IT SEEMS like there's no stopping the National Theatre of Scotland. In two years, it has staged 59 productions for a total of 235,000 people. Gregory Burke's smash-hit play Black Watch, which opens at the SECC tonight, has sold out theatres from Glenrothes to Sydney, and last year's Festival production of The Bacchae , starring Alan Cumming, will transfer to New York's Lincoln Centre this summer.
At the epicentre of all this activity is Vicky Featherstone, NTS's 40-year-old artistic director. If at first she seemed an unusual choice for the post – young, female and English – she quickly stamped her personality on the organisation, launching i
t not with a single stellar production but 10 simultaneous plays all over the country on the theme of Home.
She has continued to co-ordinate an ambitious and varied programme, ranging from Aalst, a disturbing two-hander about a couple who murder their children, to John Byrne's feel-good musical Tutti Frutti, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's children's book The Wolves in the Walls, and Grid Iron's ground-breaking airport project, Roam. She is a tireless advocate for the NTS "theatre without walls" model, which is free to collaborate with existing theatres and companies, writers and directors from all over Scotland.
Next Friday, the NTS will launch its programme for the rest of 2008, which includes Something Wicked This Way Comes, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel by the author himself, and 365: One Night To Learn A Lifetime, by David Harrower, which Featherstone will direct at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Q & A: VICKY FEATHERSTONE BLACK Watch is based on a true story of Scottish soldiers who were killed by a bomb in Basra. You saw the play performed last month in Glenrothes, their home town. How was it received?
It was taken very seriously in Glenrothes; I mean that in a very positive way. It was a very sombre and listening audience who felt really ready to hear this supposed theatrical phenomenon which was about their regiment and about their boys. They seemed to feel real ownership of the play, which was a massive compliment. People were coming out saying they had understood something they previously hadn't understood about the story.
When did you realise you'd created a phenomenon?The day I went to see a run-through, just the actors in the rehearsal room, none of the technical wizardry. About two-thirds of the way through I thought: I'm feeling something extraordinary about this regiment, about the war, about Scotland, which I didn't imagine I would feel: a sense of pride, a sense of anger about what they were being put through. I thought, if I'm feeling this in this context, we might have something which could work. And then after our first preview in Edinburgh, when the audience spontaneously got to their feet. The word "phenomenon" didn't come into our heads then, it was more "relief", I think!
Black Watch was performed as part of the Scottish Parliament opening celebrations in June last year, at the request of Alex Salmond. Was that an easy decision to make?Not at all. We went through the machinations of what that meant probably more than anyone else could, questions of patronage and all of that. Then we spoke to (the playwright) Greg Burke, who said: "But it's about the opening of parliament, it's about being part of a democracy, it's about being part of a country which is going to give theatre this place of importance. All we ever wanted was to communicate the story to the people who could make a difference about these soldiers' lives."And I thought, actually, that's really simple.
John Tiffany describes a moment at the Sydney Festival (where Black Watch played to sell-out crowds and garnered praise from stars such as Cate Blanchett) when he sat back and felt proud. Have you had a moment like that?I don't feel that yet. I feel really lucky, I feel that I've worked with incredible people to get to where we've got. It's my job not to feel that yet, not until everybody in Scotland knows who we are and the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) becomes synonymous with people's idea of culture. I think it's really important that we learn from what we've achieved, the good things but also the bad things.
In order to create more shows like Black Watch?No, because I think we never will. We'll create different things, but I don't think we'll ever have that impact in the same way again. We would like to, but I won't be hurt if we don't. We've had incredible successes with other pieces of work which have been very exciting. Internally, we don't feel the pressure to replicate Black Watch because we know how rare something like that is. We wouldn't try to emulate it. We don't live in the shadow of it, we glory in its sunshine and make the most of it.
What about if the audiences expect you to do it again?There is a risk that people will compare other things with it as we move forward, that becomes a continuous benchmark. That's difficult because each show is meant to be a different experience; there are different sets of emotions that we want to evoke.
Has the success of Black Watch stimulated a lot of interest from around the world about the NTS? There is an incredible amount of interest. Twice a week I get e-mails from different countries asking if we will go and be part of big symposia talking about the role of a national theatre.
People are saying: "We have a building, we are stuck in a certain way of being, we would love you to come and inform us about this lighter model which is able to be about work and flexibility and feels very people-based, rather than so institutionalised."
It's important to you that NTS attracts people into the theatre who aren't regular theatre-goers. How do you do that without just resorting to populist crowd-pleasing shows?The team at NTS have got very good instincts. If you're formulaic about what you think people want to see, you end up with reality television and programmes about houses – not that I'm not addicted to those, of course! – and the theatrical equivalent, shows about tribute bands. We want to make theatre we would feel excited to be going to see ourselves. We talk long and hard about the kinds of things that we make.
