Mike Bartlett: Earthquakes everywhere

climate change, religious riots, war in the Arab States - playwright Mike Bartlett likes nothing better than a great theme. He tells Maddy Costa on the excess is their slogan

Each play, writes Mike Bartlett is powered by the same questions: "What a game What is the nature of this event, because these days," says 30 years old old man, "can be anything. You have to open the door of the theater and say," What is this ?'"

"What is it?" more or less sums up the public's reaction to earthquakes, London, Bartlett started the National Theatre last year. Challenging not only the history, which refers to climate change, the serpent of 1965 to 2525, but the Cottesloe was equipped with a bridge of acid orange. Chances are that we will so upset about his new work for the National, 13, a load test of religious belief in the 21st century, with a latter-day prophet and a woman PM conspire to make war on Iran .

Bartlett began writing in January 13 when he started a one-year residency at the National, hoping to answer another question: "How much of a game becomes a contemporary of the end of scene in the 2011 Olivier "A prolonged period of testing which has to meet the new changes - including the riots of the summer. The hair at my suggestion that National has revealed the state of the nation-old playwright in him. "This means that my goal is only to dissect the state of us politically and socially. But the state of my emotions is as important to me. "Are you more concerned with research, on a personal level," morality between modern and traditional morality. "

In Love Love Love, which toured the UK earlier this year, which explores the conflicts within the same family - two generations and found lacking in their relationships with others. Bartlett does not favor one side of the argument, which works hard to live opposing views. "In the process of writing 13 years, friends wondered if he was okay, because I said things about religion, or to intervene militarily in other countries not normally peak during dinner. At the time of writing of the piece really changed his mind. "

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• practice was to assess how other people think. His father worked as a psychologist, "so I grew up with him, saying," Look how that person behaves. Do you think there is a reason behind this? "Add the instruction of his" very moral "mother, a teacher and daughter of a minister, and it is not surprising that Bartlett was" just right "in their college days.

attitudes contrary to many transmission, Bartlett theater may feel dirty, as evaluators of earthquakes in London was quick to point out. The play is on tour this fall, and Bartlett had the opportunity to modify the final act, which is less complicated. But, he says, "I have not fixed, because the gesture of the work has always been" too "." In other words, the seismic survey the excesses of our age to be excessive in itself. If you feel inadequate because, Bartlett does not care.

Its objective is to achieve "consistency of actions" that "writing is the design, which is what the actors. The work is a starting point for collaboration. "This means that he spent his adolescence in Abingdon, near Oxford, and not written, but the direction. At the University of Leeds, where he earned a degree in English literature and theater studies, focused on developing and making "all kinds of weird shit-Theatre. Used a lot of puppets and patch and paint and Smith. "

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