IT’S BEEN a long time coming, according to director Megan Willson. She’s talking about Neil Labute’s Bash which she and actor and writer Daniel Janks have been discussing for many years.
They finally got it off the ground last year with a short run at Maboneng’s POPArt followed by a successful run at this year’s National Arts Festival and now a season which starts with previews tonight and tomorrow, opening on Thursday until September 27 at Sandton’s Auto and General Theatre on the Square.
“It’s been a hard road,” says Willson who has been determined to get back into stage directing at least once a year. She’s thrilled that the dapper Daphne Kuhn is still willing to take theatre risks. It’s a tough climate out there, but hopefully, if the work is good enough, the audiences will come. And this is one of those. With a cast that consists of Janks, James Alexander, Jessica Friedan and Ashleigh Harvey, they’ve been able with these extended seasons to work harder and dig deeper.
“When Daniel and I first spoke about the play, it was perhaps too soon, too close to the bone,” she says. When they started last year, she felt the timing was right and she’s so grateful for this proper run in a mainstream theatre. In fact, the route they have followed is an ideal one and says much about these actors and their director, their passion, grit and determination to get this up and running.
But that’s been most of their story with Friedan, for example, accepting a corporate job simply because she couldn’t see herse lf making it in the theatrical world. But now she’s back with a bang and doing what she loves most.
“It’s great to see her finding her feet,” says Willson.
Similarly with this play. Willson explains that the playwright was ex-communicated from his church because they didn’t like what he was saying. “People often can’t stomach reality,” she says. But she views Bash as everyone’s story. “I don’t want to spoil it for audiences by telling too much,” she says, but she describes it as a compelling psychological thriller without violence. “It tells you what really happens out there, almost like a therapy session, this is reality theatre.” You cannot be more taunting than that.
Willson knows what it takes and that’s why she is so grateful to have put so much time into this one. “We’ve been able to tweak, to cut it down a bit, to really streamline,” says this cutting-edge director, with a live events company which has been a necessary career choice. But her dream is to get back to theatre at least once in a while.
“I was hoping to already be busy with the next one, but Bash has been time-consuming yet rightly so,” she admits.
The play consists of three discussions that connect the stories of three people. “It’s about the common man who can some- times do terrible things,” she says.
We all know those moments of clarity when we know we have done something wrong however small. “It’s often about circumstances, the strength of your belief system or the kind of support you have around you.”
“We know these stories,” she says of what you’re about to hear on stage. These are the people standing up and telling their stories as we get to understand the deep psychology of somebody like an Oscar Pistorius for example. “As they unpack their stories, it begins to make logical sense,” explains the director.
“We are living in a morally complex time,” she says. “The ethics are difficult and there is a general breakdown of morality. Labute investigates from a compassionate and not judgemental place what happens in these instances.”
She loves the fact that even though it is a harsh tale it’s not violent. And what she admires most is that she finds it deeply Shakespearean, almost like Greek theatre.
She also finds it joyous that audiences have to sit back and listen. “It challenges you to listen and to absorb what is being said,” she says. For her the whole experience has been mindblowing. “This translates almost like a TED talk which is so compelling and so popular on the web,” she notes.
Bash has taken up a full year but the rewards have been plenty.
“It took eight weeks to develop a deep structure and it doesn’t make sense not to see how far we can take it,” she says of the play. She knows that if you want to deliver the real deal you need to spend time on the process and often, budgets don’t allow that. But because they were working almost on the fly, they could work differently and it has paid great dividends. “We’re doing it for the sake of doing it,” is her simple explanation.
It’s a difficult route but the arts usually are and those prepared to walk the walk earn those hard-fought reputations.
“We need completely compelling stories,” says Willson who knows what it takes to get audiences coming through those doors. “This one is about you and me, not fantasy land.”
And that she knows will draw the lovers of drama – as it should.