Theatre

I, Malvolio star Tim Crouch talks to TM

Acclaimed British writer and performer Tim Crouch is bringing his award-winning play, I, Malvolio, to the Arts Centre Melbourne in January 2015.

When we heard the show is a hilarious and unsettling re-imagination of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, we were intrigued. So we went straight to the source to find out more.

Ticketmaster: Tim, you are bringing your award-winning show I, Malvolio to the Arts Centre Melbourne in January. What should the audience expect?

Tim Crouch: What they shouldn’t expect is a nice comfy snooze in a dark auditorium.  This is theatre, not film. It’s theatre that is nothing without its audience. Malvolio is a solo show – but there are two characters in it: me and the audience. We play together – a game of theatre-goer and theatre-hater. Don’t worry – you won’t be picked on but you will be rudely implicated! And you will be subtly invited to misbehave.

I, Malvolio is outrageous and funny; outrageously funny. It is a clown show that is dark and sometimes disturbing. It was once described as a sustained ‘reverse heckle’. The Guardian in the UK called it “…a by turns hysterical and harrowing study of thwarted dignity, cruelty, bullying, self-hatred and meta-theatrical revenge”.

TM: I, Malvolio is a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. What was is about that work that you were drawn to?

TC: I played Malvolio in a production of Twelfth Night in New York back in 2001. His is one of the great unfinished stories.  His last line in Shakespeare’s play is “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you”, but then you never find out what his revenge might be. In my play I explore what it could be. He’s treated really badly in Twelfth Night and yet we all laugh at him. He’s a carrier for lots of themes – from cruelty to bigotry, from repression to release. He’s not in the play that much, but he’s the most memorable presence in it.  He is both a tragic hero and a clown.

I’m also interested in him because he’s someone who hates theatre and he’s stuck inside a play. This chimes with my theatrical obsessions – to have someone on stage who challenges the whole point and purpose of the audience’s presence.

In I, Malvolio I give him his revenge! I hope he appreciates it…

TM: The show was written to introduce teens to Shakespeare. Can you explain why is it so important to you that young people continue to learn about the works of Shakespeare?

TC: Shakespeare informed our modern sense of what it is to be human. He ‘invented’ our idea of the human. Before him – and the European playwrights of the Renaissance – our actions were determined by God or by the gods.  Shakespeare’s plays are like our secular bible.  His work still influences how we think about ourselves as human beings.

This is why it’s necessary to keep him alive in our culture and this means making him especially relevant to young people.  Shakespeare’s plays do not belong in a museum; they speak to how we live today.  His characters are early archetypes for how we see ourselves now. Malvolio, for example, feels like a very modern character – an authority figure, a pleasure-hater, a religious bigot, a clown, a disciplinarian. It’s good for a modern young audience to know that these kinds of people have always existed.

There is a problem, sometimes, with Shakespeare – which is his language.  This can sometimes stop people from having access to his stories and his characters.  My intention with I, Malvolio is to honour Shakespeare but also to make his stories accessible. You don’t need to know Twelfth Night to enjoy I, Malvolio.  But I hope you will come away from the play with a sense of Shakespeare’s humanity. 

TM: The show has been described as hilarious and unsettling, how do you find a balance of emotions?

TC: The best kind of clown is a dark clown.  The best kind of laugh is a complicated laugh; a laugh that provokes as well as entertains. There is this duality in I, Malvolio.  I get you to laugh at me and then I attack you for laughing at me…

Most comedy contains an element of cruelty.  We laugh at the man slipping on the banana skin; we laugh because it’s him and not us; because we feel superior.  I, Malvolio operates within this realm.  I make you laugh, then I invite you to consider where that laugh comes from – where are you really getting your kicks from?  Malvolio’s catch-phrase in the show is “Do you find that funny? Is that the kind of thing you find funny?”. He’s horrified that you should be laughing at him, even though he generated the laugh in the first place.  It’s a lovely playful space that invites the audience to be complicit in what’s going on.  We make the show together.

TM: For your works you write, perform and take responsibility for production – how do you juggle it all?

TC: Everything starts with the writing. Different shows have different requirements. This year (2014) I opened a new play at the Royal Court theatre in London. This was a Royal Court production that I directed but didn’t perform in.  It was the biggest show I have made and I worked alongside two long-term collaborators, Karl James and Andy Smith who were my co-directors.  Karl and Andy also worked with me on I, Malvolio, but a year after I had opened it.  I was starting to tour it seriously and I felt the need for an outside eye.

Different shows require different things – but I am not one of those playwrights who write and then hand over the script and leave a group of others to put it on the stage.  In this respect, I call myself a theatre-maker rather than a playwright.  As I write, I think about the time and space of the theatre.

TM: What can expect next from you?

TC: An Oak Tree celebrates its tenth anniversary next year and is coming back.  It will run in a big theatre in London next year and then tour a little.  My Royal Court play from this year, Adler & Gibb, will start to tour in 2016 and I am working on a project for the RSC based on all of the onstage deaths in Shakespeare.  This will open in 2016 – the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.  Lots of writing next year – a book on my work as well as a new play for young audiences.  I hope some of this new stuff will connect with Australia at some point.

TM: Thanks for joining us. Good luck with I, Malvolio at the Arts Centre Melbourne and all your future projects.

I, Malvolio will be performed at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Fairfax Studio from January 6-11, 2015. Click here to purchase tickets.