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The godfather of theatre, Neil Armfield, sat down with Garrett Bithell to chat about his life in the arts.
Neil Armfield is perhaps the most authoritative creative voice in the country. As Artistic Director of Company B, one of our most respected and celebrated theatre companies, his instinctive, prodigious flair for story consistently redefines the standards of stage production. Under his twinkling, incisive eyes, Belvoir Street Theatre has become the cradle of artistic life.
So it was with more than a little trepidation that I arrived at Neil’s home in Leichhardt. But I was quickly put at ease by his laid-back and genial manner. He has kind, reassuring eyes. Eyes that suggest he is developing an impression of you that at your best you would hope to convey. His surroundings are pastoral, homely and sweetly chaotic.
We sat in the garden for what would be, for me, one hour of pure inspiration.
Neil graduated from Sydney University in 1977 and became Co-Artistic Director of Nimrod Theatre in 1979. He joined South Australia’s Lighthouse Theatre before returning to Sydney in 1985, where he was involved in the purchase of Belvoir Street Theatre and the formation of Company B, becoming its first Artistic Director in 1994.
“It’s been a bit of a life’s work looking back,” Neil tells SX. “You put your head down and do your best for a while, and look up and discover that you’ve been there for 20 years.”
At the moment he is enjoying the novelty of his office in the ‘Warehouse’, the new administration home of Company B just down Belvoir Street from the theatre. He previously always worked from home.
“It appeals to all my maternal, micro-managing tendencies to be there and to listen in on conversations all around the office,” Neil says. “You can sense when there’s tension and you’re able to go and talk to that person, and I love that. It supplies my thwarted family instincts.”
Company B was again the star at last month’s Sydney Theatre Awards, taking out nine gongs at the annual event – with seven of them being awarded to Toy Symphony, which Neil directed.
“That’s terribly gratifying,” Neil muses. “But I’ve been there a long time. I’m not intending to just up and leave but I am really keen to get new generations of directors empowered in the space.
“I’ve been actively trying to open the work of the company up without in any way compromising the strength and the quality and the confidence that audiences have – because that is so hard won.”
It is clear that Neil has an unflinching trust in the power of theatre. It has consumed over 30 years of his life, but what’s delightful and humbling to witness is that he is still inspired into artistic wonder – he still has the ability to be lost in the labyrinth of human expression.
“Theatre gives in a very primal way the ability to sit in a room and share the space with theatrical story, which is like an imaginative rehearsing or projection of your own life or your own dreams,” Neil says. “Like reading a great novel or poem or seeing a great film, it can open up your imagination and touch and exercise those deep muscles of humanity that we have.”
The recent death of Neil’s friend Heath Ledger struck him hard. He had directed Ledger in Candy. “I have become so aware of this feeling of numbed silence, this beautiful, generous heart stopped,” Neil wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. “He had found his way, taking risks as an artist that very few would dare – fantastic leaps of imagination and faith.”
Perhaps one such leap of imagination and faith has been taken by Kate Mulvany, who took the independent theatre world by storm in the 2007 B Sharp season with her Philip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award commission, The Seed. The play is now moving upstairs as a full Company B production. Neil is companion director to Iain Sinclair.
The story involves three generations of the Maloney family: Brian, a stoic IRA solider; Danny, his Vietnam veteran son; and Rose, his granddaughter. The Seed was written as an exploration of Mulvany’s own family’s spectres of war.
“It seemed like a very urgent tale,” Neil tells. “Her perspective as the inheritor of those different engagements with the British Empire – where that landed her as a viewer of all that. Once you move into the upstairs theatre a play has to have a certain gravitas or imaginative power to throw itself out into that amphitheatre. And we definitely feel The Seed has that.”
Last year, Neil was awarded Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the arts.
“I was very proud to get that,” he says. “While I have really huge problems with where Australia had been going under Howard, you care so much because you love the country so much.” Moreover, Neil holds a tempered hope for the new federal government.
“As long as we can get away from this hideous dog whistling that Howard always relied on – quietly putting out the most despicable opinions and encouraging people to feel satisfied with their own ignorant, inward-looking little castles. Pull up the bridges and build up the walls and forget what life is about and what life might be and what responsible engagement with society might be.”
He is keenly aware of the challenges facing the future guardians of the arts.
“I just feel really lucky,” he admits. “I’ve had a ball. I’m part of that baby boomer generation that maybe got it all. And I feel that we have a responsibility to try and hold onto and bring through the current generations for whom it’s much tougher.
“Basically if you want to work in the theatre, you find a way of making yourself essential.”
The Seed by Kate Mulvany plays upstairs at Belvoir Street Theatre from February 21 – March 30. For tickets visit www.belvoir.com.au or call (02) 9699 3444.
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Midas touch
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