Director's `hamming' days are over

Mark Lambert turns up in the Clarence wearing one of his real hats - a baseball cap. The other hats are that of director, most recently in the Peacock's The Hunt for Red Willie and presently for Storytellers's forthcoming production of The Grapes of Wrath; and of actor. The acting role which attracted most attention in 2000 was that in Calixto Bieito's controversial production of Barbaric Comedies, for which both have since been shortlisted for Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Awards.

The baseball hat finds a home on a Clarence stool. Shepherd's pie emerges from the kitchen, and Lambert investigates it a little cautiously while discussing his current work as director of a cast of 15 in The Grapes of Wrath. The show opens in Galway's Town Hall on Tuesday and it will be the first time that the stage version of Steinbeck's book will have been seen in Ireland.

The version which Storytellers is presenting was originally produced some years ago by the famous American theatre company, Steppenwolf. This version, adapted and directed by Frank Galati of Steppenwolf, ran in Chicago and then transferred to Broadway and London's National Theatre. The original production had a cast of 35; Storytellers has 15, several of whom play multi-roles. The cast includes Nick Dunning, Peter Gowen, Jude Sweeney, Mary Murray, Laura ForrestHay, Liam Heffernan and Stella Madden.

So why The Grapes of Wrath? The challenge of "presenting an epic story in a very simple way on stage, and asking the audience to go with you on a journey". Lambert points out that Irish audiences would have a natural empathy with such a potent story of emigration and a displaced family.

In recent years, Lambert has directed several productions, while continuing to act in-between. What is the particular attraction of directing? "I started directing because I enjoyed making actors act better. I don't mean that to sound patronising. I saw a lot of good actors around me and felt that they weren't being demanded of enough: that they weren't being given time in rehearsal to `explore and fail'.

"One of the best things a director can say is `I don't know'," Lambert comments. "That's better than playing safe all the time but not ending up with anything very exciting. And I love being involved in a production; being at the hub of it. I get a kick out of the responsibility of the whole thing and being there all the time. You don't often get that level of involvement with the production as an actor. Mind you, I didn't have that problem with Barbaric Comedies!"

Several of the actors will also be doubling as musicians, playing banjo, guitar, wash-board and piano. If there was a score for the original production, it never reached Ireland, and they have come up with their own music. Playing the guitar as well as acting will be cast-member Billy Roche, whom people are probably more familiar with these days as being a very fine playwright.

Lambert is clear, however, that he would like to focus on acting for the near future, once The Grapes of Wrath is finished. "At 45, I feel I'm still developing as an actor. I've still got ambitions as an actor. I'm practising to be a heavyweight," he says, laughing, but not joking about it either. Some Irish actors he cites as examples of "heavyweights" are the late Tony Doyle and Donal McCann.

Lambert was born in Dublin, where his father was for many years a well-known veterinarian, and his practice included looking after the animals in Dublin Zoo. Hamilton Lambert, now 90, has long been called Ham Lambert for short. "I was known as `Ham's son'," Mark Lambert says. "Not really the best title for an actor!"

After school, he studied drama at Manchester University and went on to the Bristol Old Vic. "I went to England because I couldn't get into Trinity to do English. I didn't have maths - I never understood why maths was needed." For almost 20 years Lambert lived in London working as both actor and director - "I wanted to get as much experience from different directors as possible," he says. Among those he worked with were Max Stafford Clark at the Royal Court and Trevor Nunn at the Royal Shakespeare Company; his roles in Britain included productions of Ourselves Alone, The Recruiting Officer, Red, Black and Ignorant, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Dancing at Lughnasa, and he was nominated for an Olivier award for Juno and the Paycock at the Albery and Wyndham.

He played "the lead murderer" in a three-part series of Cracker - his screen death in that series came when he was pulled off the top of a building by fellow Irishman Lorcan Cranitch. He is also familiar here for a recent role in 18 episodes of Fair City - as long-running character Hannah's new-found adopted son. "My character isn't officially dead yet, so I may return some day," he says.

He married while in London and returned to live in Dublin three years ago with his young family. Over the years he had kept his theatrical hand in here: "I came back at least once a year to do a show at either the Abbey or the Gate. I came back because the theatrical climate here is so much better now and there is a much better standard of productions. My children's education was also a consideration."

He reflects on the brouhaha that surrounded Barbaric Comedies when it opened in Edinburgh last year. The media, never slow to miss a story that has even half a leg, decided the demanding production had several legs and they gave all of them a good exercising. The play was variously described as being too long, too violent, too vulgar, too offensive, too obscure - and worst of all, too boring.

The Edinburgh production was definitely not helped by the fact that the audience had to wait two-and-a-half hours for the interval. No matter how enthralling a play is, very few people either want to concentrate on it for that long in one go, or are able to. Theatre, after all, is meant to be about entertainment, not endurance

Barbaric Comedies," Lambert admits. "There was a blanket savagery in the attack. The walkouts that were reported were completely exaggerated. There were only walkouts for two nights, and they were by people who thought they were coming to a comedy. It was extremely tough being in Edinburgh at that time." They fared rather better when the production moved to Dublin. The audience got another interval, and the reviews were better.

"It was a flawed play," Lambert muses, "but theatrically exciting." He points out that, since he was on stage for much of the time, he never got a chance to see what the set and lighting looked like from the audience's perspective, which he regrets. Then he laughs. "It was a very physical production. I don't think Calixto was much interested in what went on in our brains."

The Grapes of Wrath is at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway, from Tuesday until Friday; the Cork Opera House, from next Saturday to February 3rd; and the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from February 6th to 10th