Why do you like not having a building?A building is an expensive thing to run and you have to fill it every night. Since we don't have one, we're able to be quite diverse in the programming that we do. We can appeal to different kinds of audiences. We can justify putting on a more complicated two-hander in a co-production with a Belgian theatre company, like Aalst, because we're not trying to put that on at the Kings in Edinburgh or Glasgow, while at the same time we can take Black Watch to Rothes Hall or to Dingwall.
Making theatre for children and young people is very important to you. Why?For me, it's incredibly obvious. I'm always surprised that it hasn't been more obvious for theatres, although a lot consider it important now. Theatre is about telling stories in brilliant ways and children love stories. In terms of developing new audiences and making theatre genuinely at the heart of the country, you have to start with them. I'm also really interested in the idea of a whole family experience that parents, children and grandparents can go to together, other than just at pantomime time of year.
What were your formative experiences of theatre?I grew up for a lot of my life in Croydon, where we used to go to the Ashcroft Theatre. What we saw were amateur dramatics and amateur pantomimes, but I thought it was so exciting. If I was getting really excited watching slightly rickety amateur pantomimes, I'm really interested to see how this generation are affected by seeing really good children's theatre.
What made you want to work in the theatre yourself?My dad is a chemical engineer, but at school he had acted and we had pictures of him acting. He would talk rather wistfully about having wanted to be an actor. I grew up wondering why would you have wanted to be something and then do something else. As a child, I wanted to be an actress, then I did well at school and was funnelled into university (English and drama at Manchester), where I directed my first play. One of the first books we studied in my first term in 1986 was A Good Night Out by John McGrath (the playwright and director who founded 7:84 Theatre Company), and I remember thinking that's an extraordinary belief in what theatre is, that's what I want it to be like – and here I am!
Do you take your children (Sonny, eight, and Merle, six) to the theatre?As ever when you're a working mother, it's great when you can combine the two things! They go to see a lot of stuff which they really love. Sometimes around the Christmas period, they ask if they can stay at home and watch telly, because they have seen so many Christmas shows! Last week I went to a run-through of The Emperor's New Kilt (the latest NTS production, made with Wee Stories Theatre Company, which opens tomorrow at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh). It's brilliant, very witty, very exciting, very layered. I can't wait to take my kids. That makes me feel really confident about it as a piece of theatre.
365, the play you're going to direct for the Edinburgh International Festival, is about young people leaving care. What made you choose this subject?I feel very strongly about this; it desperately needs to be looked at. In this country, we consider ourselves humane and civilised and yet the tolerance level about child misery is incredibly high. I think we're suffering form emotional poverty. I was talking to a trustee of Barnardo's who told me about these care-leavers who have often been through many residential units and foster homes and at 16 are thrown out into the adult world. They're given supported accommodation, taught to cook and budget, but there's often little therapeutic support, and they're desperate to leave the system and become adults. The play is set in a supported flat.
How do you make a piece of theatre with a social conscience which isn't dismissed as worthy?What's exciting is that there are so many ways that you can tell stories in theatre, physically – with dance, or with music. We have all of those elements at our disposal. I'm working with David Harrower, who is an amazing writer and an amazing thinker, and Paul Buchanan (founder of Glasgow band The Blue Nile) will write the music.
It's not about ramming ideas or statistics down people's throats. Rather than taking you through a desperate EastEnders murky world of pain, it's about trying to get the audience to sit back and understand something through the celebration of theatre and storytelling. I'm hoping for quite a dynamic production.
How does it feel to be directing a play at the Edinburgh International Festival?Ever since I was 18, I've been coming to the Edinburgh Festival – that's 22 years, and I haven't missed many. I've seen all the great directors. I've been inspired by them, and they've also informed a broad view in Scotland of what theatre can be. For me, it's incredibly exciting and entirely terrifying. It's one of those moments when you have to remind yourself to be bold and have courage, and I rather like it when you have to do that.
Alan Cumming said last week that the spirit of the NTS is "symbolic of where Scotland is at the moment – it's confident and it feels good about itself". Do you agree?That gives me goose bumps! I think with the new SNP administration, there is a real attitude of "Let's just do it": let's try the thing, let's make the change, let's abolish the tolls on the bridges if we want to do that. I think the NTS is like that as well. To breaking point, in a way, we pride ourselves in being able to be flexible, ambitious and not become entrenched in an institutionalised way of decision-making. It is really hard, but I think it's the key to our success. Governments usually plod along.There is something slightly thrilling and, in a rollercoaster way, slightly terrifying about saying: 'Let's see what can happen'.
It's great to be part of a country which can be like that.
