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First of all Paul, tell me what you do?

I find things that make no sense to me and then set about changing them. I find walls and tear them down. I point out the ridiculousness of life and question it. That’s pretty much stuck with in everything I have done from directing, writing plays, writing sitcoms, sketch comedy, producing and marketing my work and others. This wall tearing approach has worked in all aspects of my life except in my life as a tenant of properties. For some reason I never get my bond returned.

What have you been doing?

Directed a lot of new writing. Written quite a lot. Sketch comedy, comedies, Pirandelloesque fantasties, I’ve even written an episode of “Joey” an “Two and a half men”. The latter two never made it to production. I don’t mind admitting that. Don’t think my heart was in it even though I understood their formats like the back of my hand. I have too much of an inner drive to break the format. It’s a real talent to be able to exploit a format without breaking it. I always laid the mechanics of the format out too clearly for all to see and then broke them. Which isn’t exactly what Chuck Lorre wants in a script.  I’ve also moved. A lot. U.K., Europe, U.S. Australia and at the moment I find myself in Brisbane Australia, a town where I felt I had the best chance to achieve my goals in the arts because there is so much room for improvement. I’m not saying that to get offside people who work in the arts here in Brisbane – don’t get me wrong. What I am saying is that this is a city with the capacity for more theatre, with an audience that wants more and yet there isn’t. To start a project like the Anywhere Theatre Festival here and make it works is nicely ambitious…

What influenced you to be where you are?

There have been pivotal moments. Most recently it was the lack of spaces to rent or buy that I could legally use as a venue theatre. That influenced me incredibly to make this festival work. The thing with influences is that there are the ones you acknowledge in interviews and there are the ones that you realise while looking back at your work thinking, “Ah, I’d forgotten about that.” But at a lower level it was there in such a way that it was a larger driver than all the known influences. Shunt, theatre de complicite, Company B Belvoir, Peter Brook’s Empty Space. Any artist that is grabbing at something slightly thicker than air and then trying to channel it. The people that do work that just is. I also like a good fart gag.

What is your expertise?

Being a thicko. I say that in a typical slightly antintellectual Australian way for fear of being seen to think too much about it all. But being thick is probably the one common element to every success I have had. I’ve sat there and thought, “this doesn’t make sense to me. Why don’t we…?” Even if the end of that particular journey doesn’t work out, at least you’ve explored it and discovered something else along the way.

Tell me about Jam and Bread -

My wife and I wanted to create a space that people could call home. A place for people to create, to be inspired, to dream. Finding a space has been a big issue.

Why the name Jam and Bread?

The name evokes so many different images for different people. All of them we liked.

Tell me about Anywhere Fest -

The Anywhere Festival is a festival of theatre that can be anywhere: backyard, elevator, car, second life, whatever. Anywhere except in a traditional theatre venue

Why is this festival necessary?

We as artists have spent so long trying to fit into the spaces that others make available for us that we sometimes forget the original reason for our work and for our existence. Why do we have to make our creations work inside a theatre space? To be in an environment that allows people to focus on the creation? Because we need to be in a place that people know they can go to see a particular thing? Technology has moved on so that if you have a phone you can buy, receive your tickets and find your way there while doing anything else. This wasn’t possible (or easy) a few years ago. Now it is. We’ve got the tools to liberate theatre from the theatres and this festival allows audiences and producers to get involved knowing that there are a lot of of other people who also know it works. Takes the fear away.

What are your hopes for Anywhere Festival?

Goal for the festival is that this way of doing theatre becomes so commonplace that people don’t need it to be placed within the framework of a festival to do it or go see it. To create a critical mass for this way of doing things. Create a new section in the culture section of the paper. I’d argue it will grow more without that.

How does it feel to start a project like this?

Even at this early stage it is lovely piece of jelly with the sun behind it. I look at it and I can sometimes see so clearly what it will be with the sunlight reflecting and refracting through the jelly and then I move and suddenly I need to figure out what I’m looking at, and then it make sense again.

What do you want to happen next? (And how can people help/be involved?)

