Michael Sheen Talks About His Best Experience Of His Life

From source: WalesOnline
Michael Sheen is at the very top of his game, but he insists he’ll never do anything as important to him as The Passion, the theatre epic which he staged in his home town. Chris Stuart meets the actor and his proud father Meyrick to find out what the project meant for them and Port Talbot

IT couldn’t have been a better start to 2012 for Hollywood star Michael Sheen. He’s currently wowing audiences and critics with his portrayal of Hamlet at London’s Young Vic and building up his awards collection.

Last Easter, Sheen was responsible for creating one of the most ambitious pieces of theatre ever staged.

In collaboration with National Theatre Wales and Wildworks, he brought 72-hour epic The Passion – a modern take on the traditional Passion Play – to his home town of Port Talbot.

Featuring a community cast of 1,000, it brought more than 10,000 people to the steel town and reached thousands of others through online streaming.

Since then, Sheen has amassed accolades, including the Theatre Awards UK Best Director Award (shared with co-director Bill Mitchell) and he was recently named Man of the Year by BBC Radio Wales.

The Passion is also nominated in the What’s On Stage Awards Theatre Event of the Year category. The winners will be announced next month.

But, as the following Q&A reveals, Sheen is mostly thrilled about what The Passion has achieved for his beloved Port Talbot, saying it’s the most significant thing he’s ever done.

QWhat were your ambitions for the project and what did you hope its impact on Port Talbot might be?

AMichael: Well, there are the ambitions I said I had, and then there are the ambitions I actually had. I wanted to tell what’s known as ‘the greatest story ever told’ in Port Talbot, and to make it about that town, as a way of seeing the lives we live in a slightly different way, and showing that, for want of a better word, miracles happen every day and that people are doing extraordinary works all the time, whether they’re aware of it or not; people in the community who are doing the work, getting their hands dirty and dealing with the difficult stuff with very little support and with very little celebration of what they do.

But the unspoken ambition was a much grander thing, which is why I didn’t say it to anybody at the time, because it sounds very pretentious.

I wanted to see if it was possible to do something that was the equivalent of Greek theatre – a communal thing, where people come together to share what’s important to them, but at the same time to take part in something slightly mysterious and ritualistic, where you acknowledge and experience something bigger than you, something you can’t quite put into words.

QMeyrick, as a resident of Port Talbot, what’s your perspective on The Passion?

AMeyrick: During the two months’ build-up, people saw Michael around the town, and knew something was going to happen, even though they didn’t know exactly what.

People had come from all over the UK and Europe as well, and America. And it just built. At the crucifixion, there were around 15,000 people on the beach. It was absolutely amazing.

QWas there a stand out moment during that weekend that made you think “it’s working?”

AMichael: A number of moments stand out. I remember leaving our base (for the first official event) and knowing that I had to do the walk along the beach, in character.

I’ll always remember coming out and looking down the beach and seeing more people than I’ve ever seen in my life. That was quite an extraordinary moment. But the really big moment for me really was on the Saturday night.

Only about 200 people could actually be inside the Seaside Social Club where our version of The Last Supper was taking place, where Paul Potts sang and Iwan Rheon and the Manics played and we ended with a huge line dance.

Then we came outside to do our version of Gethsemane, and I was arrested and put on the back of a flatbed truck in the car park in among the crowd, and there were thousands of people watching. I think people were beginning to realise they weren’t watching a play; they were actually involved in something that was about them and that was giving them a voice to talk about the things they most cared about.

And there I am, on the back of this truck, with the Head of the Secret Police trying to get me to admit I’m the leader of the town, so he can imprison me and kill me. And he’s saying to the crowd ‘Do you think this guy’s the leader of town?’

And they were going mental, thousands of people. I remember looking out at the crowd and seeing these faces so full of passion, believing they were supporting me by saying, ‘Yes, yes, he’s the leader of the town,’ whereas in fact they were signing my death warrant.

That was the moment I realised this wasn’t a play any more. They were playing their part without realising it. The boundary between fiction and reality was totally blurred, which is what I’d always hoped for. It was a devastating moment.

QAs a witness to all of this Meyrick, was there a moment for you that you’ll never forget?

AMeyrick: Well, I can certainly recall the moment Michael’s just described. I was playing one of the town dignitaries, and we were actually frightened at one stage, with the crowd baying, and us up on the balustrade there.

That was absolutely amazing. But then there was the crucifixion when these 15,000 people turned up. And you saw some of the younger people of the town who’d had a few drinks through the day waiting for this, and there wasn’t one problem. Absolutely fantastic.

AMichael: We didn’t really know how the town itself would react. It’s not a town that’s used to this kind of thing. There’s also, I think, an absolutely justified mistrust of poncy actors turning up and trying to do something. But there was not one bit of trouble.

We had no stewards, and I remember seeing just one policeman, although we had loads of people who were pretending to be the local police, who were in fact just our community performers. And then we had this riot police element who came in and who everyone hated, pretending to have fights.

There was real aggression in the air, and it was scary. But everyone took responsibility for each other.

QListening to you, it’s almost as if The Passion is the most significant thing you’ve ever done. Is that overstating it?

A Michael: I don’t think that is overstating it. And it goes beyond career. For me it was about using theatre, performance and storytelling for what I would consider to be the right reasons. It wasn’t just about being entertaining, although I think it was entertaining; it was about giving a platform to people, giving people a voice. So it goes completely beyond the idea of career.

It will undoubtedly be the most significant thing in my career, I know that, but also, the most significant thing in my life probably, in terms of what I learnt about what’s possible – not just possible within theatre, but possible in terms of community when people are brought together and feel enabled and empowered and able to tell their stories.

QFollowing The Passion and Hamlet, how would you describe 2011 for you?

A Michael: It has been an absolutely extraordinary time for me, in part because I’ve done things that I’ve developed myself. The Passion and Hamlet have raised the bar for me hugely, which means I feel I haven’t got as much to prove in certain ways.

It means I can take my time a little bit more and do things I really care about.

QWhat sort of future can Port Talbot look forward to?

A Meyrick: People have said that The Passion has changed Port Talbot and that things are starting up as a result. For example, a group that I’m involved with is hoping to regenerate the town’s Plaza Cinema,

AMichael: For me, one of the great things about what’s happened since The Passion is that people have felt more empowered to make things happen themselves, rather than just leaving it to other people to make those decisions. That was the spirit of what we were trying to do.