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Andrew Upton on adapting Philistines.

Andrew Upton talks to Rachel Halliburton of Time Out about the challenge of updating Gorky's work.

When writer and adaptor Andrew Upton becomes enthused by an
idea, his hands seem to take on a life of their own. As he describes the challenges of making Gorky's pre-Russian Revolution Philistines relevant today, his fingers carve such elaborateshapes in the air that at points it's
possible to know exactly what he's about to say simply by watching them. 'One of the first directions I got from Howard, which I loved, was “Keep it messy.” which I think we have.'

Upton has partly achieved this by breaking the dialogue up with constant interruptions. He explains how this amplifies the themes of the play, 'There's a very loud domineering father, and because of him this household has a very broken jumped-on 'No, get-out-of-my-way' quality. And so people lose
their train of thought, and say anything just to say something.'

This is the second play Upton has worked on with Davies. Last year he created an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard for the Sydney Theatre Company, where he has just become co-artistic director with his wife Cate Blanchett. He feels that much of the preparation work he did for that adaptation has helped with Philistines,
'I watched a lot of Russian films, to get a sense of the Russian language, which is very muscular and tonal.'

Yet even though Gorky's work is full of Chekhovian echoes, he believes they're very different playwrights. 'He understood Chekhov was an amazing writer, but he wanted to confront and shock a little more.'

The constant challenge with adapting any historical text is to remain true to the writer's intentions, while angling it so it holds a twenty-first century audience's attention. With Philistines, Upton confesses, this meant that 'We sharpened up the plot. In the Gorky it tailed off. So we introduced an element where the older generation grasses on the younger generation to ramp up the stakes. In Chekhov's work it would be wrong to make that kind of innovation.

But in Gorky's later plays he was clearly interested in the political machinations of people and the way they interact with the system. So we feel he would, well – not approve – but he wouldn't condemn it. It certainly makes it more
interesting.'

He enjoys working with Davies. 'His process is very dynamic. I sometimes look at him and he's like a mountaineer who's just striking out and we all follow after. That's not to say that he careers ahead, he just works with what comes from the actors. And that's my main interest as a writer.'