I want the first festival to happen and get that snowball to start rolling down the hill. I want people to feel passionate about it and want to spread the word and get involved. Right now, I’m about to start putting the word out there for people who want to be involved in getting this festival to work organisationally and creatively. People that liked to be pushed, that can push me and as a result make something extraordinary. People who can contribute from around the corner and people who can contribute from the other side of the world. Ideas people. If people feel passionate about this project and want to get invovled I will find a way that they can do that.

What is your day like getting this Festival ready to go?

This is the very beginning and so there is lovely process of creating and writing what the festival is about. Giving it a form that others will understand or at least be so perplexed by they will want to be involved just so they can find an answer in the same way an incomplete phrase from a song can run around in your mind until you discover the missing word. The song becomes clear and you understand and then you forget again just so you can rediscover it.

What dreams do you have for twenty years time? Will you continue with the same line of work?

I hope that I look back and see that I have changed the way things are done as a result of my projects. That my kids have been influenced by that and grow up looking for other ways.

What would you like to say about the theatre? What is your relationship to theatre?

Who are you? Facebook? Oh, actually, I do have it on my profile so I’ll stop being mock rude. What can I say about it without appearing trite or repeating what others have said in a less memorable fashion?

What advice can you give people?

Creating and pushing boundaries means you are always verging on being an anosognosic. I think all you can do is be aware of it and pause to reflect. Oh, and don’t spend all your spare time tweeting. I like acting as a dramaturg, for want of a better term, a director, a bouncing board, a motivator. I love talking ideas with people I barely know and helping them turn it into something more. Drop me a line via the myriad of comms methods below if you are looking for someone like that.

How do you juggle family life, creative life and find time to start big new projects?

I want the elements of my life to inform each other. This is why I can’t do the normal day job thing and either last very long or end up saboutaging it at some point as I push the boundaries. I want my kids to be a part of my creative life and many of my new projects are inspired by something they say. Great thing about kids – they haven’t built up all the filters we have and they love asking “silly” and “obvious” questions.

What one improvement would you like to see in the theatre industry?

It changes from moment to moment depending on what I am working on. We can all sit here talking about what improvements need to be made to the theatre industry and that’s great to discuss what could be, but while we’re doing that somebody else is doing things to make it the way they want it. The best thing we (I) can do is to get out there and do the things I feel are necessary to make the theatre what I want and see how many people pick it up. Yes, there needs to be robust debate, dialogue and a vigorous methodology but sometimes we have to embrace Nike’s catchphrase.

When writing a play, how do you consider your audience? What position do they take in your thoughts in relation to the play?

I don’t. If it takes a year to get my head around a character in a play, getting all their motives and thoughts and actions to make sense how can I even imagine that I can understand an audience of 100 different people and write something that is somehow going to appeal to them in some way. Not possible. SO I don’t consider anything other than what works for me. Makes me sound like a self centred wally but I’d do my head in if I started thinking otherwise.

What is theatre to you?

A dramatic moment happening in space and time. Could be orchestrated and it may not. It that’s grey area in between that is increasingly interesting me.

Thanks very much Paul!

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Find out more about Anywhere Festival

Follow Paul on Twitter

- interview by Darren Lerigo

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What is Oslo International Theatre? How did it begin?

Oslo International Theatre (OIT), is a project run by Imploding Fictions. Oslo International Theatre presents contemporary international drama which has not been performed in Norway before, at a venue in Oslo. With a few exceptions (‘Flap and Fear’ by Darren Lerigo being one of them), we get all the plays translated into Norwegian, and perform them as rehearsed readings. Oslo International Theatre began in November 2009 with a reading of Caryl Churchill’s provocative play ‘Seven Jewish Children’, and has quickly grown to become Imploding Fictions biggest undertaking. The idea appeared out of a wish to start a longer, sustained project, a desire to do something that might have a lasting impact, and the want to do finally do something in Oslo.

Who runs Oslo International Theatre?

