Interview with Max Harrison, The Pitchfork Disney
Conducted by Greta for Theatre and Tonic.
Philip Ridley’s first ever play, The Pitchfork Disney, is known for its explosive and subversive exploration of fear and sexual anxiety. First premiering at the Bush Theatre in 1991, it now returns to London at the King’s Head Theatre for a limited run. Ahead of that, we caught up with the director Max Harrison to find out more.
1. What excites you most about directing Pitchfork Disney?
The thrill of the play. It’s a rollercoaster. It’s one of those few plays that is truly an emotional experience for its audience. It’s like plunging into a dream and being shaken about - a lot. Expect beating hearts, held breaths, and a couple of screams..
2. The creative team includes award-winning talent. How have their individual design languages influenced your directorial choices, and how was the process towards a cohesive aesthetic?
We are delighted to be working again with Ben Jacobs, who is an incredible, Olivier-Award-winning lighting designer, alongside sound designer Sam Glossop and my co-artistic director Kit Hinchcliffe. We’ve all worked together before, and so have a wonderful short hand. They truly are my dream team! We’ve talked a lot about bringing the feeling of the uncanny to the stage, which is hugely important for the play. It all takes place in one room, in real time, so the space is in itself a whole other character. With the set, we need to tell a rich history, that spans thirty years, before a line has even been said - that’s been the fun challenge with this!
3. The show features some intense content. How are you working with the actors to prepare them emotionally and psychologically for these challenging moments? Do you incorporate any specific rehearsal techniques or support practices?
It’s all about best practice - intimacy and fight directors mainly. But beyond that, we all, actors and audience alike, are craving an intensity at the moment. Craving a piece that will move, provoke, unsettle something. The world is so turbulent at the moment and we are looking for work that takes us on an emotional journey, that can give us that catharsis. I also work to give the actors freedom on stage, allowing them to change what they do each night. This allows the actors real spontaneity and means the audience meets a fresh and living, slightly unpredictable show each night.
4. Philip Ridley said about Pitchfork Disney, “Every time it’s revived it means something different… [it] vibrates with whatever’s going on in the atmosphere at the time”. In the context of today’s social and political climate, what contemporary resonances have emerged in your interpretation?
It’s a play about two people locked behind their own front door and terrified of the outside world - I think post Covid that resonance can speak for itself. It’s also a play about sex, and sexuality, what happens when that is repressed and warped, what sexual awakening does to us, and how scary love can be. And it’s about Fear. A fear that violence can burst through the door at any point. We don’t have to look far in the news at the moment to see how many stories contain violence that suddenly bursts in and irrevocably changes people’s lives.
5. Your company, Lidless Theatre, has built a significant relationship with Philip Ridley over several productions. What is it about Ridley’s writing that particularly resonates with your mission?
The Company is called Lidless Theatre, Lidless in terms of leaving the eyes open, of searching for the truth of things, of not blinking, of remaining an observer, whatever is happening. Phil, out of any modern playwright, is the most unflinching and unblinking when it comes to looking at the darkness of the world. That said, he sees the humour in us all as well, alongside the beautiful and the heartbroken. It’s amazing quite how broad his analysis of people is and how sensitively that’s written into his body of work.
The Pitchfork Disney plays at King’s Head Theatre from 27 August to 4 October.
