Molière with a US accent

Matthew Warchus tells Henrietta Bredin why he is directing an American play inspired by Molière

Rehearsing is an extraordinarily intensive, exploratory, deeply engaging business and director Matthew Warchus, emerging from a long day’s work on his new production of La Bête, by David Hirson, takes a while to change gear, blinking slightly dazedly as we walk towards the Old Vic in search of somewhere quiet to talk.

‘It’s a slippery play, this one,’ he says. ‘The text is so dense and highly wrought and it’s changing shape as we go along. The acting of it creates dimensions that just aren’t apparent on the page.’ He’s a man who knows a great deal about the process of transmuting words into vital theatrical life, and, with recent rollicking successes under his belt, ranging from Boeing-Boeing to The God of Carnage and The Norman Conquests, he is in a position to feel confident about taking on a play that had a very bumpy ride indeed on its first appearance in New York back in 1991.