Career Profile: Simon Stone

David Whiteley, Frank Gallacher and Mark Winter in The Soldier's Tale [image courtesy Michael Robinson]  

Actor, writer and director Simon Stone overcame a youth of changeable occupational preferences to find his place in the theatre, where he could be anything he chose. Simon tells Arts Hub where it went from there...

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I grew up in Switzerland so at first I had dreams of becoming a professional skier. Sometimes I wanted to be a rockstar. I was very fickle and changed my ideal vocation every month or so, interchanging aspirations of wealth with more adventurous, less mercenary imaginings like being a marine biologist or a park ranger.

What did you become?

I started off as an actor. Now I work as a writer and a director as well. I run my own theatre company.

Looking at my childhood obsession with a multitude of possible vocations it seems appropriate that I became a performing artist – I can entertain my interest in various walks of life all in the one job.

My decision to abandon myself to a career in the arts was not one of naïve hope or illusions of fame and fortune. I remember the day I decided quite clearly. My overwhelming thought was that even if it meant that I was going to be poor for the rest of my life, this was the only life that was going to satisfy me.

What's your artistic background/training - how did you end up here?

I worked as an actor in film and television quite regularly in my first year out of high school, then I went to the Victorian College of the Arts. While at the VCA I developed all the creative partnerships that constitute the fabric of The Hayloft Project. We started at school the same investigations that we are now conducting – we are trying with each project to get closer to what makes theatre a unique form, irreplaceable, magical, overwhelming. The teachers at the VCA created an almost utopian environment in which this was our complete focus. The school has often been criticised for being out of touch, for not preparing its actors for the industry’s conditions adequately, but this is precisely what I cherished – it is a theatre laboratory, pushing the form’s boundaries, testing its limits, not a preparatory school for a rather paltry film and TV industry. The VCA, for this very reason, is largely responsible for the current renaissance in independent theatre in Melbourne.

How would you describe your work to a complete stranger?

I make theatre and film.

What's the first thing career related you usually do each day? Can you describe an "average" working day for you?

Because I work in three different areas of the creative process, this changes vastly from week to week, even day to day. When I’m writing, I write in the middle of the night so my day starts in the afternoon. I eat something, make a few phone calls, check my emails, maybe watch a DVD or read a book to distract myself until I settle in for a long night of alcohol, coffee and cigarettes at my computer. When I’m acting I like to start the day with a line-run in the shower – my brain goes through my lines while I’m sleeping, it basically dreams them into various associations and connotations so that in the morning shower I make all sorts of discoveries about the material. (Not so good for the environment when I’m having a particularly revelatory morning.) When I’m directing I like to keep my brain clear until I arrive in the rehearsal room, so I’ll go for a walk, or ride my bike to work.

What's the one thing/piece of equipment, song, book, security blanket – that you can’t be creative without?

I don’t really rely on anything except my collaborators. I can’t create work in a vacuum. With ever-evolving social and political environment to respond to, I have plenty to say.

Who or what in the arts world most inspires you?

I admire most artists who have the courage to put their personality wholeheartedly into their work. The filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky said that he believed the best directors create a universe entirely of their own, and that each of their films takes place in this self-sustained universe with its very own atmosphere, moral conditions and emotional preoccupations. By doing this, they help us better to understand our own universe. I think this kind of world-building across a series of works can only be successful if the artist speaks honestly from themselves, laying bare all their hopes, desires, insecurities, peculiarities, vulnerabilities, likes and dislikes in all of their work. The audience then gets to know their work, fall in love with it or detest it, the way they would get to know, love or hate a fellow human. Art that works to a formula guarantees that it will not be hated, but it will never transform its audience, surprise us, shock us, or speak to anything deeper in us than our desire to be entertained. The only way I can see that we can still be original is to be ourselves, in all our ugliness, shamefulness, pettiness and smallness. In the willingness for all this to be seen by our audience, we attain a kind of beauty.

What's the toughest challenge you've dealt with on the job?

Every day is another huge challenge. Last year I decided to take time off my career as an actor to concentrate on creating a company to make the kind of theatre work that I believed was missing from our culture. I made this decision knowing that I would have to start off in an un-funded context, with everyone working without pay. This kind of work brings with it a huge amount of stress. The Hayloft Project is trying to make professional-level work, so we engage the most talented actors, designers, directors, writers, stage managers and crew that we can find. But then they get other work, and in the middle of the show we have to replace them. Or one person ends up doing four workloads’ worth. Everyone works themselves into the ground to get a show up, often accruing a huge financial debt in the process. I’ve just taken my first non-acting gig in seven years, working retail to pay off my credit card debt. But if we weren’t to work under these conditions independent theatre would never be better than adequate, and wouldn’t be able to fulfil its important function as an agent of cultural provocation and change things from the ground up.

What's the best piece of advice you were ever given for your career?

I was recently told by Katerina Kokkinos-Kennedy in an email to watch that I didn’t burn myself out. I think after the next two projects I do I should have a bit of a rest. It’s an important part of the creative process to give yourself time to reflect on the work you’ve done and start dreaming up new shows in atmosphere free of deadlines and commitments. I’m really looking forward to getting time to read all the books I have piled up on my bedside.

What are the top three skills you need in your particular role?

As a writer, director and an actor I think you need an incredible degree of empathy, a fertile imagination and the ability to communicate your ideas clearly to others. As a writer and a director this should be matched with an aesthetic awareness of the meaning that form (or style) brings to a piece. As an actor it should be matched with a willingness to be vulnerable, to abandon oneself almost recklessly to the life of the piece.

What's the best thing about your job? The worst?

The best: being excited and inspired every day of my life. The worst: having little to no financial security. The one makes up for the other.

And if you had to sum up your working life in a word or phrase, what would it be?

Insatiable.

What’s next for you?

I’m directing Pool (no water) by Mark Ravenhill for Red Stitch, which runs June 11 – July 5. The remount of The Hayloft Project #01: Spring Awakening is opening at the Belvoir St. Downstairs Theatre in Sydney on June 25th and runs til 13th July.