Post by Talissa on Apr 13, 2005 16:53:32 GMT 11
On screen and stage, there's a star in there
Philip Quast tells Bryce Hallett how Play School helped him as a performer.
With his big, watchful eyes, outspoken nature and expansive gestures, Philip Quast knows how to make an entrance, and not only on stage.
The London-based actor was doing what he loves best late last year - dividing his time between a straight play and a musical - when he hastily popped along to the launch of the director Michael Blakemore's memoir Arguments with England.
Quast didn't have time to change after performing in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and arrived clad in a short leather skirt, gold armbands and a matching helmet. Being a sage man of the theatre, Blakemore seemed not to care or notice when he casually introduced the actor to the playwright Michael Frayn. "Oh, by the way, Michael, this is Philip Quast. He's going to be in Democracy in Sydney."
Frayn stared in amazement, replying: "Really? What part?"
"Willy Brandt!"
Quast tells this story partly to illustrate how weird and wonderful his career has been and how, as an actor, he can defy expectation by being a lovable rogue one moment, a despised politician the next.
It's a mark of Quast's commitment and talent that he can almost vanish inside any number of vivid characters by drawing eccentricities, virtues and weaknesses to the fore.
His capabilities as an actor have been stretched this way and that by some of the world's most influential directors, be it in Shakespeare, documentary drama, Jacobean thrillers, cabaret or epic musicals such as Les Miserables, in which he cut a dashing figure as Inspector Javert.
Quast is regarded as a director's actor and he insists his time as a presenter on Play School enabled him to become a truthful, communicative and flexible performer. "It's one of the single most important things I have done," says the 48-year-old actor during a break from Democracy rehearsals.
"In the end, acting is a job like any other and you want to do it as well as you can. I love rehearsals - the pain, the neuroses, the continual process of learning ... The only thing I can compare it to is cooking a meal. You have to plan the menu and prepare the ingredients. You bring things to a boil and take things off the heat. You must also consider the number of guests. Sometimes you follow a recipe but there's always a risk. I love the cooking process and find that the actual eating isn't as much joy as the presentation."
A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Quast has won the Olivier theatre award in London three times - in 1990 for Sunday in the Park with George; in 1998 for his portrayal of a gay polio sufferer in The Fix; and in 2002 for South Pacific.
The character actor is drawn to working with first-rate directors and names them all: Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Adrian Noble, Sam Mendes, Gale Edwards, Howard Barker and Blakemore, an expatriate Australian.
"I jumped at the chance to work with Michael," says Quast. "He's a great teacher and has the ability to point things out without saying it's a problem. The writing [in Democracy] is intricate and precise and Michael knows it requires drilling. In a way, the play is a farce and the way it handles factual information is very clever ... It's a penetrating look at human complexity and I'm sure it will extend us all."
Democracy reunites friends and collaborators Frayn and Blakemore, whose production of Copenhagen won Tony Awards in New York and struck a chord with Sydney Theatre Company audiences in 2002, unexpectedly making the play one of its hits.
Democracy is a fusion of Cold War spy thriller, political shell game and intimate human drama. The play centres on Brandt, the first left-of-centre chancellor in West Germany in 40 years, and his downfall, plotted by his assistant Gunter Guillaume (Geoff Kelso), who spies on Brandt for the East German Stasi (secret police). It explores Guillaume's dual identity and the conflict between his duty to Brandt's enemies and his affection for their prey.
"Brandt is deeply, deeply flawed," says Quast. "He's manic-depressive but not Machiavellian; he's got a lot of the Kennedys and Clintons about him ... The thing is, the flaws that made Willy Brandt great also made him hated and brought him down. And without him the Cold War wouldn't have ended and the [Berlin] Wall wouldn't have come down. The world needs these sorts of people to move it forward."
Quast thrives on the energy and pressure of working in the theatre but says he's never been inclined to direct, except when he detects a lack of vision. "Actors feel unworthy, I think. When you work with a good director you never want to do it yourself. It's only when you're in a bad situation that you think, maybe it's time I gave it a go."
Most recently, Quast starred in David Hare's political play Stuff Happens, an experience so timely that it reconfirmed his passion for "the honesty" of the stage.
He admits to feeling torn between living in London, where he thrives on its rich cultural diversity, and Sydney, where he loves the beaches and the go-getting spirit. He has a terrace in Redfern but he and his wife, Carol, and their three sons rarely spend time there.
After the run of Democracy and a stint teaching music theatre in London, Quast will return to the STC in December to work with Howard Barker on The Cherry Orchard, for which Robyn Nevin will make a stage comeback after an absence of two years.
