What was it like premiering a play about Afghanistan in New York three months after the terrorist attacks?
Our British friends assumed ‘Homebody/Kabul’ would be cancelled. Nobody in New York did.There was a subdued but warm atmosphere. Some of the actors were arranging funeral services. The strange odour of vapourised metal wafted into the rehearsal room. In the end, the play was received with great warmth, but it was astonishingly uncontroversial. You’ve been mooted as one of the contenders to take over the RSC. Would you be tempted by the offer? I have only had one experience directing with the RSC, which was The School For Scandal in 1998, and that was very positive indeed. However, I will not be applying to run the RSC! For me, the main problem with the RSC pre-dates Adrian [Noble]’s directorship. He was handed a poisoned chalice. The problem with the RSC is that there is too much of it. The company was inflated way beyond its natural proportion in the late Seventies, and is simply too big. Anyone who runs a large institution has to struggle to prevent the structure from overwhelming th
