London Calling with Champagne Charlie: INTERIORS at the Vanishing Point Theatre

Vanishing Point is a Scottish company who have stormed into London with a truly mesmerising new production called ‘Interiors’. 

Imagine being witness to a dinner party where the participants are walled inside a clear plastic ‘case’ on all sides. You hear none of the spoken words as such, just their exchanges and the narrative told through innovative and visually inventive ways. Suddenly you are allowed as The Audience to hear and see what’s inside their heads as drama unfolds.

This production is the latest in a line of hits from this company who have since their inception in 1999 travelled the world with their unusual take on both the classics and bang up to date pieces. 

I caught up with Matthew Lenton, the company’s artistic director who allowed us a glimpse into this truly amazing ‘theatrical’ world his shows reveal.

Champagne Charlie

How did the idea of enclosing the cast in a glass box come?

Matthew Lenton

Many places. Maurice Meaterlink’s play Interior talks about a family (at the back of the stage) sitting in a room as two men watch and talk about them from the outside. But in that play most of the drama is outside the room. I was interested in the events going on inside the room. I have always found little boxes of light intriguing, beguiling and hypotonic, whether they are people’s rooms in a city, houses glowing in the dark in the middle of the wilderness, or ships sailing on the sea. I like the idea that inside all of these illuminated boxes are people going about their lives, full of hope, fear, curiosity and love. It’s what our lives are like – moments of light in an otherwise immense dark void. I also get bored with going to the theatre and seeing the same form repeated over and over and over again. Unless theatre makers are more daring about form they might as well shoot themselves in the head. And being experimental with form doesn’t mean being inaccessible or exclusive. Audiences can be beguiled and charmed by new ways of seeing things. 

Champagne Charlie

What effect does it produce for The Audience?

Matthew Lenton

I can’t say – you’d have to ask The Audience. But the show works differently in different venues. In a smaller space, like the Lyric Studio in London, The Audience is very close and each person can be looking at different thing at any time. In larger venues, there is more of a panoramic view. I find watching the show hypnotic and engrossing – much more so than if the glass wall wasn’t there. I find it draws you in and invites you to look at detail in a way that normally you wouldn’t or couldn’t. 

Champagne Charlie

You say that a lot of plays could just be staged TV shows - what sort of other techniques have you used in this and other shows to covey a unique theatrical experience?

Matthew Lenton

Well, our very first show took place in total darkness. You really couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, no matter how hard you tried. The Audience were led in, in the darkness and seated as and the story unfolded around them. This was ten years ago now and there’s been lots of work in total darkness since then and a revolution in so-called ‘immersive’ theatre, led by companies like Punchdrunk. But I think all good theatre is immersive, like entering a world – whether you’re walking round a disused building or sitting in a dark theatre. I believe that what happens in a theatre should ONLY be able to happen in a theatre. 

Champagne Charlie

They say the theatre we get suits the times we are in - why do you think this work is relevant now?

Matthew Lenton

We live in a voyeuristic world where watching, and ways of watching are of continuing fascination to people. Also, when times are hard and people are afraid (or told they ought to be afraid), the solidity of your immediate environment becomes very important, and this is one of the things Interiors is about. 

Champagne Charlie

With the world entering difficult economic and social times do you ignore this outside world or integrate these changes in the themes you include in your work and your general approach?

Matthew Lenton

One of the things that inspired Interiors was a story in a newspaper a year or so ago about the northern Norwegian town of Longyearbyen in Svalbard. It is dark here for four months of every year. One resident said that people who survive the darkness are those who are socially active, those who have friends. People who are alone either go mad or get eaten by the Polar Bears. I liked the idea that, as economies come close to collapsing and as Polar icecaps are melting, what’s important is simple human contact, even if this itself is sometimes tragic and heartbreaking.  

Champagne Charlie

Do you see a change in audiences and what they want to see?

Matthew Lenton

For me, what’s important, is remembering that there is always a younger generation of audiences and theatre makers and most of the time they don’t want to see conventional plays in conventional theatres. 

Champagne Charlie

In a step by step form can you explain the production process from the 'idea' to the finished show we see?

Matthew Lenton

No, because it is never the same and often chaotic. We begin with an idea, explore it through play and improvisation, building an ensemble and gradually (sooner or later) working on structure. In the end, hopefully, it all comes together. It’s rather like a child playing with building blocks. He starts off making a castle, which turns into a mountain, which then becomes a ship. Finally it takes a shape he is happy with. This is play, but serious play and it requires concentration and discipline. That concentration and discipline must be built throughout the process in tandem with the development of the story. 

Champagne Charlie

How much do you rely on improvisation?

Matthew Lenton

We improvise throughout the rehearsal process. Most of the material comes from play and improvisation. Sometimes we don’t know where the improvisations are leading. Sometimes the actors don’t know what they are doing, but need the courage and invention to do it anyway. My work is a lot about the actors – they are at the centre. 

Champagne Charlie

Have you developed any techniques unique to the company for this or other shows?

Matthew Lenton

There are techniques that we use to develop material and to build understanding and complicity amongst the actors. There are also techniques we use to develop good acting. 

Champagne Charlie

If budget was no problem and you had to re-interpret a classic e.g. Shakespeare in the company style how do you think it would look and be like for an audience.

Matthew Lenton

I don’t like the word style. If we had a style, it would mean audiences would come along and see the same thing over and over again. For me, it’s about the story, the atmosphere and entering this world, whether that’s a play, or a very simple, bare idea. Perhaps there is something these worlds or atmospheres have in common from show to show. They tend to be dark, there tends to be a visual interplay between darkness and light, they tend to exist in a removed reality and they tend to create their own logic. Stories I like are The Beggar’s Opera (which we are doing next in a co-production with The Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in association with Tramway, Glasgow) and Pelleas and Mellisande by Maeterlinck. I also like some of the Greek stories. 

Champagne Charlie

What are the future plans for the show and the company itself over the next 6 months or so?

Matthew Lenton

'Interiors' goes to Naples in June as part of the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia and beyond that we’re hoping it will tour further afield. In August we begin rehearsing a re-imagined version of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, set in the near future.