Imploding Fictions runs OIT. The artistic leadership is held by Øystein Ulsberg Brager and Philip Thorne, and all sorts of practical and organisational things are taken care of by our eminent collaborator & stage manager Michael H. Sciarrone.

How do you choose plays? What are you looking for in the work?

OIT work only with contemporary plays (the oldest play we have done was written in 1990), and we choose plays that take place in contemporary society, that comment on contemporary society, and often plays which are critical of something in contemporary society, be it politics, economics, culture, trends, peoples behaviour or attitudes, you name it. Plays for now. Plays for people who live today. Plays about the experience of today.

In order to find these plays, we read, read, read and read some more. At least 90% of the plays we read don’t make the shortlist. Some because they don’t fit our criteria, most because they are simply not good enough. We are looking for the gems. We only want the best.

How have the shows been received so far?

We have received very positive feedback both from audiences and the industry. After only two readings, we were invited to an informal meeting with the second largest theatre in Oslo this spring to talk about OIT and about some of the plays in our program. We were very proud to be noticed by the big fish so early in our progress! Next year we are not only doing readings of plays, we are also organizing workshops run by two noticable figures in international theatre, both of whom have expressed great excitement about being part of our program for 2011. Rehearsed readings are not done very much in Norway, so I think the audiences are gradually discovering what a rewarding and exciting format it is for those interested in contemporary drama. I think the audiences in Oslo are craving new plays, new stories, contemporary stories. And I sense an excitement related to the discovery that there is now a place to experience that on a regular basis.

What has been your favourite play to work on?

What an impossible question to answer! We only do great plays. Thats why we do them. Because they’re great. I can’t answer that, because I love them all for different reasons.

Where does Oslo International Theatre fit in the Norwegian theatrical landscape?

Norwegian theatre consists of two main camps: The theatres / big institutions and the free groups / the independent theatre companies. Imploding Fictions belongs amongst the independent companies, but Oslo International Theatre stands out as a different kind of project to what most other companies do. Most independent companies make touring shows, that tour internationally, nationally or schools, or they make a show which is on for a sustained run in a programming or hired venue. Most companies make one show at the time (only a few of them are big enough to have more than one show in their repertoir). Not very many companies run regular projects or a series of related events (the ones that do, tend to organise lab sessions or workshops). The way OIT works, programming 6 or 8 plays a year (6 in 2010, 8 in 2011), means that we stand out, operating in a way which is very idiosyncratic.

There are also no other Norwegian company devoted to contemporary, international drama, in the way that we are. There are other companies that perform contemporary international drama now and again, and the big theatres do include contamporary foreign plays in their repertoir to a certain extent, but no other company or theatre has the same long term, singular dedication to bringing plays to Norway that haven’t been performed here before, and getting plays translated and made accessible in Norwegian.

What else does Oslo International Theatre provide? Workshops? Encouragement for new writers?

OIT also organizes other events in relation to some of our readings. After the reading of ‘Seven Jewish Children’ by Caryl Churchill we organised a panel debate about political texts and the political drama in a Norwegian context. After ‘Flap and Fear’ there will be an informal conversation about being a young playwright with Darren Lerigo and the Norwegian playwright Toril Solvang. Next year we are organising workshops both for young directors and young playwrights, as well as conversations, debates and Q&As after several of our readings. We want the project to contain more than just the performances, we want OIT to be a meeting place for people interested in contemporary drama.

What dreams do you have for the project? Would you be open to bringing Norwegian plays to other countries, say, England?

My dream is that OIT will keep on running for years and years, feeding norwegian theatre with exciting texts from all over the world, building an ever stronger and growing team of theatre artists who share the same interest in contemporary drama.
I would be very excited for OIT to become involved in international exchange, contributing to bringing norwegian drama abroad as well as bringing international drama to Norway.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learnt so far?

As an artist and as a producer of theatre: That I need to be challenged to get better. I need people around me to challenge my ideas, in order for the ideas to grow into good ideas. Projects get better from having had more people (the right people, of course) think cleverly and properly about them. I am better when I get forced to be better, and I need to surround myself not with people who pander to my every whim, or who see my flaws but ignore them, or who trust unquestioningly that I probably always know what I am doing, but people, who want the same ultimate outcome that I want, and who dare to question how we are supposed to get there.

