Interview Susanne Kennedy

Blend, Magazine #06
Door: Jakob Nieuwenhuijsen en Tim Nieburg

Susanne Kennedy is the youngest director at Nationale Toneel, the national theater company from The Hague, The Nederlands. She is known for her rigorous and explicit adaptations, such as Parasiten by Marius Von Mayenburg and Über Tiere by Elfriede Jelinek, which are inspired by Japanese horror films and the work of David Lynch. Kennedy’s latest piece is The Birtday Party by Harold Pinter. Pinter is known for his psychologically realistic texts in which the words often hide the true thoughts and feelings of the characters. In her version of The Birtday Party however, Kennedy lets the characters speak in an almost mechanical way, as if they are empty shells. She turns her characters into dolls to whom emotions are inferior.

How did you find out what your specific way of working as a theater director is?
‘I wanted to see a certain acting style, but I didn’t know why. I was just directing theater without knowing the reason behind this specific manner. Apparently I’m always looking for something mechanical and artificial in my plays. How people interact is usually quite different from how they are portraued in film or theater. The concentions we use to show people in film or theater, have little connection to real life. If you’d witness a fight in the streets and copy it straigt away to theater, it would look completely absurd. People are much stranger in real life than how we display them in theater.’

So, theater directors actually show the human being as braver and better reality?
‘We need order and structure. In reality it’s very difficult to fathom what drives people and it is difficult to detect logic. We use a certain non-existing psychologica to tell a story, but in real life, such a story doesn’t exist; there is no beginning, middle or end. Life goes on and on, without a final destination. Theater is about creating a certain momentum that can be interpreted by anyone individually. Of course there is a beginning, middle and an end in my plays. While constructing, however, I always keep in mind that the team is in a theater together, and that you have to work from there to create a certain state of being. You have to work with the expectations of the audience and the actors. You start with two groups in the here and now.’

Can you explain your way of working with actors?
‘When you hear an actor say ”I’m furious!” he will display that emotion as well. I don’t want to show that. I only want it to be said, enabling the public to attach meaning to it themselves. Actors want to express themselves, it’s their job, but I take that part out of their hands and give it to the viewer. That’s hard for some actors. Sometimes they get frustrated and get the idea that they’re not allowed any creativity in their representation. However, that is not the case: there is freedom in the limits I provide. They just have to discover it in a different way. It is another way of manipulating the public.’

You have directed two plays in Germany so far, at the Munich Kammerspiele. Johan Simons invited you as a guest director for the play They Shoot Horses Don’t They? (2011) and in 2007 you were invited to partake in Theatertreffen, the international forum for young theater makers in Berlin. What was Germany like?
‘It was great, but tough. I had no idea of the hierarchical relations within this very big company, I was an outsider. They didn’t know me. I’m a very young director, so I needed to gain everyone’s trust first. That wasn’t easy. The team was quite skeptical. I had to motivate every decision carefully. It worked out fine in the end though.’

One of the great aspects of theater in a small location is the intimacy between the actors an the audience. When performing in a big theater, there’s always the risk of distance. You’re about to direct your first major performance in Ghent. Why do you feel the need to do a larger production?
‘I love to make big visuals and tableaus, but you need space and distance to do so. When working with a large theater, you have much more possibilities and you can address a wider audience.’

But large theaters don’t necessarily attract more people, often only half the seats are filled. There’s a limited audience for theater, and this audience makes choices based on the performance, not on the venue.
‘That might be true, but I have been influenced mainly by performances and directors in great hall performances. I want to give developing a big production in a big hall a try.’

Do you think the way you make theater will stay the same, of will you be looking for crossovers between disciplines?
‘I think I will keep developing and perfecting my own style. I noticed that already in previous productions. The musicality and sound in a performance is increasingly important for me. I would love to direct a performance without any spoken words and use a tape recorder instead. It could even be more like an installation, something you can view in a museum. I always like to work from a certain atmosphere, which can pull you into something. This effect is evident in music. I always try to manipulate time and space, so the viewer loses his sense of time and will wonder: Have I been here for two hours or 20 minutes? You can create a whole different experience through the use of delays or accelerations in music. Music is often a neglected aspect of theater, but it’s always prominently present in my work.
In my performances The Birthday Party for instance, I want all my actors to wear a wire, which is strange because we’re all in the same hall and the actors are perfectly audible without one. But this way, the voice is detached from the body, and there is a delay to the audience, as if it originates elsewhere. This way of working allows me to manipulate and shape even the voices, which I find very exiting. I’ve also used lip-syncing in a performance once or twice, it felt almost like making a badly synchronized movie. I would like to investigate this kind of things.’

Who do you create theater for?
‘I want to attract as wide and audience as possible and I would love to pull in more young creatives, like the theater does in Germany. I feel like many creatives, such as photographers and designers, don’t get enough input. Many of the plays tell a complete story from A to Z. but you can also tell a story through images. I try to work from a visual perspective, almost like an installation/performance point of view. I draw inspiration from visual and video art and fashion. I sometimes feel like theater is missing out of our younger generations. It is a tough medium though. There’s a lot of theater, but you never know what to expext. It is often disappointing. People prefer to go to a cinema, a concert of an exhibition. It’s safer. I’ve noticed it is hard for the audience to stay put and focused for an hour and a half. But it’s really important to do so when you visit the theater. Sitting quietly in you seat forces you to really absorb the performance. It allows you to merge with the play and think about nothing else. You can get a similar effect by watching a movie, but theater is live. Because there are actual people on stage in front of you, the experience is much more intense.’

It is this intensity which Kennedy seeks in all of her work: it’s about her audience’s experience. This is why she let her characters talk like puppets in The Birthday Party. By placing the characters’ emotions in the background, Susanne hopes to create more room for the viewer’s own feelings and experience.
When you go see a play directed by Kennedy, don’t expect a simple performance or the often used psyhological/realistic acting style. What you can expect is intensely fresh and innovative theater – which is not for anyone – but very worthwhile.

Ariane Schluter
Jobst Schnibbe
Pieter van der Sman
Vincent Linthorst
Eva Marie de Waal

Tekst  Harold Pinter
Regie   Susanne Kennedy
Vertaling  Gerard Reve
Dramaturgie  Rezy Schumacher
Decor  Lena Müller
Kostuums  Lotte Goos
Geluidsontwerp  Richard Janssen
Lichtontwerp  Jan Harm Wagner
Regieassistentie  Ingmar van der Bie
Productieleiding  Rodney Verhoeven