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Interviews
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A Shining Light in Shepherd's Bush Philip Fisher talks to director Josie Rourke. It is amazing to think that someone so steeped in theatre as the new artistic director of the Bush Theatre in London, Josie Rourke, spent her whole school career without having any involvement in stage matters. She attended a Catholic state school in Salford, just outside Manchester and now home to the complex that houses the Lowry Theatre, that didn't do plays. However, at 17 she went to a secular sixth form college to do her A-levels and was immediately cast to play Olivia in Twelfth Night. Immediately, her innate directing ability came to the fore as "I remember standing on a stage thinking he's awful, I'm really bad, that she shouldn't be standing there and that light shouldn't be green". Despite the lack of previous experience, a director was born at that moment, although as Ms Rourke says, "the idea of working in theatre hadn't occurred to me till then". However, there had been a deep-seated love of drama developing. "I'd seen everything at the Royal Exchange in Manchester when I was growing up. I adore that theatre and the totality of the experience. I'd love to work there". In addition, she has fond memories of seeing Declan Donnellan's As You like It at the Dance House and of regular teenage trips to enjoy Shakespeare in Stratford. Despite a love of the theatre, she didn't see any thing in London until the age of 19 but was lucky enough to start with Judi Dench in A Little Night Music. Soon afterwards, she enjoyed her first opera, Jonathan Miller's production of La Traviata. That pairing might be enough to get anyone into a career on the boards, or in this case just off them. The Rourke family history did not suggest that their bright daughter was likely to end up following this career path. Her father is a chartered accountant and her mother a special needs teacher. However, after reading English at Cambridge, she fell on her feet and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Still in her early 20s, she spent a year on attachment at the Donmar under Sam Mendes During that time she had the good fortune to assist on a stream of successes - Passion Play, Orpheus Descending, To the Green Fields Beyond, Merrily We Roll Along and Boston Marriage - working with top directors in addition to Mendes, including Nick Hytner, Phyllida Lloyd and, most significantly, Michael Grandage. She did almost finish off a budding career before it started. "There was an infamous moment in rehearsals for Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along when Sam Spiro lost her voice. This was Michael (Grandage)'s first musical and there was complete chaos. He asked Sam to do everything on stage in the normal way lip-synching while I sang all of her songs. I literally opened my mouth and sang one line and heard Steven Sondheim leave the theatre." As she rather proudly explains, "I'm a terrible actor and a worse singer". When she completed her year at the Donmar, she was offered jobs by both Sam Mendes and Michael Grandage, although each had to do this on trust and their knowledge of her abilities as a willing assistant, since neither had seen her direct up to that point. It is pleasing to report that time has shown that the risk that each took to help a youngster in her development has paid off in spades. Their protégée also helped Peter Gill at an exciting time in his career, as he was directing John Osborne's Luther and his own, award-winning new play The York Realist. The Royal Court saw the versatile tyro working on these in Sheffield and immediately signed her up to become a trainee associate director. There she had her first opportunities to direct on public stages and her first two attempts could not have been more contrasting in terms of style. She commenced with DeObia Oparei's totally bad taste but highly entertaining Crazyblackmuthafuckin'self exploring what it means to be gay and black in Britain today and then moved on to Northern Irish playwright, Gary Mitchell's Loyal Women, which explored a very different kind of intolerance. Remarkably, from the start, she has managed to work continuously almost throughout and, as she says, "I took everything that was offered and directed six shows last year". The irony is that the only time when she has been unemployed was when she was commissioned by the RSC to direct Philip Massinger's Believe What You Will and there was a lull between casting and performance, during which time she followed in dad's footsteps, spending a month temping with a large firm of chartered accountants. Subsequently, Miss Rourke became an associate with Sheffield Theatres and, as well as doing a lot at Sheffield and the Donmar, also worked with David Lan at the Young Vic. This means that, despite the fact that she is only just over 30, Ms Rourke already has a great body and range of work under her belt. She is clearly proud and excited to have taken over the reins of the Bush from Mike Bradwell. She does though understand that his are big shoes to fill, as he has spent a lifetime in the theatre, not to mention ten years in the post. She was appointed despite the fact that she had never previously worked at the Bush. However, her enthusiasm and affection for the small pub theatre with massive influence shines through as she proclaims that "it is a theatre and company with seemingly infinite possibilities but at the same time a very clear soul. It has been championing writers and audiences for 35 years, challenging and entertaining". The new director has a great line in metaphor as well, explaining that "new plays can seem like energy-saving light bulbs or joining a gym" in that people feel an obligation to attend because they are fashionable and worthy. In fact "seeing plays at the Bush is so, so appealing. You have to take risks and I wanted to get a balance and a huge variety of work into my first season". Already three plays in, including the current sensational punk rock hit, tHe dYsFUnCKshOnalZ! by Mike Packer, there is still much in store. Next comes the excitement of a Neil Labute double bill early in the New Year. Although he is a more established playwright than is usually seen at the theatre, these plays are "right for the Bush. He writes with pinpoint accuracy about 9/11 and where we are now". In addition to working within the confines of the tiny, 81-seat theatre, Josie Rourke also has ambitions to find some plays that can transfer to bigger spaces, citing a recent example: "How glorious it was to see Elling selling at 100% at the Trafalgar Studios". She also enjoys seeing Bush plays touring and recently relished a sell-out performance of Steve Thompson's Whipping It Up at the Lowry. Although they don't plan for West End transfers or tours, this is obviously the icing on the cake for any new writing theatre. If this summer's experiences are anything to go by, it might be just as well. At one point, not only was water flooding into the theatre through a hole in the roof that has now been fixed but at the same time, as its new director was bailing out her pride and joy, a message came through that the company's offices just up the road were suffering from similar indignities. It is enough to make you cry but one imagines that this strong-minded young lady would just have rolled up her sleeves and got on with the job. Josie Rourke is keeping her cards very close to her chest with regard to the first season that she will have programmed entirely on her own. It will commence in early March of 2008 and if one had to guess, the plays might contain something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue, as is the Bush's way. She is happy to confirm that "it will be an exciting new season" and that she will definite direct at least one of the plays. This fits in with her wish that "In the future, I would like to direct as much as possible". She enthusiastically explains the main reason and also why she is the right person to take the Bush forward. "There are some thrilling new playwrights coming through such as Jack Thorne, Lucy Kirkwood and even though he seems more established, Steve Thompson was a second career writer but has still only written two plays". Josie Rourke is a delightful personality and it says much that ever since he left university, she has been in full-time employment. She is already doing exciting things with the Bush and there seems little doubt that her tenure will continue a long and happy tradition of producing challenging new writing at the much-loved little pub theatre on Shepherds Bush Green.
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