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Interviews
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I'm Not a Monster! Philip Fisher meets world-famous Spanish director, Calixto Bieito and talks about his Edinburgh International Festival production of Hamlet "I'm not a monster," says a slightly bemused Calixto Bieito. The British press have not yet realised that this quiet family man is no more than a playwright with a vivid imagination. They delight in portraying him as a monster and if nothing else, it has meant front-page coverage for opera in the national press, something that few of his contemporaries have achieved. Calixto Bieito has kindly agreed to an interview at his hotel overlooking construction work on the new Edinburgh parliament. This takes place at 9.30 on the morning following the opening night of his controversial, but almost sold out Edinburgh Hamlet. As he explains, he may have got in at 1 o'clock that morning but having a two-year-old son means that he was up at 7 o'clock anyway. He is a quiet man who speaks good English and looks like a Spanish-Catalan theatre director, if that is possible. He has a shaved head, a black T-shirt and a shy smile. It becomes apparent that he regards his Hamlet, George Anton, as his alter ego and indeed, when you see Anton in the part, you get a fair physical image of his director. The two worked together on Calderon de la Barca's Life Is A Dream and agreed at that time that they had to do Hamlet together. The director of the Edinburgh Festival, Brian McMaster tried to persuade Bieito to programme it in 2002 but this was not possible. Bieito is a thorough man. He spent no less than two years in the production process, commencing by deconstructing the play and trying to get under the skin of the playwright. He expresses this beautifully when he says that "you have to believe in the author: it's like falling in love". The whole time, he had in mind the need to refresh the piece, to achieve a new look and vision. He insisted that his actors must learn the play by heart before the commencement of the eight-week rehearsal period in Birmingham, where the production travels after Edinburgh. He has been very pleased with the way that his cast have worked together, particularly considering the fact that George Anton had not played Hamlet before. Most directors when casting Hamlet are more concerned with acting skills and suitability for parts than anything else. Bieito carried out his auditions in London in February and one of his major concerns was to fit in with his framework for this production of a modern monarchy. "I wanted faces that looked like members of contemporary royal families in countries such as Spain, Denmark, Britain or Monaco. I chose Rachel Pickup for Ophelia because she has a strange combination. She has a classic look and is very tall. She looks like an anorexic Stephanie of Monaco". Similarly, the King, Laertes and Polonius were cast with that modern look in mind. For his Hamlet, George Anton had to "look like a man of 35 who was losing his throne, university-educated, strange and very sensitive - perhaps a little stupid at the beginning but ultimately nihilistic and self-destructive". It has been suggested by some that Bieito does not like Shakespeare. He vehemently disagrees with this view but is insistent that "to speak to contemporary audiences there has to be in something new in a production. It is the vital, thoug,h to keep the essence of the piece". He cites as an example of this kind of work Akira Kurosawa's film of Macbeth. "It is completely Macbeth but not necessarily all of the words". Bieito's two-hour Hamlet similarly retains the spirit of Shakespeare while coming in at only about half of the length of a full production. Bieito is something of a linguist, speaking five European languages well and he is currently trying to learn German as he is about to take La Traviata there. Clearly, he is doing well as his favourite recent production was a German version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Frank Karstoff in Berlin He firmly believes that this kind of multiculturalism is the future of Europe. As he says, "my son will go to a British school in Barcelona. He already has two languages and this diversity is an absolute necessity". He does, though, emphasise his love of both his Spanish and Catalan cultures and believes that these are the biggest influences on his work. "My black humour comes from Cervantes, Valle Inclan and Cabedo. That's my culture - my surrealistic view of life comes from my background and culture. People have said that my work is like Tarantino but I'm far closer to Goya. His paintings are violent but he was the precursor of the Expressionists. I was shocked and I was young and saw Goya's pictures at the Prado". The discussion turned to the reasons behind the moments of controversy in his career. In some cases, he believes that a combination of his surreal sense of humour and his wish to be faithful to playwrights has got him into trouble. He points out that the violence in Valle Inclan's Barbaric Comedies was the playwright's and not his own. His intention with the notorious rape scene was to show people just how horrible rape is, not to provide some erotic moment. His operas have been just as sensational as his theatre. He seems thoroughly bemused by the fact that the London production of The Masked Ball should have caused such a sensation and made the front pages of the national papers. "I was so shocked, people seem to think that I'm a monster. A photographer the other day was surprised that I looked normal". The toilet image in The Masked Ball that caused so much fuss belongs to his surrealistic culture. "This was drawn directly from the works of Luis Bunuel and was used a lot in the 1920s. For me it was fun, not shocking." The opera caused a huge political scandal in Spain but it got fantastic reviews and was a big success. It caused a major debate in Spain because for the first time, the period of Spanish transition between 1975 when Franco was deposed and 1982 when the Socialist government came to power was explored on stage. This was a really political piece, the opera could say real things to the people and asked the question "what is behind a mask?" Spanish artists are one of his two major influences. As well as Goya, he refers to Velasquez, Picasso and Zurburran. His real love though, is Literature and, in particular, the works of the writers referred to above and Lorca and Lope de Vega, together with Calderon and, looking further afield, the Austrian Thomas Bernhard. While he has a busy diary ahead, Bieito will be taking a couple of months off after La Traviata. 2003 has been very difficult for him as in the period between his Macbeth that was seen at the Barbican in London; and Edinburgh, he has had a very difficult time, losing his father at a young age. Following his break, he will be travelling to Berlin for a new production of Il Serraglio. To conclude, Bieito was keen to explain his artistic ethos: "theatre and opera has to be a unique experience. You have to feel emotions, be surprised and discover new things about yourself and the world. Ideally, it should be a punch in the stomach for the audience. They must be sent away to think about the play. Emotion is very important in theatre, they should only think about it afterwards".
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