Joris Smit on Tasso and Joan of Arc: no theatre that puts the audience to bed

The National Theatre plays Joan of Arc By Friedrich Schiller and repeats simultaneously Tasso by Johann Goethe. In both pieces, Joris Smit plays, in Tasso even the title role. We talk to him about German romantics, Sallie Harmsen, the newly created National Theatre and the importance of going down on your face.

Tasso and Jeanne, Goethe and Schiller. Is German romanticism the only connecting factor between these two plays, or is there also similarity in content?

Goethe and Schiller are contemporaries; they had interesting correspondences. In Romanticism, unattainable love is a theme and the power of love plays an important role in both plays. Sallie Harmsen and I represent in Joan of Arc that love, we do that more often in this business (laughs). Earlier in Tasso and first in Midsummer Night's Dream, there we took over a role. We came in here together and it was nice to start with such a great direction under Theu Boermans. A warm bath to get to know Theus directing and each other.

Freud

Our roles in Midsummer Night's Dream had a high sexual charge. It was good to have done that before we embarked on Tasso, two and a half years ago. Theu is a master at working with the roles of women and men and highlighting the differences. Feminism did not exist in Goethe's time and neither did psychology, but Tasso is all about those repressed feelings. Freud once said he envied writers: "You tell from your feelings what I spend years studying."

Is another similarity between the two plays the theme of extremism? Joan of Arc believes she is divinely commissioned to liberate France from the occupier and kills. Is Tasso also an extremist?

Tasso is a fundamentalist artist, though. He lives for his art and puts it so central that he expects reality to adapt to his art rather than the other way around. Goethe wrote this partly autobiographical and that includes the role of the princess, which is based on his own great love. Goethe was attached to the court of Weimar as a court writer and also trained there. Afterwards, he wanted to enter the free world, but of course that was not to be. Tasso works for a patron, but his artwork never gets finished. Actually, he tries to win the love of the princess with it, but it doesn't work: she falls in love with the work of art, but not with him.

Power of language

Can plays from the era of Goethe and Schiller also get in your way as actors? Some reviewers found parts of Joan of Arc long-winded. The context of the story is sometimes introduced in long monologues.

I find it brave that Theu brings this. He relies on the power of language. Pieces like Joan of Arc should encourage patient listening. You have to keep your head up, and that at a time when we have little patience. We have become used to being put to bed as an audience: doze off, we will do it for you. That's not how Theu works. It is a big play, bombastic, with many characters and battles. So we play it with a large ensemble.

Tasso has only five actors. When you have a heavy text as an actor, it is quite nice to play with a limited ensemble, without double roles. We play Tasso also with a young club, which gives you a certain freshness for free. For Sallie, it is very spicy, now that she is also playing Joan of Arc.

In the new version, Jappe Claes replaces Bram Suijker as Duke Alfonso.

I think that's a good move. He is an older actor, which gives a certain authority. With another actor you always have a slightly different relationship within the group. That crystallises during the rehearsal process, but that's how long a piece keeps changing: one day we do this, the next we do that. Art is never finished, as in Tasso.

Première or dernière

Do you change anything about the play after the premiere?

We do give our own swing to a piece. Letting it go a bit more and making it your own, that comes naturally on tour. Koos Terpstra, my former teacher at the Noord Nederlands Toneel, had done away with premieres for that reason. Why premiere, is it finished after that? Instead, he instituted dernières. After the last performance champagne and party, because only then are you really finished. I am in favour of that.

In Schiller's story, Jeanne is not burned as a witch, but ends up in a crisis of conscience when she falls in love with Lionel, an enemy army captain. Is this romance still of our time? Is it credible for a woman as radical as Jeanne to suddenly fall in love and change her mind?

To some extent. It actually helps me find her more credible, in the world of what she believes, in which she cuts off heads at divine command. She suddenly discovers a soul-mate and thinks: in another world, we would have happily ridden horses together, now we are face to face on the battlefield. It is a scene that brings her back to her heart and I find it a breath of fresh air within the performance. Do you believe in this divine mission? It's hard for me to recognise myself in Jeanne's mission, but I do in that realisation: fuck, what am I doing!

Third eye

Of course, with some of my lines I think: I don't believe any of this! That has to do with insecurity, with the "third eye", that you are looking at yourself on stage, so to speak; more actors suffer from that. I am happy to play a representative of the human in this play. If you translate it to current events, you hope that someone wearing a bomb belt can also have that realisation: do you really think people will be better off for this? I distrust people who do not doubt, or as Rutger Kopland says: those who find have searched badly.

The same goes for Tasso. Who keeps looking for how his art can be better. He fears the black hole he will fall into if it were ever finished. Goethe actually uses art as a subject in an art form, namely in a play text. His texts are lyrical and poetic and at the same time óabout the power of lyricism and the gift of words. He is an ambassador for the beauty of language.

Characters do not exist

What's in a role like Lionel for you?

It seemed difficult to play a knight and then also a tough, vapid, horny man of a knight. Was I supposed to transform into that? Jeanne immediately falls for him, so he must also be very handsome. Still, I try to play each role as close to myself as possible. Only the text is not Joris' but someone else's.

It's wonderful when you have a good text. Theatre is often about drama, threats, clashes. In reality, in such situations you think half an hour later: I should have said that! On stage, they always have their words ready and I get to use them. But apart from the words, everything is mine: it's my vocal chords, my gestures, my physicality that I use to serve the role, the scene. I want to remain as human as possible. As the same Koos Terpstra said: characters do not exist. You merge with them, as it were.

Eric de Vroedt

There is a lot going on within the National Theatre: merger with other institutions to form the National Theatre, new actors, a new artistic director, Eric de Vroedt. What's that like for you?

It's hard work, but I love that. We have made a lot lately that we can be proud of, besides Joan of Arc also Meanwhile in Casablanca and Race, very different pieces. As an audience, you can choose what you feel like that night. That is the function of a great company.

I am very happy about Eric's arrival. I have not yet worked with him myself, but I am attracted to his enthusiasm and passion. There is a kinship there. In addition, the merger has provided opportunities: the Royal Theatre has also become a house. We have Paradise at the very top, a little room squatted in the 1960s by actors from The Hague Comedy to experiment there. Jeroen de Man, my classmate at the theatre school in Maastricht, and I thought: give that Paradijs back its old function, a place for actors.

Mime and spoken word

Because of the merger, there is sometimes quite a lot of pressure: you have to travel, get a lot of stars in the newspaper. Then it is very good if there is a place where you can go down on your face. Going down on yourself is important for searching and discovering hidden talents. Pieter van der Sman, for example, turns out to be very good at spoken word, Bram Coopmans does a lot with mime, we have a house band these days. We might use something like that sometime. You find out more about what kind of ensemble we are through this. After all, we also have some new actors; this gives involvement, the ensemble becomes closer. The first trial months in Paradise are over. In it, we made four performances, organised inspiration evenings and lectures. You can stand there and let your strengths and talents shine through. A laboratory.