appear -- this is the great thing about the theatre – that event is justified, because you have done no harm to the text, which still remains there within its covers, perfectly intact.
“If on the other hand, you say today, for you, for me, for our context today, 'This as it stands is so perfect that anything I do lessens it,' then I'm a fool to start mashing it and cooking it in tarts, much as, in a restaurant, you actually make your pies usually out of the remains from yesterday. But if you have an absolutely beautiful new piece of steak, you don't chop it up and make it into a pie. You cook it, grill it. You don't put a sauce on it. You eat it as it is.
“Now it's exactly that, if what one needs to respect is the truth behind the activity. Now A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, for instance, produces truths on many levels, and the form that the play takes is extraordinarily perfect. So I thought the only way to touch the truth was to respect the text to the last degree.
“And although I love Shakespeare and I love his text, I haven't a blind respect either for him or his text. Because the reason I love him is for the truth he is trying to bring through his text. So my love also has to go towards that truth, and that's why each theatre event is different and must be judged entirely by all the circumstances that surround it, so that it's an argument that works both ways.
“In one context, it is criminal to fuck around with the great text, because one does it at one's risk and peril. That's why I have very often, very strongly attacked productions that turn Shakespeare inside-out - - because I don't think when you're dealing with great material you should do this too easily. So that the idea of the text being a springboard, I think, is one of the most dangerous ideas that have ever been launched - - simply because it encourages people, before they have gone through the process of digging deeply into a text, to already change it.
“I remember my father telling me that he had a friend who arrived in England from Russia after the first World War. After two weeks of being in England, this Russian, with not one single word of English, began writing a book called 'The Faults of the English Language'. Now in exactly the same way, to take a great play, and before you have really come to the core of it, you are already correcting it's mistakes - - and that is what one sees in a lot of springboard reactions – - this is criminal.
“On the other hand, to take a great play and not take into account that as time goes by there are things that mean less, values changes, balances change, immediacy disappears - - and therefore, out of respect, to leave it exactly as it is, allowing an audience not to come into contact with the essential, that is also false.
“So each time you are confronting a new set of decisions. Why are we trying to touch this material today? What is the purpose of it? And is that purpose best served by blind obedience or bold intervention? Or through a blend of the two? Those are the questions.
“If you are dealing with a modern play, suppose you're dealing with a young author. He writes his first play and brings it to a director. The director is in exactly this position. For him to tell the young author, 'You've got it wrong. You should cut this, you should change this, you should rewrite this' - - which is what people love doing - - is a very dangerous process, because he may be wrong. The author may have something he is trying to say, and the director my completely spoil it.
“But on the other hand, a director who is convinced that the play falls apart in the second act and doesn't say so - - and doesn't say so vigorously and strongly - - is also betraying the author. So once again, the truth has to be an honest search for something that combines the two. And the director has to intervene, or he isn't a director. And yet, he has to take into account that he is not there to intervene - - like producers do, because they're frustrated authors! He has to intervene genuinely to help the essence to appear, and that's why intervention is a double-edged sword.
“You can see how often producers destroy work, because they take a play on the road, and what comes out is not their wish for the essence to appear, but their wish for their own ego to suddenly have a ball. They can then prove to the author that they are a better author than he, and they can prove to the director that they are really a better director than he is - - but nobody has yet recognized that. And one has to recognize that those are legitimate temptations and dangers, and steer in-between them.”
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