Belvoir St Theatre is thrilled to present Simon Phillip’s new adaptation of Max Porter’s bestselling novel, Grief is the Thing With Feathers, premiering 26 July. Co-adapted by Phillips, Nick Schlieper and Toby Schmitz, Grief is the Thing With Feathers is an imaginative and poetic take on how a family navigates loss.
The Scoop had the chance to sit down with Toby Schmitz, who is also starring in the play alongside Philip Lynch and Fraser Morrison. Toby talks all things Grief, including bringing this new work to life and returning to Belvoir. Read the full interview below.
Could you by describe your experience reading Max Porter’s novel for the first time, and speak to why it struck a chord with you?
I don’t think there are many people that it doesn’t strike a chord with. I think everyone remembers who gave them a copy, or when they first read it. It’s so affecting. I read it about five years ago in preparation for potentially turning it into a piece of theatre. So I hadn’t read it until that notion was in the air. But I was already sort of reading it as a kind of dialogue with an audience.
I cried, I laughed, I found it affirming and universal and deeply moving. All the things that people say about it. From the very beginning, it made me think of live performance. I suppose that’s because I am, primarily, an actor, but also just the layout of the book. It’s set out as characters in conversation. With an audience, with themselves, with the past, with the Crow.
You’ve taken on the role of both the actor and co-adapter of this work. Why this play for Australian audiences and why now?
I think that the book has been incredibly popular since it was first published ten years ago, and that really says it all. The art of it, the special originality of it speaks to why and when to put it on. No matter which country you were in, it was a story that immediately burst onto the scene and has been reverberating exponentially ever since. I mean, even Dua Lipa is raving about it on the internet.
How has your role in adapting this work informed you as an actor, in terms of your preparation and performance?
I’ve worked on new works for most of my life, as a director, writer, editor, and definitely as an actor. And I think that’s what actors do, especially on new works. They solve things. Do we need this monologue? What if I said this bit faster? I could do this line with a wink? And so I feel like I’m always adapting in a way.
The fact that on this particular play, I have a co-adapting role with Simon Phillips and Nick Schlieper is lovely, but it doesn’t earn me any more money. I think it’s high time that people who workshop new plays – and in this country, you only get five weeks to do that, plus rehearse it – should be copping a bit more credit and acknowledgement for that. So this is a little bit of an experiment in that direction.
At the same time, Phillips, Schlieper and I did start working on this two years ago in a workshop and have been back and forth on it ever since. But I’ve always felt as an actor working on a new work, “Wait a minute, I was editor, writer, director, and I rehearsed it as an actor!” In that regard, it’s a slightly poor credit when it just says, “played Waiter #3.”
You mentioned that this has been an experiment of sorts. Is there anything particularly surprising that you discovered through this process that you maybe didn’t intend or expect when you began this journey five years ago?
Not particularly, and I think that’s a good thing, in that everything that I received from reading it for the first time or suspected about it is coming into fruition. I don’t think anyone should expect anything radically different from their experience of reading the book. I mean, of course, it’s a live experience and in theatre, we are battling with bladders.
Whereas in a book, you can dip into it, read it in any order you want, reread passages and so on. However, I think if there is any surprise I could identify, it would be how beautifully and naturally what is in the book is able to convert into theatre.
I wanted to talk to you about Simon Phillips. He is a titan in the Australian theatre scene. Could you describe the rehearsal process and what it’s been like having him at the helm of this play?
A hoot. An absolute blast. I have worked with Simon on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Importance of Being Earnest, arguably pillars of the Western canon. Every second is play. I mean, I’ve been looking forward to working with him again for years for that exact reason. For months in the lead up to this, I’ve been itching because I know that once I’m in the room, I get to turn off my phone and have fun, no matter how sad the material might be, it’s a hoot with so many laughs.
Hamlet says, “the play’s the thing,” and it is. Criticising English actors back in his day, Bernard Shaw said that they’re not good at it. But just like they’re no good at cricket, they work at it. It should be fun, it should be a game. I could actually wax lyrical about Simon’s talents as a director and collaborator for hours. But what’s most amazing and wonderful is, it’s a thrill. I’m here early every morning. I’m running here before the sun’s up.
You are no stranger to the Belvoir stage. What has it been like returning for this collaboration?
Fabulous. There is such great juju in the rehearsal room here and on the stage just up the road. It’s a small company, and it’s tightly knit for that reason. They’re running on the smell of a rag. And you know, some of the best art is produced in the Gulag. All the vectors line up here. It’s storytelling on First Australians’ land. There is just something about it, it’s kind of magic. For what used to be an old factory, it’s got beautiful ghosts living here.
My last question is one that we ask everyone that we interview for The Scoop, and I was hoping that you could weigh in. Do you have any advice for young creatives who are trying to develop their craft professionally?
Yeah, it’s advice I hand out instantly and with great gusto: go and make it. And I don’t think that’s a trite bit of advice because it’s what I did. I did that at school. I put on plays at lunchtime. And when I was at university, pissing away a law degree, I found a theatre that was dark a couple of nights a week, and I put something on. I’m talking about theatre, but I think it applies to all art. You can paint in a garret, and you can exhibit on the street. You can write on the back of scrap paper and keep sending it to publishers.
I just think the advent of the cameras in mobile phones is an incredible resource that I wish I’d had as a kid. You can make your own movies. Or just do a bit from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by yourself in your bedroom, straight into the barrel of the phone, and then watch it back to improve your acting. Just go make stuff. And if it’s any good, someone will see it, eventually.
If you go down to the Old Fitzroy Hotel theatre and sit at the bar long enough and go and see enough plays, eventually someone’s going to go, “Oh, what do you do? You want to come sweep the stage?” I mean, that is how it happens in every profession. You’ve just got to be able to kind of starve while you’re doing it. But I think when you’re young, that’s what you are prepared to do.
I shoplifted rice, I lived on a shit futon in a squat for years, and I had the best time of my life. A little harder to do now as I approach year 50. But when you’re young, you can starve and you still have energy, and you can still enjoy running away with the circus and making stuff.
Grief is the Thing with Feathers runs 26 July to 29 August at the Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills NSW 2010.
Tickets: https://my.belvoir.com.au/overview/13839
Website: https://belvoir.com.au/productions/grief-is-the-thing-with-feathers/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/belvoirst/ and https://www.instagram.com/tobymschmitz/
Image credits: Toby Schmitz in rehearsal for Grief is the Thing With Feathers. Photos by Brett Boardman
