Actor Harry Greenwood Takes A Trip To Cloud Nine For Sydney Theatre Company

Few playwrights command the same level of reverence as Caryl Churchill. The British dramatist has been on the bleeding edge of experimental theatre since the late 1950s, consistently setting the benchmark for stylistic innovation and originality. Despite boasting more than fifty plays to her canon, she rarely, if ever, charts the same territory twice. Her work is dynamic, bold, fearlessly complex, politically daring, and progressive yet rooted in a thorough knowledge of the history of theatrical forms. In short, Caryl Churchill is a living legend.

It's little wonder then, that an actor tasked with performing one of her characters approaches this challenge with a mix of heartfelt respect and mild panic. "With most plays, you might do a reading around the table on the first day of rehearsals, and you kind of get a pretty immediate idea of the kind of psychology of the role. But with Caryl's plays, you just can't do that. There's a multiplicity of different layers to any character," explains actor Harry Greenwood. "They're thinking multiple things at one time, they have contradictory desires, wants, loves, pains. And that complexity is really what makes her theatre so brilliant because it reflects true humanity, where we do have all those conflicts and questions happening all at once. To capture that on stage is a very difficult thing for an actor. You kind of have to just trust the words, think through it, break it down and build it back up again."

As Greenwood prepares to star in Sydney Theatre Company's upcoming production of Churchill's 1979 play Cloud Nine, he already has some valuable experience under his belt. Not only does he boast a recent turn in the Churchill play Love And Information, staged by STC in 2015, this latest production is also being helmed by the same director, STC's new AD, Kip Williams. "He's a very collaborative director and that's really the only way to tackle this kind of theatre in rehearsal - by trying things out and experimenting with different solutions," Greenwood shares. "He has a very generous approach, but all the while he has an acute sense of where things need to be in the end, and an incredible eye for detail - his instinct for visuals is incredible. It's a real gift to work with someone like that - you feel confident in their vision but you're also able to offer your own creative thoughts."

"The sense you're left with after you see one of her plays is that brilliant mind opening feeling."

Even by Churchill's experimental standards, Cloud Nine is a strange beast. Set in British colonial Africa in the Victorian Era, the first act offers a kind of consciously hackneyed farce satirising the buttoned-up social norms of the period. The second act blows the doors off this period set-up as it radically toys with sexual agency and taboo language, including a toe-curling number of expletives. The cast drift through roles regardless of gender as Churchill's ultimate message, calling for acceptance of people who are different, without fear of stigmas or expectations of conformity, reaches its fractious conclusion.

Playing both male and female roles, while oscillating between historical pastiche and contemporary drama, turning on a pin head between shifting tonalities and characterisations, calls for a rock-steady level of craft. "You always look to approach a character from a place of truth, so that's always a key place to start. But in the first-half I'm playing the housewife, so there's a certain comedic value and a more farcical style that's required," Greenwood notes. "There's a very quick, very precise use of language, and these big ideas underneath it all about society and identity, what it is to be a man, what it is to be a woman. So everything I do on stage has to be in service to those ideas."

The son of Aussie acting legend Hugo Weaving, Greenwood's attention to detail and strength of technique follows in his father's footsteps. Much like his dad, who is as celebrated on stage as he is on screen, perfecting his abilities in the arena of live theatre has been of vital importance to Greenwood: "Great acting comes from your observations of life, of yourself, of other people. And theatre is an extremely collaborative art form - you test things out in front of others constantly. I think that really helps you to hone down to that kernel of truth more authentically. But it's also a challenge, and I really relish coming to work every day, surrounded by such incredible, inspirational, driven people, especially working on a piece like Caryl Churchill's. The sense you're left with after you see one of her plays is that brilliant mind opening feeling that we search for in the arts, where you're left wondering about the world and ourselves."

Harry Greenwood appears in Sydney Theatre Company's Could Nine, 7 Jul — 12 Aug at the Wharf 1 Theatre.