What do you do when no one wants to cast you in their play? You start your own theatre company, director and actor Philip Leone-Ganado tells David Schembri.
Philip Leone-Ganado is relaxed. Sort of. Rehearsals for Constellations, WhatsTheirNames Theatre’s next production, have been going on for three weeks. Although some of the more logistical details are still being ironed out, the performance side of the production is going strong.
Those who saw the script beforehand were in tears by the end of it
This is a far cry from the situation the same Leone-Ganado – albeit with less facial hair – was facing four years ago. Sick and tired of not being cast for parts in any local productions, young Philip tried to stage his own production – Shakespeare Wept – and failed.
“I didn’t have the know-how and I just didn’t manage. I cast the actors too late, I didn’t promote, I didn’t have a space and in the end I cancelled it. That’s where I was being a total idiot,” Leone-Ganado says.
Six months later, fresh from four weeks at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (but still with precious little experience) his company – WhatsTheirNames (“basically a bunch of friends”) – produced All in the Timing, a series of sketches by David Ives, at the University Common room.
The play was well-received. “I had someone come up to me after the play saying they thought it would be rubbish, but that he actually had enjoyed it a lot,” he said.
Apart from backhanded compliments such as these, the actor suddenly found himself at the receiving end of a steady stream of offers to take part in bigger productions by established companies – which he accepted.
WhatsTheirNames itself had its fair share of productions: Yasmina Reza’s Art, God and Death by Woody Allen, The Burial at Thebes and Pool (No Water), before taking a bit of a backseat as the company director and general factotum was busy in other people’s productions.
“I then realised that I enjoyed directing and producing my own stuff at least as much as being part of someone else’s production,” Leone-Ganado says.
“It has its own challenge. You really feel you’re there on your own and you’re creating stuff you want to create.”
And what he wanted to be part of this time round was Nick Payne’s Constellations, a two-character love story with a sci-fi twist. “It is a new script, premiered in the West End last year, the moment I read about it I said this was something I wanted to know about. It’s just beautiful, that’s what the people I gave the script to for feedback said – they all were in tears by the end of the script. It was such a beautiful script. I just thought, I want to work on this, and like I’ve always done, the only way to work on it was to do it myself.”
The cosmic title of the play is related to the play’s main device. “Constellations is based on the theory that any decision which we make exists in a universe parallel to ours. The story follows one couple, Roland and Marianne, over a couple of years; through the party where they met, the first date, breaking up, getting back together. We also see how their relationships might have panned out if, when they met, he had a wife or she made a bad joke, and we just see how this play goes.”
With just two characters and a sparse set (the play is being staged at the Splendid in Strait Street, which is basically an old house) the script requires two strong actors to carry it through. To this end, Leone-Ganado drafted friend and collaborator Nathan Brimmer, and Maria Pia Meli, with whom he had never worked before.
“Once you find people you work well with, you want to work with them again. That said, with all the productions I worked with a mix of people I knew and didn’t know.
“Since it’s such a two-hander, having a bit of a completely new face for us, and adding Nathan, whom I know well, brings out the best of both worlds,” the director says.
Director, because he found that trying to act and direct a play he was also producing was unmanageable, if not impossible.
“It was too much stress – as an actor you’re focusing on your character, as a director you have to stay at the surface and see the whole thing. In The Burial at Thebes I had to block the scene and go in and do my part. These days I’m enjoying directing as much as acting – if not more.”
Now that he’s been in more plays where someone else was directing, he does come to the table wiser than before. The 24-year-old does, however, try to stray from his comfort zone as much as possible.
“In Malta there’s the temptation of having done six or seven big plays and feel that you’ve made it,” he laughs, that hint of exasperation ever present in his voice.
In this case, the biggest challenge lies in the space – with only 35 seats a night, the audience will be surrounding the actors on three sides, and he believes local productions should look at venues other than the Manoel and St James Cavalier and use them in creative ways, citing experimental theatre outfit Rubberbodies as an example.
“I look back and see that now that I’ve worked with lots of different people, that yes, I’ve matured as an artist, but I realise that I’ve sort of lost that terror, and that sort of blind panic that drove All in the Timing and just made it so good.”
His latest production, in a sense, harkens back to his first one. “What’s interesting is that we’ve come full circle because All in the Timing had a sketch on similar lines, where a couple meets and their relationship resets every time someone does something wrong. This is a similar premise, but there’s a deeper exploration.”
Has WhatsTheirNames come full circle too, then? “No, definitely not. I wouldn’t have done this three years ago.”
Constellations is on from May 3 to 5 and 10 to 12 at The Splendid, 74 Strait Street, Valletta, at 8pm. Tickets can be booked by sending an e-mail to WhatsTheirNames.theatre@gmail.com or by calling 7734 5207.