Ready for challenges

What to do for your first show? Start with a big splash, or dip your toe gently in the water? It's an important question for any new artistic director of a theatre company, and it's a decision that Rupert Goold had to make last year. For in October he moved from the Royal and Derngate Theatres, Northampton, to become artistic director of the Oxford Stage Company.

Rupert laughs as I put the question to him: "I hope I'm not judged just on the first two or three shows! But it is a big thing. I read somewhere that Trevor Nunn's first five shows at the RSC were all catastrophies, but Peter Hall stayed with him."

In the event, Rupert Goold has both played safe and taken risks. He has chosen to begin with Ben Power's adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost, which he first staged and directed, to considerable acclaim, in Northampton three years ago. But to judge by the early performance I saw, the production has been considerably changed for the Oxford Stage Company it is more sharply focused now, and perhaps more uncomfortable in places.

"When we did Paradise Lost in Northampton, it was a very ambitious piece of programming," Rupert explains. "All credit to the board for backing it, but we had no idea that it would take off. We only did 15 performances, a tiny run. It was rather rushed on as well, as we didn't know whether it would work. Although I was proud of what we achieved, it was very much unfinished business. So I decided to do it again."

Paradise Lost adapter Ben Power writes in the programme: "The adaptation process goes on even as I write this, in the middle of rehearsals."

What particular things needed change following the Northampton run? "I think we both had a feeling that the first half, although less of a play, was very successful," Rupert replies. "Audiences enjoyed it because it was like an action movie. But the feedback we got about the second half was more difficult. The first half concerns Satan and his journey out of Hell, but the second half has the Adam and Eve story for me it's the heart of the poem, and the heart of the production. So we felt we needed to have another look at that the material is there, it's great, but we weren't communicating it."

Originally, the naked Adam and Eve first appeared somewhat coyly from behind some bushes, risking an onset of sniggers from the audience. The bushes, representing the Garden of Eden, only appeared in the second half, but now they have gone, to be replaced by vivid green lighting. "We never set out to create a Renaissance painting one critic rather unkindly described our Garden in Northampton as looking like Center Parcs.

"What we're trying to suggest, and what interests me about the piece, is that Heaven and Hell, innocence and fallen-ness, are two sides of the same coin. So we've now made the sets for the two halves much more comparable with each other."

At Northampton, I remember Rupert telling me that when he programmed a 'safe' play, an Ayckbourn perhaps, it surprisingly tended to perform less well at the box office than a much more risky proposition like Paradise Lost.

"Exactly. But it's a bit different with a touring company like the OSC, because you are only in each venue for a week. So it's harder to build up word-of-mouth for a particular play. It's a real challenge, because not everybody wants to go out on a Tuesday night and if you do go on that first night and enjoy an unusual play, then you need to tell all your friends about it very quickly if they are to see the show before it moves on to another town the following week.

"It's why a lot of theatres tend to rely on stars to get audiences through the doors the OSC may sometimes have stars, but we certainly don't pay stars' wages!"

So what does the future hold for the Oxford Stage Company under Rupert Goold's artistic direction?

"One of the reasons I left Northampton was that the work I was doing pieces like Paradise Lost needed more resources up front than a small regional theatre could allow, or afford. The plays were just beginning to get interesting by the time they closed big plays need time to mature: at the RSC or the National, you normally have two weeks of previews before you even open.

"So I'll be doing epic work that doesn't mean long evenings in the theatre, but it will be about big ideas. I shall still be unafraid of being cerebral. The great role for the theatre is in stimulating people's minds. Also, I've always liked show business, so there will still be quite a bit of theatricality about the productions. And I don't think I've ever done a show without quite a considerable musical presence."

And what about the future name of the company? Apart from regular visits to the Playhouse, the Oxford Stage Company no longer has any connection with the city its offices moved from George Street to Covent Garden quite some time ago.

Rupert pauses before he answers: "It's definitely something we're looking at. I had a strong relationship with the OSC when John Retallack was artistic director in fact, I first met my wife in an OSC show. So I have a real relationship with Oxford, and the company's presence there.

"But the way the company has evolved in the last few years means that the connection with Oxford is rather tenuous. So we might be rather more OSC' than Oxford Stage Company', or we might go for something completely new. The most important thing is that we continue to have a good relationship with the Playhouse and its audience it's the venue we go to most often."

Rupert's job with the OSC does allow time for other work, and he will follow his debut at Garsington Opera last year by returning to direct Rossini's La donna del lago in 2007. Meanwhile, he is directing The Tempest as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival at Stratford.