Across countries and time zones playwright Nina Raine and director Brendan Cowell squeezed in a moment to chat about their collaboration on Rabbit, an impressive and energetic play full of funny, brutal and charming characters negotiating their journey to responsible adulthood.

Brendan: What inspired you to write Rabbit?

Nina: A number of things. The first inspiration was an evening I spent at a private members club in Soho. Like Rabbit, it was a birthday dinner. No one knew each other very well, or else, they knew each other very well – they’d had relationships. It was an uneasy and interesting mix. Someone kept leaving to take calls on their mobile, as their father was sick in hospital – and in the end, was called away from the evening entirely. I was very aware of death hovering over this brittle and sexually predatory social occasion, and I thought, this would make a great play. For a long time I thought of Rabbit as ‘Sex and Death.’

The second inspiration was pragmatic. I’d just finished a year and a half as an assistant director at the Royal Court Theatre: watching other new plays come to fruition and be staged - and I thought – ‘I could write a better play than this!’ I’d already written a 30 page play while I’d worked in a restaurant (about waiters) and I’d discovered I could write dialogue. I was full of confidence.

But I then failed to write anything while I was at the Court - because I was so busy assisting. Near the end of my time there, I tentatively told the literary manager at the time I wanted to write a full length play, and would he perhaps read my first attempt. He replied, “Nina. What do you think Ed, who works at stage door, does? And Phyllis, who works in the box office? And those three ushers over there? What do you think they all do? Everyone here is writing a play. So I’ve made it a rule – to spare everyone’s feelings - if you work here, I can’t read your play.” I felt slightly crushed. Although, once Rabbit was written, the literary manager did read it – and gave me some of the most acute feedback I had. At around the same time, I also spoke to Patrick Marber, who said, if you have any facility as a writer, write. It will give you a real advantage as a director.

Brendan: Can you tell us about your thoughts on some of the themes in Rabbit like growing up, death and grief, relationships, friends?

Nina:  I wrote Rabbit in a vacuum. I was living in a house in Putney with no central heating and was getting no directing work. I wrote it while I assisted on West End plays: which give you plenty of day-dreaming time and regular pay, but career-wise, you’re in limbo. I just wanted to write something funny, moving, and above all entertaining. A lot of the plays that I’d seen at the Court were not entertaining. There’s a great hunger in the audience to have a good time, to laugh, and there’s nothing more exciting than when they do. And it’s actually quite hard to make that happen. Unfortunately, cruelty is much funnier than kindness. What people don’t realise, reading the script, is that the lines are never played as hard as they are written. As Harold Pinter says, you kill with a smile.

Brendan: Pause

Nina: And I’ve always worried about what you leave behind as you grow up. What you forget. I kept a diary when I was about ten, in a desperate attempt to salve this fear. I became obsessive-compulsive about documenting everything that happened that day. It was the only way I felt I could pin life down and stop it vanishing. But even that didn’t work. I could only maintain it for about three weeks and then I had to stop: it was exhausting. There’s some of that fear expressed at the end of the play.

A writer friend of mine came to see Rabbit – my age, 30ish – and said the realisation that struck him while watching the play, was that the moment a parent dies, you realise it’s your turn next. There’s nothing left between you and death.

Brendan: You seem to have some really cheery friends.

Nina: He’s a writer, what more can I say.

Brendan: When I turned thirty I liked it. Things that once would sting me and stay with me now bounced off. Emotion-ectome. A grand sigh of relief washed over me, like I could now get on with things. But I found it was harder to stay slim and that I would need to interrogate the low-carb beer scene. But yeah, I also felt like the joke was over. I had to get into it now. Work out who I was and make some things last. And that’s where Bella is at in this play, and in a way – all of them. They’re in this bar wishing they could change this, knowing they messed that up, and trying to find the right way forward. And it’s funny to watch because it’s true. And although it’s so funny the play is also quite savage in its set-up. A girl’s dad is dying and instead of being with him in the hospital she is holding a party for herself. I think this says a lot about young people. We are self-obsessed. But, perhaps, as Nina so keenly suggests in the fall-out of this play - there is depth to that self interest.

Nina: How do you think Australian audiences will react to the play, Brendan?

Brendan: Leave prudishness at the door please and let’s have some fun! This is a cracking, fresh, pushy piece of writing. Genevieve Dugard (the Designer) and I have been working hard to make the sexiest bar on earth and all the actors are attractive too - so come in and have a ball!

Nina: I know, I can’t wait for rehearsals. Rehearsals will probably imitate the action of the play, they usually do. Will you do at least one rehearsal with real alcohol?

Brendan: After 6pm there will be alcohol based rehearsals that you’re welcome to join in Nina.

Nina: What attracted you to directing Rabbit?
 
Brendan: It's quite a tale so stay with me. When I was living in London a few years back my girlfriend and I stumbled upon a review of a play called Rabbit in the Time Out magazine. The review was favourable but the show closed that night! First I was annoyed by this upstart playwright Nina Raine who had named her play Rabbit for I too had written a play called Rabbit which had enjoyed success here and on the West End. Annoyed and curious we immediately booked tickets to the show which was playing at the Trafalgar Studios new works theatre T2.

The show was a cracker. Funny, touching, and such a fresh take on the battle of the sexes. We couldn't stop talking about it, even though I was still mildly annoyed at this Nina Raine character for stealing my title! When Robyn Nevin attended a run of my play Self Esteem she asked me if I had any Wharf1-ish projects in mind for a slot in 08 - her final year. I don't have a broad reaching directorial hunger. I simply find myself wanting to direct specific projects and when I saw this, both in London and in New York I knew I could put this ‘other Rabbit play’ in a Sydney Context and hopefully raise the roof.

Nina: There are a couple of London references but I could easily change them to Sydney ones. What do you think?

Brendan: Bollocks?

Nina: No, I meant references like Oxford St actually, but do Australians not say bollocks?

Brendan: Only on Oxford St.  

Nina: As a director (who is also a writer) how will you approach this play?

Brendan: The play needs to be fast and felt and funny so I’ve cast some very good actors. Very good meaning they can do all the things this play requires which is to be funny and real at the same time. It sounds banal but the balance is often difficult in performance. Also we need to care about these characters and look; they’re not the most likeable people sometimes. They’re crude, self-consumed, and ferocious. And sex obsessed, jealous and mean. They drink too much and they mess with each other for their own pleasure. Hang on -  I think I know these people!

Nina: Yep…When Brendan and I met for the first time in New York we went for a beer and sushi and I tried to talk to him about casting. I was hungover after a rocky preview the night before. Finally I just said to him – about a specific character, Sandy, but you could say it about all of the characters – that she walks into the room with the attitude ‘enjoy me!’ and really, all the actors need to be able to do that. I’m really excited, having looked at the cast. They look terrific.

Brendan: Who has the most attractive head shot in the cast?

Nina: I couldn’t comment.

Brendan: The big challenge is the localisation. Although I have mentioned that this is a very Sydney play, these characters are very British in that they say exactly what they mean, they’re loud and proud and ballsy. They are open magazines. In Australia we deal with things in a more insinuated, sub-textual way.  So we have to find truth to that in a Sydney context. In terms of approach I must say I don’t really have a methodology or ‘way’ of making theatre. But I love words, I love music, and I love actors. I think actors can do anything and too often in the theatre I see directors using tricks to solve transitions and theatrical issues when the actors are just standing around. I believe the answers are with the text and with the people saying it. Genius, I know.   

Nina: But good to hear you say it anyway.

Rabbit plays from 22 November in Wharf 1