A recent trend in British theatre has been towards interval-free evenings, with their consequences for bar-takings, bladders and the tradition of Act One cliffhangers. However, new London productions of plays by Ibsen and Chekhov offer theatregoers a different kind of experience – and multiple opportunities to take in (or let out) a gin and tonic.
Matthew Warchus’s staging of David Hare’s adaptation of Ibsen’s The Master Builder at the Old Vic has two intervals, while Uncle Vanya at the Almeida, adapted and directed by Robert Icke, releases the audience from their seats three times. Restoring the Victorian idea of an evening’s theatre as a social gathering occasionally interrupted by acting, these decisions boldly go against the fashion for a cinema-like sequence of intermission-free action.
Despite awarding Uncle Vanya five stars, Georgina Brown in the Mail on Sunday chided the director for having “three intervals, when one would do”. And my colleague Michael Billington, in giving four stars to The Master Builder, also wondered about its stop-start structure. The fact that these disgruntlements did not result in a reduction of marks – or lessen my own high praise for both productions – indicates that intermissions themselves are not under review.
Perhaps, though, they should be. A regular question in English and drama exams has invited students to consider where the interval should be taken in certain Shakespeare plays. Such study is justified because the director’s decision on when to let the audience out of a long show can significantly affect the rhythms and reception of a production.
There is a practical aspect to the calculations. One reason for this Ibsen and this Chekhov having so many holes in them is that, in the structuring of their plays, the Russian and Norwegian masters deliberately took advantage of how the theatre of their time was designed to allow audiences to have drinks or even dinner between acts.
The three scenes of The Master Builder take place in different rooms of the house, while the four sections of Uncle Vanya also change setting. So one advantage of the leisurely progress of these versions lies in allowing the striking designs (by Rob Howell for the Ibsen and Hildegard Bechtler for the Chekhov) to be fully realised.
The alternative is either laborious scene-changes during extended blackouts, or serious rewriting. Whether by coincidence or design, the previous show at the Almeida – Richard Eyre’s version of Ibsen’s Little Eyolf – took the latter approach, collapsing the three acts into an unbroken script with a single setting.
But, if breaks are to be taken, their length also becomes relevant. In the two current productions, Ibsenites get two 20-minute breaks while Chekovians are given three of 10 minutes each. These arrangements bring different complications. Going to the bar twice in The Master Builder would both be expensive and potentially ruinous to the comprehension of the final act, while the short suspensions in Uncle Vanya provide time for either a tea or a pee but not both. It is probably too much of a fuss to leave the auditorium each time, which means using at least one of the slots for reading programmes, eating ice-cream or idling uncomfortably in the seat.
There are also consequences for the actors – presumably urinary advantages, especially in Uncle Vanya, where a lot of tea and wine is drunk. But a regular dilemma that arises for performers – whether to stay in character during the interval or catch up with emails or online shopping – is multiplied in these productions. I imagine that for Ralph Fiennes as Ibsen’s Solness and Paul Rhys as John (the name Vanya is given in the Icke version), these roles must be rather like the innings of a cricketer who bats through a day’s play, having to get their eye in again after the lunch and tea breaks.
The Almeida is discovering one of the risks of providing so many gaps in the action. Uncle Vanya involves a variety of radical reinterpretations, including a teapot instead of a samovar and baggy sweaters rather than frocks. Personally, I found the departures from the Chekhovian norm exciting and revealing, but a number of matinee-goers took the opportunity to leave after only 35 minutes, with another clutch following them when another opening for what we might call Chexit was offered 40 minutes later. In this respect, Icke is paying a price for combining a modernistic attitude to text with a classical approach to intervals.
There is often a Darwinist aspect to theatrical fashion, with the art form adapting to survive against competing challenges. The perceived contest with TV and film has made theatre become shorter and more fast-paced, with a majority of new plays seeming briefer than a football match and lacking a half-time. These two productions’ current experimenting with a lengthy, regularly interrupted night of theatre, though partly driven by respect for the dramatists’ attempts to reflect the passage of time, may be intended to reassert a difference between the art forms. The rhythm, though, feels strange – as if, through the decades of 70-minute single-strip plays, we theatre-goers have evolved not to need to stretch our legs as often as Victorians did.