Democracy opens at the Sydney Theatre tomorrow.
www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/On-screen-and-stage-theres-a-star-in-there/2005/04/12/1113251626010.html
Philip Quast tells Bryce Hallett how Play School helped him as a performer.
With his big, watchful eyes, outspoken nature and expansive gestures, Philip Quast knows how to make an entrance, and not only on stage.
The London-based actor was doing what he loves best late last year - dividing his time between a straight play and a musical - when he hastily popped along to the launch of the director Michael Blakemore's memoir Arguments with England.
Quast didn't have time to change after performing in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and arrived clad in a short leather skirt, gold armbands and a matching helmet. Being a sage man of the theatre, Blakemore seemed not to care or notice when he casually introduced the actor to the playwright Michael Frayn. "Oh, by the way, Michael, this is Philip Quast. He's going to be in Democracy in Sydney."
Frayn stared in amazement, replying: "Really? What part?"
"Willy Brandt!"
Quast tells this story partly to illustrate how weird and wonderful his career has been and how, as an actor, he can defy expectation by being a lovable rogue one moment, a despised politician the next.
It's a mark of Quast's commitment and talent that he can almost vanish inside any number of vivid characters by drawing eccentricities, virtues and weaknesses to the fore.
His capabilities as an actor have been stretched this way and that by some of the world's most influential directors, be it in Shakespeare, documentary drama, Jacobean thrillers, cabaret or epic musicals such as Les Miserables, in which he cut a dashing figure as Inspector Javert.
Quast is regarded as a director's actor and he insists his time as a presenter on Play School enabled him to become a truthful, communicative and flexible performer. "It's one of the single most important things I have done," says the 48-year-old actor during a break from Democracy rehearsals.
"In the end, acting is a job like any other and you want to do it as well as you can. I love rehearsals - the pain, the neuroses, the continual process of learning ... The only thing I can compare it to is cooking a meal. You have to plan the menu and prepare the ingredients. You bring things to a boil and take things off the heat. You must also consider the number of guests. Sometimes you follow a recipe but there's always a risk. I love the cooking process and find that the actual eating isn't as much joy as the presentation."
A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Quast has won the Olivier theatre award in London three times - in 1990 for Sunday in the Park with George; in 1998 for his portrayal of a gay polio sufferer in The Fix; and in 2002 for South Pacific.
The character actor is drawn to working with first-rate directors and names them all: Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn, Adrian Noble, Sam Mendes, Gale Edwards, Howard Barker and Blakemore, an expatriate Australian.
"I jumped at the chance to work with Michael," says Quast. "He's a great teacher and has the ability to point things out without saying it's a problem. The writing [in Democracy] is intricate and precise and Michael knows it requires drilling. In a way, the play is a farce and the way it handles factual information is very clever ... It's a penetrating look at human complexity and I'm sure it will extend us all."
Democracy reunites friends and collaborators Frayn and Blakemore, whose production of Copenhagen won Tony Awards in New York and struck a chord with Sydney Theatre Company audiences in 2002, unexpectedly making the play one of its hits.
Democracy is a fusion of Cold War spy thriller, political shell game and intimate human drama. The play centres on Brandt, the first left-of-centre chancellor in West Germany in 40 years, and his downfall, plotted by his assistant Gunter Guillaume (Geoff Kelso), who spies on Brandt for the East German Stasi (secret police). It explores Guillaume's dual identity and the conflict between his duty to Brandt's enemies and his affection for their prey.
"Brandt is deeply, deeply flawed," says Quast. "He's manic-depressive but not Machiavellian; he's got a lot of the Kennedys and Clintons about him ... The thing is, the flaws that made Willy Brandt great also made him hated and brought him down. And without him the Cold War wouldn't have ended and the [Berlin] Wall wouldn't have come down. The world needs these sorts of people to move it forward."
Quast thrives on the energy and pressure of working in the theatre but says he's never been inclined to direct, except when he detects a lack of vision. "Actors feel unworthy, I think. When you work with a good director you never want to do it yourself. It's only when you're in a bad situation that you think, maybe it's time I gave it a go."
Most recently, Quast starred in David Hare's political play Stuff Happens, an experience so timely that it reconfirmed his passion for "the honesty" of the stage.
He admits to feeling torn between living in London, where he thrives on its rich cultural diversity, and Sydney, where he loves the beaches and the go-getting spirit. He has a terrace in Redfern but he and his wife, Carol, and their three sons rarely spend time there.
After the run of Democracy and a stint teaching music theatre in London, Quast will return to the STC in December to work with Howard Barker on The Cherry Orchard, for which Robyn Nevin will make a stage comeback after an absence of two years.
Democracy opens at the Sydney Theatre tomorrow.
www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/On-screen-and-stage-theres-a-star-in-there/2005/04/12/1113251626010.html
