Interview: Mike Akers on ‘La Strada’

Bristol Old Vic this month presents a musical adaptation of La Strada, Federico Fellini’s Oscar-winning film, directed by Bristol’s Olivier Award nominee Sally Cookson (Jane Eyre, Peter Pan), with Mike Akers as ‘writer in the room’ and featuring a beautiful new score by Benji Bower with songs performed by an international cast of actor/musicians.

Much loved by critics and audiences alike, La Strada is an impassioned tale of love and loss, set against the backdrop of a country still reeling from the devastating effects of the Second World War. We journey into the heart of the Italian countryside where Gelsomina, full of the innocent spirit of youth, is bought by Zampano, a travelling street performer, to join his ‘strong man’ act. When the mismatched pair stumble across a ragtag circus and a daredevil tight-rope walker, Gelsomina (played by Audrey Brisson, who captivated in BOV’s brilliant The Grinning Man last year) finds herself caught between the two men, not knowing which way to turn…

Here’s Mike Akers to tell us more.

What (beyond the fun of portraying a circus troupe on stage) attracted you to staging La Strada?
For me, the attraction is about the story, the characters and the world. It is deceptively simple, with a kind of fairy-tale quality – but when you start investigating it in more detail, it proves to be much more complex and layered.
In the film, much of the meaning is conveyed through the imagery, which can be interpreted in different ways. It’s one of those films that you end up thinking about for a long time after you’ve seen it and the ambiguity of the meaning made for a fascinating challenge in terms of developing the stage adaptation. The world is also very theatrical: the circus, the road and the people they meet on the journey really lend themselves to the stage.

Fellini has called La Strada “a complete catalogue of my entire mythological world.” What does he (what does the film) mean?
Wow, that’s quite a question! There are lots of different theories about what the film means, one of which is that the three central characters all represent facets of Fellini’s psyche and another one which says the film is about his marriage to Giulietta Masina, so maybe he was referring to these in this quote. I think that the characters can be viewed as archetypes. The dialogue in the film is minimal and the characters are very guarded in what they reveal about themselves. Zampano in brutal and cruel, but the film never seeks to explain why he behaves in that way.
However, I think you can also see them as fully rounded people, who don’t give much away about themselves. In our adaptation, we’ve very much treated them this way, because we want our audience to connect with them emotionally as fellow human beings, rather than seeing them as cyphers for an idea of some kind.

Tell us about the mix of Italian and English you have gone for, and why.
Sally recruited a company of performers from all over the world for this show. She always likes to use the things that are unique about any company she works with, and to bring those qualities into the show. There are a couple of native Italian speakers, so given that the show is set in Italy, it’s great to hear them speak their language, but there’s also a smattering of lots of other European languages and even a little bit of Vietnamese. It is mostly in English, though – you won’t need an interpreter.

One reviewer noted that “Audrey Brisson’s (…) performance makes it a story about a female slave’s self-liberation.” A fair assessment?
Audrey is absolutely amazing in the role. She’s a multi talented performer with an incredible voice (as you might remember from The Grinning Man). The character of Gelsomina could have been created for her, so perfectly does she fit the part. In our adaptation we have been very faithful to the original material, but we have also changed the perspective of the story slightly.
Our version is very much Gelsomina’s story, we see things more through her eyes than in the film, where the camera takes a detached, observational perspective on all the characters’ lives. Hopefully, though, our version is also open to interpretation in the same way as the film.

What do you think are the overriding emotions of the story? Melancholy must play a part – battered, post-war Italy, fractured, itinerant lives – but is there room for laughter, optimism, fear, etcetera?
Fellini said, “To me life is beautiful, for all its tragedy and suffering,” and this has been our mantra in creating the show. The story is tragic and brutal at times, but it’s also funny, exciting, entertaining, gripping and beautiful. There’s a bit of everything in this show, even a unicycle routine!

Pics: Robert Day

How have you developed the script, as writer in the room?
Developing the script as writer in the room is a very dynamic process and it’s always different depending on the company on any particular project. We start rehearsals with no script, although we do have a clear outline of the structure and where we want things to go. Then over the course of rehearsals, Sally directs the actors in trying sequences out through improvisation and then I go away and write a version of that sequence, drawing on the improvisation, the film script and my imagination.
The actors then try this out and through a process of offer and counter offer, we gradually arrive at something which everyone is happy with and which works for the arc of the whole story. It’s quite a painstaking process and it can be a bit scary at times if progress is slow, but it’s also very rewarding – and it means that the company are invested in the story, as they have had an important role in its creation.

La Strada is at Bristol Old Vic from Tuesday, April 11 to Saturday, April 22. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/lastrada.html