What problems have you found most difficult to overcome?

My own impatience. I want OIT to be very big, succesful and noticed by all the right people right away. But it will take time. We are getting there, and we are actually growing in quite a significant tempo. But my dreams are even quicker…

Also, on more practical and less philosophical note: Getting press. The norwegian press are notoriously bad for covering cultural events. How to get noticed by the big newspapers is a code we still haven’t cracked.

What is Oslo like for Theatre?

Good. In the last 5-10 years, better and better. Bar OIT there isn’t that much contemporary international drama on. Some, but not a lot. But the cultural scene is thriving, and the scope of what gets put on very broad. Oslo is a good place to be for culture at the moment.

Who inspires you the most?

Several people. My friend Dazzler, because he insists on living life on his own terms and not on anybody else’s. He has a freedom I admire him deeply for. My cousin Marie, who is a producer of cultural events. She has this unflinching belief that it is possible to make things happen. My great friend and collaborator Philip, because I can create with him. My friend Birgitte who is a theatre director, because she belives in me. She never seems to doubt that I will manage what I want to do. Even when I have doubts. My friend and collaborator Michael for his unashamed pride over everything we achieve. The five of them are fantastic people who I am very, very lucky to know. As an artist and as a human being.

What is the best advice you’ve ever had?

“F*ck, f*ck and f*ck!”

This was advice from a fierce and fabulous mentor. It should be read both literally and metaphorically – she was telling me to grow up. Maturity and experience. As a person, to become an artist. Crude words. But oh, so true.

What are your plans for the rest of the day?

Keep marketing the next reading with Oslo International Theatre, and perhaps work some more on some funding applications. And maybe read a play.

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Find out more about Oslo International Theatre

- interview by Darren Lerigo.

On the 18th and 19th August ATC and Company of Angels presented Ghosts of Past and Present, two evenings of rehearsed play readings by emerging Norwegian playwrights in association with the Arcola Theatre and supported by the Norwegian Embassy. The two plays were Blue sky, green forest by Bjørnar L. Teigen and Buy Nothing Day by Kim Atle Hansen.

The readings were directed by myself. The wonderful cast consisted of Lloyd Gorman, Amrita Acharya, Eloise Secker, Laura Prior, Hannah Pierce and Alex Packer. Lloyd Gorman also composed excellent melodies for the songs performed in Buy Nothing Day. Philip Thorne and I translated the plays, working from existing literal translations by Svein Solenes (Blue sky, green forest) and Kim Atle Hansen (Buy Nothing Day).

We were delighted that Bjornar L.Teigen, the writer of Blue sky, green forest, was able to come from Norway to see the readings. He seemed pleased with how we’d dealt with translating his play and putting it on stage, so I’m very happy about that!

The Norwegian readings were part of ATC’s Spin Off program and took place at the Arcola Theatre before the performance of ATC/Arcola Theatre’s production of Ghosts or Those Who Return by Henrik Ibsen, presented in a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The ATC production was directed by Bijan Sheibani.

For more information see www.atctheatre.com or www.companyofangels.co.uk, or http://www.atctheatre.com/index.php?plid=78&show=info

- Oystein

TNS, organizer of Festival Premières (photo: Tamas Kiraly)

Last year, after we’d performed Hamletmachine at the ITS Festival in Amsterdam, we thought: That’s it. The show’s been going for a year and a half since its first performance at BAC, this is a worthy end.

But no!  A year later, the machine is back again (no killing the machine!) and it looks like it might keep going for some time still. On 5th and 6th of June we performed at the lovely Festival Premières in Strasbourg, France. The festival was organised by Le-Maillon Theatre de Strasbourg and Theatre National Strasbourg, and the beautiful Theatre Jeune Publique hosted our show. With incredibly helpful theatre and festival staff, it was a joy to revive the show.

