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APPENDICES
and grabs someone, something like that. But it’s in a horror film so it doesn’t
mean anything. You have got to be able to play the reality in that way, because
that is really what is going on in the street. Every so often that happens, and
it’s like these recent riots. And suddenly Tesco’s is on fire. And where does
the fire come from, it comes from the contradictions in society. Once you
set up these basic situations they produce drama because they are full of
contradictions and conflicts. You don’t have to apply it, you extract it from
the situation. Once you start entering into a situation, the situation becomes
immensely dramatic. So what you have to do as a director is try to enter in the
situation. I remember in Budapest saying how are you going to drag that body
off? or something like that, because the actor hadn’t really said to herself I am
going to drag the body of my friend. I can’t remember the details. But when
you are dragging off a body where do you look? It is very strange to drag
a body, because if you pull somebody normally you are careful not to hurt
them. But perhaps the oddity is that you are dragging the body along and you
straighten the tie. That tells you perhaps, that gesture, that he is really dead.
Very small things can bring the reality of death nearer.
AB: One last question. When you are writing a play do you determine
the centre for yourself?
EB: No. I have to say not really. I am never really conscious of the centre when
I am writing it. Pascal says something very interesting about the problem of
God and the universe. He says the universe is a complete whole and the centre
is everywhere. Once you have got the basic situation, like in Eleven Vests,
the problem is authority and violence and how authority can be — what is
the word — violent, but find ways of doing it without actually hitting anybody
or using a knife, sublimatively. But the violence is there, and you are still
a victim of it. I think the centre has to be the basic conflict within a play, but
it will keep popping up all over the place. It can come up at any moment. It is
very odd. I am very conscious of there being a centre for a play, but I never
have to say to myself what is it. Because it is a situation.
AB: And when you direct your own plays, do you then consciously choose
a centre for the production? Do you make that conscious for the actors?
EB: I don’t think I do. Because the centre has been reflected in all aspects
of the play. So whatever you do, you can then say to yourself, but where is
the centre in this. Not say, how do I relate that to the centre. Like in this play,
Morgan is having a problem at the moment, it’s good, it’s a creative problem,
but hasn’t yet latched on to this curious thing, about why he keeps asking
questions. What is it that really drives him? So he said to me today, it’s like
a series of things but I don’t know where they are going. And I said look:
imagine there is a river, and there are stepping stones on the river. And you
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