Patrick Marber: ‘I’ll be in therapy for the rest of my life – if I can afford it’

The playwright and director on writing and depression, collaborating with Tom Stoppard, and reconnecting with his Jewish roots

Patrick Marber is a playwright, director, screenwriter and comedian. The author of Dealer’s Choice (1995), Don Juan in Soho (2006) and Three Days in the Country (2015), he made his name internationally with Closer (1997). He often directs his own work, and plays by Tom Stoppard, Dennis Potter and Harold Pinter. His dazzling ensemble production of Stoppard’s latest, Leopoldstadt, an exploration of Viennese Jewish history, is running in the West End, while The Red Lion, his play about non-league football, is about to open at Bristol Old Vic.

I’ve heard that The Red Lion was inspired by saving Lewes football club, when you lived in East Sussex?
I made a promise to the manager, Steve Ibbotson – I dedicated the play to him – on a wet day in November 2009. I said: “I’m going to help you save your football club.” At the time, I didn’t feel I had anything better to do. I was one of six people who “bought” the club. It cost us a pound each and we owned it on paper for about a day before turning it into a supporter-owned club.

And you hadn’t “anything better to do” because of a midlife crisis?
I called it “writer’s block” then. Now, I’d call it depression. I didn’t want my voice to be heard. I’m still not sure I want my voice heard. I felt I should write about what had happened to me – someone madly trying to save his own skin, soul and sanity. But I found a different story.

You’ve credited director Ian Rickson with being midwife to The Red Lion
My adaptation of Turgenev – Three Days in the Country – and The Red Lion were written coming out of depression, under Ian’s watch. He’s a playwright whisperer – he has magic in him, Ian.

Perhaps you were in a similar role with Tom Stoppard, directing Leopoldstadt?
We’d worked before on Travesties and he enjoyed, I think, being encouraged to do some writing by a fellow playwright. We’ve known each other for 20 years. When my first play was on at the National in 1995, Tom was very supportive. But he wasn’t used to getting notes – Peter Wood, Trevor Nunn, Richard Eyre and David Leveaux, significant previous collaborators, would direct the sacred text as written. For better or worse, I was pushier. At times he didn’t like that; at other times he loved it.

Did you talk about the rise of antisemitism with him?
Stoppard has not experienced antisemitism because he did not grow up as a Jew. But he was interested in my account of growing up Jewish in Wimbledon in the 70s. Strangely, we realised my father was a contemporary of Tom’s invented character, Leo, in Leopoldstadt: my father, who was at Cambridge in the same generation as Jonathan Miller, and in the Footlights, was very conscious of antisemitism.

What did he do?
He wanted to do what I do – to be a director, a writer, a comedy person. He was director of light entertainment at the BBC, but ended up working in the City. He was amiably jealous of my career. I always felt guilty I’d achieved what he couldn’t. It was complicated. I can say it now because he is dead… it was a bit of a Freudian nightmare.

Did you grow up in a strict Jewish household?
We were reform Jews. Since my father died, and working on Leopoldstadt, my feeling for my Jewishness has become very strong. My father had drawn up a family tree and said: “You must study this.” But it was only after his death, reading Leopoldstadt, I had the urge to look at it. And he’d written an asterisk by everyone in the family murdered by the Nazis. I was suddenly powerfully moved and, like Tom, appalled that I hadn’t taken enough notice of this.

I feel very sad my father isn’t around to see this play, because he’d have loved it.

Is it easiest directing your own work?
Easier – because I can change a play, without fuss, to suit the actors. That said, directing Stoppard’s new play has been a dream come true. If you’d said when I was 17, and studying Tom for my A-levels, “one day you’ll direct one of his plays”, I’d have fainted.

Are you based in London now?
Yes, although we still have a house in Sussex… another life in the country. We [he is married to the actor Debra Gillett] have three sons: 18, 16 and 14.

What’s the most important advice you give them?
“Don’t be like me.” I’m with Freud, that the two most important things are work and love. If you can find work you love and people you truly love, you’re blessed.

Speaking of Freud, is your therapy ongoing?
I’ll be in therapy for the rest of my life – as long as I can afford it. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit. Being able to talk to a stranger and tell them everything is of enormous value – creatively and emotionally.

When did you last act? And does acting feed your directing?
I had a one-line part in The Vote at the Donmar. I cannot tell you how nervous I was. I remember only the blur of anxiety. It’s useful, as a director, to dip an acting toe in to remind yourself of what a strange, frightening thing it is to go out in front of strangers and speak.

When I’m old, I’d like to be one of those character actors who pops up and who, hopefully, can still remember his lines. I don’t want to be writing into my 80s.

What are you doing next?
Habeas Corpus at the Menier Chocolate Factory. I’ve wanted to direct it for years and Alan Bennett has finally said: “All right, you can do it.”

The Red Lion is at Bristol Old Vic from Wednesday to 28 March. Leopoldstadt is at Wyndham’s theatre, London, until 13 June

Contributor

Kate Kellaway

The GuardianTramp

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