Theatre Jeune Publique, our riverside venue!

The festival hosted 10 shows by young directors from all over Europe. A show which made a particularly strong impression on us was Sanja Mitrovic’s Will You Ever Be Happy Again, a “docu-tale” comparing the experiences of a young Serbian, with German experiences of WW2. This was done with humour, insight and lots of energy. If you get a chance to see it, do! (It’s currently touring Europe…)

We performed Hamletmachine three times to sold out houses, participated in a platform discussion event with the other directors and were interviewed for the German/Frech TV channel ARTE. We look forward to performing in France again in the near future…

The auditorium of the TJP with some of the helpful staff

For more info on Festival s Premières see:

http://www.le-maillon.com/

- Oystein

Company of Angels presents Sense at Southwark Playhouse

From 28th April to the 2nd May

This is not an Imploding Fictions production, but is produced by our good friends and collegues at Company of Angels. Oystein is directing “Nose”, one of the 5 pieces:

Following on from the play’s success at Theatre Café Festival 2008, five Company of Angels’ Associates will jointly be directing a promenade production of the award-winning Sense by German author Anja Hilling with a cast of 10 final year Drama Centre students.

Sense is a series of interlinking narratives. All five ‘senses’ are also plays in their own right. A play about teenagers, love, and the need to make radical choices, Sense is an intense, poetic journey into touching, inhaling, tasting, hearing, seeing and experiencing life to the extreme.

“astonishingly grown-up and hard-hitting theatre for young people”
Lyn Gardner – The Guardian, on Theatre Cafe 2008

Tickets can be booked from:
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
or 020 7407 0234

Or read more on:
www.companyofangels.co.uk

Hope to see you all there!

- Oystein

Imploding Fictions 
CO/Oystein Ulsberg Brager
24 Bay Tree Close
Sidcup
Kent DA15 8WH

- Øystein and Pip

Together with INSTED we were invited to the Körber Studio Junge Regie 2008 in Hamburg, Germany’s annual symposium for young directors. We lived in a place just of the Reeperbahn (probably the most decadent street in Europe), but even so nightlife was eclipsed by a full on schedule that seemed devised to test even the toughest theatre junkie. 

The regular programme:  show for breakfast, four hour afternoon debate about the previous shows, supper (this was invariably soup), first play of the evening followed by an audience discussion, second play of the evening followed by an audience discussion, then a ‘party’ (which was another play, only this time you were allowed to bring in a glass of wine). 

So, this was the ‘basic programme’ around which were scheduled a series of special events, shows, talks and debates, including a lecture with postdramatic theatre gurus Hans Thies Lehmann and Heiner Goebbels.

By the end of six days we had seen nineteen shows. You can read the previous sentence again if you like.

Being invited to the Körber Studio Junge Regie in Hamburg is equivalent to being waved onto a roller-coaster escapade through the current trends of contemporary German theatre. It would be an interesting sociological experiment to force Charles Spencer through the experience. My guess is that he’d explode in a fit of indignation. 

With neat regularity Spencer accuses people like Katie Mitchell of ‘smashing up the classics’, taking ‘outrageous liberties’ and ‘not serving the intentions of the dead playwright’ (actual quotes!!!) On evidence of Körber Studio 2008 faithfully reconstructing classics is certainly not what German theatre is about. It dismantles them, reconfigures them into new constellations, probes them for contemporary relevance or exposes ideological clashes with current thinking. The productions we saw of Woyzek, Hamlet, Hedda Gabler and Elektra were not attempts at reconstructing Büchner, Shakespeare, Ibsen or Hoffmansthal but rethinking them and their themes from a 21^st century standpoint. A central figure at the core of German (and most European) theatre is the ‘dramaturge’. When the term crops up it in Britain it is usually in reference to someone who acts as a kind of script supervisor on new writing. But on the continent dramaturges work on classic plays, they research previous drafts, influences etc. and then, together with the director, determine the structure and strategy for a new production (in Britain we’d say adaptation) of it. The constant accompaniment of the dramaturge and the resulting intellectual rigour in theatrical debates was one of the first striking features of our visit to Hamburg.

