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Annie Baker: 'Be incredibly vulnerable, but not necessarily confessional'

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Annie Baker has created a new kind of epic play: richly detailed, quiet, slow-burning dramas, full of tragicomic details about the mundanity of everyday life. In 2013, her play Circle Mirror Transformation, about a community drama class, received its European premiere in a production by the Royal Court. In a masterstroke of site-specific theatre, it was performed at a community centre in Haggerston, with Imelda Staunton and Toby Jones in the cast. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Flick came to the National Theatre's Dorfman in 2016 on a wave of hype; it was a tender study of minimum-wage misfits cleaning a cinema. Now comes another chance to see her work in the intimate environs of the Dorfman: John, directed by James McDonald, opens there this week.

What was the first play to make you want to write plays?

I had a very odd and specific introduction to plays as a child. For some reason, my father and I would read Oscar Wilde plays out loud together whenever I visited him. In terms of seeing theatre, the only plays I saw were the musicals the high schoolers performed in my small town. I remember a high school production of Guys and Dolls particularly rocked my world when I was eleven. And then when I was fourteen, I somehow ended up in New York City's East Village at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre for a production of Richard Foreman's Permanent Brain Damage, which was pretty much as an avant-garde as you could get in 1995. So somehow Oscar Wilde plus Guys and Dolls plus people behind a glass wall hitting each other on the heads with plastic hammers made me love theatre. Now that I'm writing this out, it makes sense. Also, later I had a wonderful high school drama teacher who got me into Shakespeare and Caryl Churchill. A production of Blue Heart (starring June Watson, who is in John!) miraculously came to Massachusetts on tour and he sent me to it.

What’s the hardest play you’ve ever written?

Both John and The Flick were very hard to write. Actually, it just gets harder with every play. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

Which brought you the most joy?

Oh, they've all brought me very intense moments of joy. I can think back to ecstatic moments with every play. They usually involve being in rehearsal with actors.

Which playwrights have influenced you the most?

The usual suspects: Chekhov, Beckett, Shakespeare, Caryl Churchill, and then a lot of novelists and poets and filmmakers. Also the work of my favourite contemporaries in New York City: Sibyl Kempson, Amy Herzog, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Richard Maxwell, Young Jean Lee, Elevator Repair Service...

What is your favourite line or scene from any play?

You know, a line from a play isn't leaping into my head and I don't want to go searching for one since I don't have my books with me in London. Here's what just came into my head. It's a line from the introduction to Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain: "Only thoroughness can be truly entertaining."

What’s been the biggest surprise to you since you’ve had your writing performed by actors?

Oh, just that theatre is made of bodies! In space! Moving through time! It's not text on a page. Also I'm always shocked that what directors usually tell actors is the opposite of what my director and I want them to do for my play.

What’s been your biggest setback as a writer?

I'd say my biggest setback is probably my tremendous anxiety and perfectionism. But that's also been my greatest asset.

And the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn?

The hardest lesson has been my favourite, and one I'm still learning, which is the art of when to give an actor a note.

What do you think is the best thing about theatre? And the worst?

My favourite thing about it is that it is made of bodies and space and time. The worst thing about it, at least in the US, is the ticket prices.

What’s your best piece of advice for writers who are starting out?

Be incredibly vulnerable, but not necessarily confessional. Invent your own genre. Don't try to look smart.

Are there any themes and stories you find yourself re-visiting with your plays?

I'm sure, but I don't like to think about it too hard. I want it to feel like the play descended from the heavens. I do have a secret political project with every play I write.

Are you on Twitter? Do you find it a help or a hindrance as a writer?

I just joined a little over a year ago. It is the weirdest thing. I'm totally fascinated by it. My favourite thing about it is when people retweet articles I wouldn't read otherwise. The actual dialogue happening on Twitter is mindblowingly bogus. I wish it was just a site for article-retweeting and political organizing and the occasional cry for help.

Why did you write John?

I wrote it because everything that happens in that play relates to something I was grappling with, personally, philosophically, politically, at the time I wrote it.

How do you spend opening night?

Oh, I usually just sit and watch the play and think about how fast time goes and how close I am to death the whole time.

What’s the best play you’ve seen this year?

I really loved Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's Everybody at the Signature Theatre and Amy Herzog's Mary Jane at New York Theatre Workshop.

What’s your favourite place to watch theatre in London?

The National. I think that building and the sense of camaraderie in it is just so special. Although when I was a teenager I had this fantasy about London that involved there being a theatre space in the back of every pub. That has turned out not to be true.

What other art forms do you love when you’re not in a theatre?

I am an avid novel-reader and film-watcher.

If the Prime Minister said they were abolishing the theatre tomorrow, what would you do?

Maybe part of me would be excited? I like the idea of theatre getting a little more bad-ass and subversive. Like crowd-pleasing Broadway/West End comedies with enormous budgets would immediately become irrelevant. And it would scare all the movie stars away.

John is at the National Theatre until March 3; nationaltheatre.org.uk. Circle Mirror Transformation is at HOME Manchester is March 2-16; homemcr.org