Revival with intriguing twists

It's a play now being revived with the most intriguing of double twists.

Actor Michael Pennington, who played the part of interrogator Major Arnold in the original production, now switches sides to play, 13 years on, the part of conductor Wilhelm Furtwngler, the man under Arnold's interrogation.

And just to add to the interest, 13 years on, Taking Sides now comes with a companion piece, Collaboration '“ a piece with a title highlighting a theme explored in both.

Harwood, who lives in Slindon, is delighted to be able to offer the two plays together, something he admits he never dreamed he would be able to do.

The original intention was to offer Collaboration, but the CFT was keen to present it alongside a revival of the earlier piece, offering theatre-goers the chance to enjoy not just the richness of each but also the richness of the light that one shines on the other.

Harwood too looks back fondly on a great moment in the Minerva's history in the summer of 1995. "I remember watching the first preview with Harold Pinter who directed it, and Harold said to me 'Listen to the silence.' The audience were totally wrapped up in it. They were just engrossed."

Playing Furtwngler was the late Daniel Massey, who died from Hodgkin's disease, aged 64, just a few years later '“ the role Pennington now slips into, with David Horovitch taking on the part of Major Arnold.

Prized by Hitler as the cultural jewel in the crown of the Third Reich, Furtwngler became the perfect post-war target for interrogation as a Nazi sympathiser. Arnold, who has witnessed the horrors of Belsen, is about to interrogate him . . .

"I was directing a play of mine in Manchester," Harwood recalls. "My wife came up and she brought a book called, I think, Berlin Diaries. The author was a refugee of Austria in the 1930s. By the time the war was over, he was 18 or 19, and they needed German speakers.

"On his desk landed the Furtwngler file. He described in his book the details of what Furtwngler was charged with and the defence. That's how it began. I knew I had a play. The conflict between art and politics has always interested me."

The companion piece Collaboration came along much later, another piece exploring the fine line between collaboration and betrayal.

The play opens in 1931 in a spirit of optimism as Strauss (Michael Pennington) and writer Stephan Zweig (David Horovitch) embark on an invigorating artistic partnership. However, Zweig is a Jew and the Nazis are on the march . . .

The project comes in a busy year for Harwood, who was Oscar-nominated for his screenplay The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (best adapted screenplay category). Five years earlier, he won an Oscar for his screenplay for The Pianist.

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly '“ now available on DVD '“ was the most difficult screenplay he has ever written, he says.

After a stroke, the editor-in-chief of French Elle is left paralysed. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly is his story.

Based on the memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), it shows him waking in hospital to discover his fate and realising that he can move only one eye. Bauby can communicate only by blinking but painstakingly dictates an entire book.

"It was very difficult to know how to do it, and then I came up with the idea that it should all be done from his point of view," Harwood says.

The screenplay lay fallow for a couple of years before it was finally picked up, translated and made into a film in France. The subtitles '“ with understandable contractions to keep up with the speaking '“ are Harwood's screenplay. And he was thrilled with the result.

"They were faithful to the screenplay. They did us proud."

As he says, deciding to present the piece from Bauby's viewpoint was the breakthrough, allowing him to bring in Bauby's own comments. "Once I had got that idea, I found that I could do it. Otherwise, it would have been a rather boring narration."

Key to the film's success is the fact that it is in French. "Pathe, when they came on side, wanted it to be made in French and the director wanted to make it in French. When I first thought about it, I was rather concerned. I thought 'What is it going to do to the script?'"

But his conclusion now is that the film actually works better in French '“ for the simple reason that it is French. "The whole thing is very French. The hero is a very French person."

Back to Taking Sides, though, and it's a revival decidedly convenient for Harwood, who first came to live in the area when Taking Sides was first produced.

"I rented a house in Selsey and fell in love with West Sussex. We lived for a while at East Lavant '“ for 11 years, in fact. Now we have moved to Slindon, which I adore. I don't think I have ever been happier. It's a proper village."

And the view is pretty much the view you would have enjoyed three and a half centuries ago '“ not that Harwood likes a view while working.

"I close the curtains. I like to be in a cell when I am writing!"

Taking Sides and Collaboration are currently at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, until August 30. Tickets available online at www.cft.org.uk or from the box office on 01243 781312.