Face To Face

An interview, the ever-reliable Wikipedia informs us, is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to elicit facts or statements from the interviewee.

In the case of Theo Van Gogh's 2003 film The Interview [and Steve Buscemi's 2007 remake (and this new adaptation for stage by Sam Atwell)] the line between interviewer – Pierre, a hard-nosed war correspondent now forced into 'softer' beats – and interviewee – Katya, a b-grade soap actress looking for a little more integrity – is not so easily drawn. Both are trying to elicit facts, both want statements and 'truths' they can wield against the other, and to further their own gains.

In the case of the present interview – myself and director of The Interview Sam Atwell – the truth that's being searched for is what prompted Atwell to tackle the topic. “It all started one hung over Sunday getting a few DVDs out,” Atwell recalls a little sheepishly, the stakes for our own interview seeming considerably less high than the interrogation in the play he will direct. “I saw this film that I'd never heard of and thought, you know, that'll be one of the ten DVDs we get, and I watched it and it was great! And because it's very unusual for a film as it's all set in one location I thought, 'Yeah, that'd be an awesome play'.”

Atwell's initial enthusiasm was given legs when he was granted the rights to adapt the script, and he set to work bringing the thriller-esque story into a world known to Sydney audiences. “It was a grass is always greener type of thing; both characters very successful – well appeared so when you first meet them – but they were searching for something else, and because they were searching for something it destroyed them, because they were never happy with what they got – with what they had.

“I really tried to look at that and put it in a contemporary Australian location and era because I think that with reality TV and News Of The World and things like that, that truth is kind of skewed, so I really wanted to capture the main character to have that essence of people from reality TV, like Lara Bingle, that kind of thing.”

The company behind Atwell's production is Dreamhouse Artists, the same that brought Bondi Dreaming, a play inspired by events like those of the Bali Nine and Schapelle Corby, to the Bondi Pavilion stage last year. Atwell, who also directed Bondi Dreaming, says the extensive research that went into that play has helped shape the world of his latest endeavour. “When we went over to Bali and visited the Bali Nine we got to meet a lot of journalists – people in television, in print, in tabloids – and it's very interesting to see different people's takes on the profession, so then to put that alongside Katya's profession of acting, both characters are trying to portray something that's true,” Atwell says, again returning to the pre-occupation with truth that seems to lie at the heart of this play.

“And the similarities between different truths were really interesting, and I think for the actors it was really interesting for them to look at their own process. So in terms of acting we've gone through a process of stripping back all acting and trying to make it as truthful as possible, which is kind of tricky when there's a couple of different character traits going on – it's a very layered play!”