'Actually, the romantic relic Platonov has been snowed in for about a hundred years. And now he comes back, and he walked into the wrong room'

Platonov, the latest show from Theatre Utrecht, premiered on 2 March and is an instant hit: rave reviews in all major newspapers. Artistic director and director Thibaud Delpeut based his version of this archetypal Chekhov play on the translation made by actor Jacob Derwig for 't Barre Land in 2000. This equally legendary performance fitted perfectly into the zeitgeist of the fresh millennium. Delpeut's adaptation now places the play in a group of people who emerge from that very zeitgeist: the millennials. He makes hefty interventions in Derwig's text.

Pieter Bots, reviewer and theatre secretary of the Culture Council, once articulated in his article 'On the Hunt for Writers': Many directors are not looking for pointed drama. They seek unruly texts, dramatically much more interesting. Or they make a montage performance, in which disparately chosen text material is tailored precisely to their own vision.

You said "with existing lyrics I can express anything I want". What's left of Derwig's text?

'Jacob has actually mainly done a retelling (from German), his adaptation is mainly a technical one. What's left I actually find very hard to say because I haven't been around with the original script for a long time. Probably not much. In the second half after the interval, there are some crucial scenes and some monologues left.

'Actually, I re-conceived all the scenes. No, actually there's not much of it left...laughs...but it's still very Chekhov!'

Chekhov's ♥ heartbeat

'I did start from Chekhov's heartbeat. Started looking for my answer to Chekhov at all. This was from an irritation I had with the existing performance tradition of Chekhov. I tried to discover what bothered me about it. It's not so much a comment on the staging, but more a sense of unease: "this can't be it". On the other hand, there is that Russian lethargy, that boredom in which some kind of Dutch equivalent is normally sought. That's not right! At least we have turned the hopeless into a world of overexcited millennials. And strangely enough, in that radical reversal, we come very close to Chekhov.'

No lavish characters

'Where in Chekhov you see lavish characters, with no interest in taking a step out of their situation, in our performance we show characters lost in a world that is highly flexibilised. A world where contact is mainly through digital means. In this world, the idea prevails that you constantly adapt. That determines your identity. The characters in Platonov contemplate that adaptation in an environment where your market value is constantly important. To a large extent, it has to do with living according to a client's wishes. Because meanwhile, someone is already more contractor than human being.'

'The result is that people are hyperactive and talk to each other differently. They talk in a way that is only ostensibly substantive. They sprinkle facts more than they ask questions. That frightens me, but that communication is theatrically a pleasure to work with at the same time.'

The original seems more focused on one main character, in your case is there a multi-perspective, that is, are there multiple leads?

'Eighty per cent of the performance is group scene but still Vincent van der Valk does play the title role. The common thread is his psychological werdegang, but we witness much more group processes in an urban tribe. A response in a flex-world to abandoned institutions like associations, parishes, societies, family, family and relationship. Such an urban tribe is a very safe response. You can be anything there - nothing really has to be - and you have to keep it all up, in order for the group to survive. Establishing relationships is complicated because they are at odds with loyalty to the group.'

Platonov from India?

In the loft, the welcome back party is entering its second day when Misha Platonov arrives there: with wife and child. Admittedly via a transfer in Siberia, but really from India where he performed serious duties in the world of embassies and NGOs. Did he have a high-level career there -to give the country a democratic boost- the year came to nothing. Back in the Netherlands, he thinks he can resume his life but integrating his family into the existing group does not come naturally. Misja's thinking is, to put it mildly, no longer consistent with how the others communicate; #metoo happened, information technology is another step ahead. It can no longer ground itself.

'Yes, we are struggling with a theatre character who ends up in a room full of shitty kids. He enters into discussions that he himself does not seek. The codes and conventions have changed. And of course he gets into trouble because of that, which in turn creates his crisis. They all think and drink too much anyway.'

Classic crisis

Platonov loses himself considerably. He has a crisis in the classical sense, a quarterlife, existential or midlife crisis (depending on the viewer), in an environment where having a crisis is not possible. Burnout is the only answer. He becomes isolated and shoots through to continue to exist as an individual. Too late, he faces his most essential connections, including his wife. He ends up feeling truly alone now, but he has to recognise that he has a child. This is different with Chekhov.

Is Platonov a constant, is it the others around him who change?

'All other characters suffer consequences from Platonov's attitude. They will turn out to be more constant. Platonov does change. In recent weeks, he has even fallen into an ascetic trip. The loft is getting bigger, shadier and more cluttered. At the end, it looks like Sensation White where someone in one corner is still going really hard while the clean-up crew is already sweeping cups.'

