“I am interested in late plays,” says director Tamara Harvey, as she settles into a seat in the gracious wood-panelled rehearsal room of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre. “Something happens in some writers where they’ve had their big hits and they get to a point of devil-may-care — you can feel a confidence and a defiance in the writing.” Her new production — her first as co-artistic director of the RSC with actor and director Daniel Evans — is a case in point.
“That’s partly why we wanted to do it together, because we’ve experienced as solo artistic directors what happens, both to you and to the organisation, when you disappear into rehearsals and have to do all of the rest of the job between 6pm at night and 10am next morning.” But what happens when there is a crisis? Where does the buck stop? “What we agreed right from the get-go is that whoever has to make the decision in the moment, the other one absolutely stands by that,” says Harvey.