The other one (really not wanting to be stereotypical, but hey) was that German tea is a fucking disgrace. You get presented with a glass (!) of warm water into which you are expected to dunk a tea bag. And when Oystein asked for tea with milk the guy behind the bar (after an initial period of confusion) held it under the coffee machine and filled it up with frothy milk. 

A rather novel aspect of the festival was that it was accompanied by students of criticism (in Germany you study to become a critic) as well as the students of directing, dramaturgy and acting. The critics joined the directors’ internal discussions and debates on the shows we had seen and then read out and discussed their reviews with the artistic teams under discussion present. This meant that the practitioners had an opportunity to give direct feedback to the critics and vice versa. It was a great idea to bring these two stereotypically polarised fronts together and engage in mutual debate.

Christa Müller, a dramaturge at the Thalia showed us around the Thalia Theater which made us green with envy: two rehearsal stages which are exact replicas of the main stage (minus the auditorium) a firmly employed ensemble of actors on a regular salary and a current repertoire of fifty three (!!!) plays! 

Our stay in Hamburg was really inspiring and we met some great people – we thank the Thalia Theater, the Körber Stiftung and INSTED for inviting us, and we hope to return to Germany again soon (maybe next time with a production…) Next week we’ll be back in London.

Read more on: 

http://www.insted.eu 

http://www.thalia-theater.de

http://www.koerber-stiftung.de/foerderung/foerderung_junger_kuenstler/studio_junge_regie/index.html

http://www.implodingfictions.com 

or see some more photos from our trip on 

http://www.facbook.com/photo.php?pid=481820&l=eee5e&id=603357604

- Philip

On Friday the 22nd February we finally presented our two showcase performances of Norway.Today. We pitched our ideas to Company of Angels last June, and have been working actively on the production since last September, so it was a relief to finally seeing it all come to fruition. This long awaited culmination only marks the end of phase one though, now we are on to phase two which includes planning further development and contacting potential venues and festivals.

Being given the theatre at the Junction not only to perform in, but also to rehearse in for the entire two weeks we were there was a rare luxury, but also absolutely necessary: Our concept relies heavily on the use of video projection and live feed, and we were able to install and work with these features from day one. We received very positive feedback on how the video projection was incorporated into the show, something we would never have achieved had we not had the chance to rehearse with it through the whole process.

There are some people we would like to thank for their dedication to this project, without whom it would not have come together:

John, Theresa and Vanessa at Company of Angels for giving us this great opportunity.

Richard and Lucia at the Junction for their generosity, giving us the chance to work in the Junction theatre space for two weeks.

The Junction staff for their help with this and that whenever we needed it.

Tamas Kirali, our lighting designer who came in right at the very end and lit the show beautifully.

Yui Okado who volunteered to help us out with stage management in the last stages of the process.

Rob Colin Thomas, photographer, for coming up to Cambridge to take photographs of the show.

Our two audiences who gave us positive, critical and constructive feedback.

And last but not least:

Laurence Short, our video and sound designer – this would have been a completely different show without you, we have benefitted greatly from your technical know-how and never-ending ingenuity! We hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship!

And of course the actors, Neil Connolly and Hannah Boyde – you are our August and Julie, and we look forward to continue the Norway.Today adventure with you!

Where do we go next? We don’t know yet. But one thing is certain: There will be more performances of Norway.Today. It is only a question of where and when…

- Øystein

Imploding Fictions’ production of Norway.Today by Igor Bauersima (translated by Dr. Marlene Norst) was developed with support from Company of Angels and The Junction as part of the Young Angels Theatremakers Award Programme 07/08.

Images: Rob Thomas © 2008 http://www.robthomasphotography.com

Tickets for Norway.Today can now be booked at the Junction Box Office 01223511511, web: http://www.junction.co.uk . It would be great to see you there! 

Best, Philip Thorne and Øystein Brager – Artistic Directors of Imploding Fictions