Rebecca Frecknall, a visionary director with a deep understanding of the human condition, has built a remarkable career across theatre and performance. With a portfolio including works like Cabaret and A Streetcar Named Desire, Frecknall is known for her ability to blend emotional depth with striking visual storytelling. In this interview, she shares insights into her creative journey, her approach to directing iconic works, and how she navigates the challenges of a high-stakes industry. From sources of inspiration to her collaborative process with actors, Rebecca Frecknall explores what it means to create authentic, transformative theatre.
hube: You’ve been part of some incredibly successful projects, but what was the first production you directed that made you truly realise this was the career you were meant for?
Rebecca Frecknall: To be honest, the first time I ever directed anything! Or at least that’s when I realised it was the career I wanted to pursue. It was in my first year of university. A student in my year who’s gone on to be a successful theatre producer set up a new writing festival, as there were no extracurricular opportunities at the time. I volunteered to write and direct something that I had created with a group of friends during my theatre course. I loved coining something from nothing. Before then, I thought I wanted to be a performer, either an actor or a dancer, but as soon as I stepped into the directing role, I felt such clarity that it was the making that drove me and not the performing.
h: What have been the most significant influences on your creative vision as a director? Do you have any specific directors or works that you look up to or draw inspiration from?
RF: I draw influence from lots of different things: dance, visual art, text, music, but of course, there have been certain works or artists that have had a significant impact on my work. The works of Pina Bausch have influenced me hugely since I was a student, as well as pieces by Hofesh Schechter and Kidd Pivot. I’ve always taken inspiration from dance and how choreographers work with the body in space and time. I also remember my first introductions to the work of Ivo Van Hove (A View From The Bridge) and Thomas Ostermeier (Hamlet) being really significant, demonstrations of how classic texts could be reinterpreted and unlocked.
h: You’ve worked with a range of actors, including Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. How do you build trust with your cast?
RF: Probably the same way you build trust in any relationship. You listen, you’re curious, you empower them and also make clear decisions. You’re excited by their skills and want to collaborate with them in a generous way. You want it to be a two-way street. I think it’s important to allow people to try out their ideas in rehearsals, to explore going down a particular road, even if that road ultimately ends up being a dead end. A great actor I’ve worked with multiple times once said something to me I felt was spot on—‘The best thing a director can say to an actor is—“I don’t know”. And the worst thing a director can say to an actor is—“I don’t know”.’ She was trying to make the point that a director isn’t expected to have all the answers; the best collaborations between actors and directors allow for the unknown, for collaborative discovery. But a director is supposed to make the actors feel safe, to aid them in their discovery, to use their skills to be specific and clear while remaining open and searching.
h: Your work on Cabaret and A Streetcar Named Desire has garnered rave reviews. How do you approach iconic pieces like these, where there is such a rich history and high expectations?
RF: I think you have to come to iconic pieces through your own personal journey and connection. I have a very personal history with both those pieces, and that’s how I met them. I also believe, on some level, it’s why those productions were successful. I was searching for the thing within them that made me feel a certain way or that changed me in a particular way when I first saw them or read them. I was looking to bring to light elements I felt to be lying dormant in the work, waiting to be brought to the forefront. I felt I saw something in the work that I hadn’t seen realised on stage. It’s impossible to erase your own biography when you approach making a piece of work. To try to make great theatre is a personal and exposing endeavour—and an almost impossible task! Of course, I’m aware of a work’s prior successes and the expectations that may exist in an audience’s head because of a famous film version or stage revival that’s come before. It’s important to be aware because we don’t want to ignore or cast out great choices or possibilities just because they may have happened before; sometimes, the obvious choice is the best choice. However, it’s impossible to make something authentic to you and your company if you’re distracted by any sense of being in competition with what’s come before. You must just shut the rehearsal room door and focus on what’s happening now in this moment with this group of people. You have to search for your own truth within the work. Not everyone will think that’s the right truth (it doesn’t chime with theirs perhaps), but it will be authentic to you and your company—no one else would do it exactly the same way.
h: How do you approach adapting a classic like Romeo and Juliet? What’s your process for staying true to the original text while adding your own artistic interpretation?
RF: Everything begins with the text; the text is the origin with a revival. Artistic interpretation, for me, comes from a desire to unlock what I believe to be the core of the text and find the best way to communicate it with a contemporary audience. Different texts colliding with different groups of artists will always result in different interpretations. I try to stay attuned to my impulses and intuition when making a new piece. I feel like I’m staying true to the original if I’m staying true to how it moves me specifically while trying to unlock it for the audience. For me, that doesn’t have to be about sticking diligently to stage directions or design descriptions or even the order of the text. It’s about respecting the kernel at the centre of the work, respecting and honouring the original artist’s creation whilst also respecting and honouring your own resonance with it and how that resonance guides you to interact with it, what feels most urgent to you.
h: How do you manage the pressures that come with working in such a fast-paced, high-stakes industry?
RF: It’s helpful to try to stay away from as much of the noise as possible, especially when I’m in rehearsals. It’s a wonderful industry to be involved in, but it can also be exhausting, exposing, high-pressure and cut-throat. I try as best as I can to stay true to myself, to work collaboratively, to be kind and to stay grounded. It’s easy for the industry to run away with you, and often it does. It’s important to know how to come back to yourself, to try to stay connected to the ‘why’ that made you want to get into it in the first place.
h: You’ve mentioned that you prefer not to read reviews and avoid social media distractions. Is that a way of staying focused on your creative process, or do you find it helpful to distance yourself from external interpretations of your work?
RF: Perhaps both reasons are true. Initially, I stopped reading reviews and got off social media as self-preservation; it was just too much pressure and invasion, it’s too easy to get knocked off course by the words of others. But now I choose not to read them because I’m not sure they need to be a part of what I’m trying to do. Critics’ opinions (like all audience members and all artists) are subjective, coloured by all sorts of biography and experience. I know when I feel disappointed in my own work, when I feel like I haven’t achieved what I set out to, or a production hasn’t quite worked. I also know when I feel like it has worked completely and is exactly what I hoped to make. It’s possible for critics to award great reviews to a piece that the artist ultimately didn’t feel was as good as it should have been. It’s also just as possible that they’ll give bad reviews for something the artist felt was their greatest work. I think for me it’s most important to try to hold onto my inner compass and to trust that—that’s ultimately all you’ve got. I always ask for notes and feedback whilst making a new production, and the best idea will always win in a collaborative process, but once something’s open to the public, it’s open to thousands of different responses —if you tried to take them all in, you’d probably never make anything again!
Special thanks to Casarotto Ramsay & Associates