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London-based actor Philip Quast comes home
If actor Philip Quast appears a little jaded, it's not only because he's in the middle of rehearsals. Blame sparkling weather, a warm ocean and the temptations on arriving in autumnal Sydney from a bleak London winter.
Quast, who has lived in England for more than a decade, can't resist making the most of every moment on his return to the Sydney stage in Sydney Theatre Company's production of Democracy.
"It's a shock coming home again. I haven't slept really since I've been here because I wake up every morning and go swimming at 5am and the surf is warm and it's a terrific morning. I was at Bondi recently when there was a big surf and it was thrilling. All that's been beautiful. It's quite conflicting because I think of my three kids [ages 15, 13 and 9] ... it's wonderful, the quality of life is fantastic here."
The beach life is welcome R&R from the intensity of rehearsals for Democracy with veteran Australian director Michael Blakemore.
Blakemore, 76, is part of a writing/directing double act with the play's author, Michael Frayn, who also wrote Copenhagen, which was a sellout success for the STC three years ago. Blakemore has directed nine of Frayn's plays.
Quast believes their success as a team is down to a special understanding.
"They speak shorthand.
I don't know how Michael [Blakemore] has done it because if you look at the script of Democracy you'd never understand it because there are no stage directions.
But there's not a wasted syllable in it anywhere. There's nothing extraneous at all, it's pared right down. Frayn can write it like that probably because he knows Michael will direct it."
Quast, whose career highlights include playing Javert in Les Misérables on the London stage and a 17-year stint as a presenter of Play School on ABC television, regards it a privilege to work in the company of a master.
"I've long admired him and he's a legend, really'' . He has a reputation of not only being a great teacher but a wonderful wit, and wit in the rehearsal room is a wonderfully disarming quality for an actor because as soon as any neuroses set in he's able to crack a joke at the right time."
At its heart the play is a political thriller which explores the use and abuse of power in high places. It centres around former German chancellor Willy Brandt, played by Quast, who led the first left-wing government in post-war West Germany.
"It's interesting that there's a play called Democracy at the moment because it's a word that's used willy-nilly by our world leaders as if it's suddenly been invented.
What is that word, democracy? It's not a constant.
Is it the democracy of George W. Bush, who would be happy as long as it's the democracy he wants? Look at how many times they have tried to get rid of a democratically elected left-wing government in Venezuela, and the struggles for democracy in Iraq. The assault on our judiciary by governments that are being totalitarian at the moment, under this blanket of fear being perpetrated about terrorism, makes democracy a very pertinent topic.
Democracy in Germany could not have been achieved without Willy Brandt. He was a flawed man, a manic depressive, a philanderer, he drank a lot, but he was a man of vision.
I find it fascinating how democracy is under assault.
It's still topical. Look at what happened to Bill Clinton ... the concerted effort by the Republicans to destroy him, and we call that [system] democracy. The play shows what goes on behind the scenes in order to achieve democracy -- the bitching, the jibes."
The issues Quast is helping to explore in the play seem a long way from his life as a Play School presenter in the 1980s and '90s, when he was an idol to millions of children.
"You couldn't go anywhere. If I was in a bad mood and someone spoke to me rudely at a checkout and I had a go at them ... one woman said: 'That's the last time my kid watches you on Play School'. There are stage managers here that used to watch me on Play School. That's frightening."
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