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Friday 9 January 2009

Poetry in motion

Henrietta Bredin talks to Peter Manning about taking risks and creating opportunities

There’s an avid delight in risk-taking here that puts a grin on Manning’s face and sets his blue eyes blazing. ‘I’m a practical musician, it’s what I do, and I reached a break-out point where I felt there was enough energy, an accumulation of understanding and knowledge, which would allow new work to emerge. Being a Mancunian, a northerner, is important to me, and as part of that my great hero, a massive inspiration to me, is John Barbirolli. He virtually recreated the Hallé Orchestra when he came back to England from New York in the early Forties, and he was a natural communicator who really understood the nature of working with people towards a common aim. It’s been a slow, gradual business for me, acquiring experience, and building projects takes time too; they have to gather their own shape. The Burial at Thebes has been three and a half years in the making. I want to encourage a proper discourse among artists about what is the nature of work, the nature of art. That discourse does happen to a certain extent but sometimes it misses the musicians, the actors, the artists themselves. Musicians can be a little bit myopic, sealed into specific corridors of activity which can preclude widening the experience. There’s a danger of areas of understanding and skill becoming so prescribed that the connection points will become frayed and no one will know what anyone else is doing.’

The finding of the right physical space in which to perform must have been crucial. ‘It certainly was. I knew we had to find a theatre where the audience would be closely engaged with the performers. It’s a chamber piece and we need that sort of intimacy — a big proscenium theatre was never going to work. I met Conrad Lynch, the executive producer of the Globe, and we got on very well, so the ball started rolling. I think it fits into Dominic Dromgoole’s artistic vision too, for expanding the repertory beyond Shakespeare. They’ve got a fantastic group of in-house musicians who are involved in most of their plays but they hadn’t tackled a purely music project before. The theatre has a spirit of openness, not least because it is open to the elements, and everything will be perfectly audible, which is essential to what we’re aiming for: maximum impact and total theatrical effect.’

Rehearsals for The Burial at Thebes start in September and Peter Manning is raring to go. ‘I wouldn’t have got anywhere if people hadn’t taken risks on me as my career developed. Now I can return the favour.’

More articles from: Henrietta Bredin | this section

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