To be, or not to be an acting ensemble
Author: Jeremy Eccles
Date: 16/09/1995
Publication: THE SUNDAY AGE
 

The Director. 
For his `Hamlet', Neil Armfield has created a remarkable ensemble cast. Jeremy Eccles 
reports. 
 
``EVERYONE in the cast could play Hamlet, you know . . . what a company," relished its 
director, Neil Armfield. 
 
``It was always one of the first principles of the production that there should be an 
absence of salary or role structure when you looked at the stage. So often you can see 
it all too plainly who are the stars, and who aren't. But then, of course, that visible 
equality is a reflection of the Belvoir pay structure. 
 
``It makes the actors realise that everyone has to be as strong and true as the others and 
any link that breaks is a disaster." 
 
There have been several attempts to create the perfect ensemble company in Australia 
before Rex Cramphorn in both Sydney and Melbourne, Jean Pierre Mignon at Anthill, and, 
most successfully, the Lighthouse in Adelaide spring to mind. Only in the latter case 
with which Armfield was involved was there the institution first, and then the chosen 
group of actors, directors, designers, musicians, etc who could rely on its certain 
nurturing to be daring and experimental. 
 
After 10 years, Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre the actors' theatre, saved from developers entirely through their hard- earned 
funds has become less of a collective by appointing Neil Armfield as its sole artistic 
director, but more collective in giving him a core of the country's finest actors to work 
with regularly. And, as Armfield talks, he's constantly making the link between the building 
and organisation at Belvoir and this `Hamlet' one of the most notable productions in that 
decade. 
 
So what is Armfield's role as both artistic director and director? Is the collective culture 
of Belvoir threatened by his pre-eminence? Reports from the rehearsal room are equivocal. 
 
Some actors find his diffident presence, occasionally puzzled looks behind owlish glasses, 
and omnipresent dog, Kevin, proof that they are having to do all the hard work while he 
wins the awards such as Green Room Awards for `Angels in America', `Away' and `Hate'. 
Others delight in this freedom. 
 
``Trust and nourishment have to be the basis of everything we do at Belvoir," Armfield 
rationalised. ``We don't have the money to pay the best actors what they're worth and the 
best companies are always based around the actors. But someone eventually has to make the 
decisions. I've never been an artistic director before I enjoy responsibility, but I've 
been uncomfortable with most company structures." 
 
``You've always been artistic director by default," added one of Armfield's team quietly 
his Ophelia, Cate Blanchett, hot from touring `Oleanna' and `Sweet Pheobe', and filming 
the forthcoming TV series, `Bordertown'. 
 
``During rehearsal," Armfield continued, ``I just try to be the still centre. It's a bit 
of a paradox, I guess . . . exerting control while allowing things their own shape. But 
it's the paradox of Belvoir as well. With `Hamlet', I arrived at rehearsals only with 
enthusiasms and hunches . . . the feeling that it was primarily concerned with mistrust. 
 
``And without trust, no human impulse can remain true . . . very pertinent to the rehearsal 
process. It's another justification for the ensemble company for with each progressive 
production, the fear lessens, the trust grows. So often a joke from the strangest corner 
of the room provides the insight. 
 
You have to be receptive to that." 
 
With the Belvoir `Hamlet', the quintessence discerned by many Sydney reviewers was less 
Richard Roxburgh's Prince ``laughing, prancing, panicking, contemplating suicide, or being 
dangerously silly" but the Horatio of Geoffrey Rush. 
 
So often a holographic character, Horatio is here omnipresent as Hamlet's conscience, 
living his line, ``I will wear you in my heart's core". So, how had this characterisation 
developed with the often brilliantly manic Rush of `Diary of a Madman', `The Government 
Inspector' and `Oleanna'? 
 
``I admit I had to hook Geoffrey to get him to come up to Sydney," Armfield explained. 
"And I told him he'd cry in the end! He's been playing so many neurotic central figures 
upon whom the energy of shows depended that anxiety was taking hold of him off stage. 
 
``It was terrible for his friends to watch . . . a force rising up and taking over. Horatio 
was going to need a capacity for stillness and listening . . . he's the audience's ears 
into the play. Geoffrey doubted himself but he's so loyal and trusting, I knew that his 
personal capacity to give in friendship absolutely would bring an extraordinary quality 
to Hamlet's friendship. And the result is that the beauty of the human mind and the 
potential of the species to both of which Horatio is the essential witness have an aching 
quality in the play." 
 
Love and trust in the rehearsal room matched by love and trust in the production. And when 
you look at Armfield's cast including Rush, Roxburgh and Blanchett, Jacek Koman and Gillian 
Jones, Ralph Cotteril and Kevin Smith, Keith Robinson and David Wenham all of them are not 
only capable of playing Hamlet, but going right over the top! 
 
IN `The Tempest', which tours to other cities with `Hamlet' but didn't fit in with the MTC's 
plans, some certainly did when the production opened . . . to the point where Barry Otto 
had to remind us who Prospero was each time he reappeared! How had this happened? 
 
``We relaxed too much in rehearsal," was Armfield's simple answer. ``It had been a successful 
1990 production, and I thought it was going to be easy. It got there by the end of the run, 
though. The problem is that great comedy comes from a sense of daring anarchy. In fact, whether 
it's comedy or grief, an actor has to break the rules and be unruly. 
 
``If they know what is being communicated and trust each other, then every night they can 
take each scene where they want to take it. It's the only way that theatre can feel as 
though it's happening for the first time . . . somewhere in the air shared between the 
actors and the audience." 
 
``And coming back to Belvoir again we draw enormously from the energies of the actors and 
the space at the theatre. 
 
Having the stage in one corner gives a quality of listening that's unlike anywhere else. 
It allows such relaxation of performance." 
 
The challenge for Armfield and Co now is to find out how to allow those qualities to 
travel away from Belvoir. `Hamlet' is at the Playhouse.