Working

'Misha's biggest change is that you cannot live as a contemplative outsider, but neither can you live the moment from within. The famous "We will have to work" (with which almost all Chekhov's plays end) is also valid with us. Even if it does not live up to your expectations, there is still the practicality. Taking responsibility for a child and finding a job. In other words: recognising that you are falling behind in time and mores, which do have their progress, witness for instance #metoo.’

#metoo?

'There is a lot to be said for that. You can be very puritanical about it. You can also say 'this is a correction'. A similar thing applies around racism. In this respect, Platonov is a white, educated and heterosexual man who has to reinvent his position in a changed social consciousness.'

Do we need new role models in theatre and is Platonov one of them?

'Role models, very dangerous I think. It's a good topic of conversation and a discussion we also had in rehearsals. I think theatre doesn't have to do anything, art doesn't have to or have to do anything. It is nice if there is an essential relationship to be made between art and ethics, but I think art questions. Art can show the way but that is not necessarily its purpose. And art should certainly not be instructive.'

'If there are role models in theatre who dictate to the audience how to live, I walk out of the theatre myself...'

'It depends on the artist in question. How socially responsible does he want to be? Which side does he choose in this? I personally don't believe in consensus on self-imposed measures around role models. I believe more in not doing certain things anymore. Especially no more unconsciously so that new questions arise about casting, about gender- or ethnicity-affirming casting. Of myself, I don't think that's anything new at all. I think we are not an example, but a vanguard in what that could look like. Also for other art forms and social environments, but never along a template. If so, it is no longer my idiosyncratic personality but really a deeply rooted aesthetic credo. I don't believe in that, it will be unholy.'

It remains a bit ambiguous when talking about representation of reality, are we going to do it in casting but not in roles?

'Sometimes but not always. We can make an advance but are not a theatrical course on 'living together'. You can put those questions in your classroom whether it is so special to have a dark actor play Othello. Why is it special? Nothing against the National Theatre [which released an Othello with a black title role actor, to denounce the racism in the play, (ed)], let alone Werner Kolf, but I personally find it equally important that André Dongelmans plays the role of Glagolyev because his skin colour doesn't matter in it.'

'When it comes to representation of reality, any reality, I think multicultural and multiethnic society may be better represented on stage, absolutely 100%. But that need not always mean that we are role models in a thematic sense, let alone role models. The more meaningless the interpretation, even without quotas, the better. From an inner sense, though, and I believe there is.'

What artistic risk do you take as a director?

'The self-proclaimed Chekhov connoisseurs or the exegetes will think all sorts of things. I don't give a damn about those opinions... there's a risk there. This time it is the guided collective with which I stepped out of my comfort zone with personal vulnerability. I felt highly visible.'

With this Chekhov, no one comes up just to say his lines? 

'If you don't do that as a character's only raison d'être, you have to choose radically the opposite: that the world is in constant flux. In the show, many people are talking at once and yet you know what to listen to. There is overstimulation. There are always media at play: a phone, a big LED wall with a browser, YouTube on and, meanwhile, cooking TV. One conversation on the left, the other on the right.'

'The focus is on the audiovisual 'drugport'. A world where the big and small are equated like on a Facebook timeline. Victims in Syria and a picture of what someone cooked last night occupy the same space. That's in dialogues and playstyle. You have the choice to follow the machine-gun pace or accept that it doesn't need to be followed. For that relaxation in viewing, we really did need the try-outs in Veenendaal and Utrecht.'

There is murder in Platonov. To what extent is it necessary to treat audiences to violence?

'I find all three of these moments of violence highly melodramatic, sleazy, comic. They stem from a romantic notion that death brings redemption from these themes. I don't believe in that. Not after having performed Sarah Kane's work in which death plays an essential role. It's hard for me to take steps back from that now.'

'We chose, from a social point of view, to take responsibility and try to take care of that child. You can try to identify with people you have damaged in understandable confusion along the way. Now that is a feat of social work in Chekhov's terms! We actually thought together "What if we do things differently" and "You don't get to get away with this": with suicide. That led to something completely different.'

The shame is missing?

'That is certainly interesting in cases of sexual misconduct. Platonov, of course, comes very close to that. Towards 'the perpetrator' there has been little harm or shame culture. Towards victims all the more. I really believe the tide is turning. It is interesting to think of Platonov as a romantic relic and place it in another time. Different mores, the same Platonov.'

'Actually, Platonov has been snowed in for 100 years and now he is coming back, and he walked into the wrong room. Questioning mores means questioning how deeply rooted our cultural habits are. Especially when it comes to the role of men and the condoning of romantically motivated behaviour in relationships. The winking at the condoning of -how men treat each other-, and women is of course also very deeply rooted in theatre. I don't think I want to set an example, but this is a vehicle to question things for a change. Very true isn't it?'