For anyone who was fortunate enough to catch Igor Memic’s production of Happy at the Lantern Theatre this year, not only was it a first rate play designed to make audiences think but it was one of the finest moments in surreal escapism that crowd would have been privy to see during 2012.

Igor Memic is an enigma, driven and destined it seems to go on and make the theatre a place where his name will be seen for many years. Igor was born in Mostar, Bosnia to a Bosnian mother and Croatian father. It is this exotic mix, combined with a love of London and Liverpool that makes him an impressive figure to talk to.

Having finished his degree at the University of Liverpool, Igor is currently working at the impressive Hampstead Theatre in London, where he has been fortunate to see the superb Douglas Henshall, currently appearing on B.B.C. in an adaptation of James Herbert’s The Secret of Crickley Hall and Mark Gatiss of Doctor Who and Sherlock fame in Howard Brenton’s 55 Days.

In a wet and windy Liverpool, I was able to catch up with Igor on a short trip back to the University of Liverpool.

How are you today?

“I’m very well, cold, who would have ever thought that the North-West of England could be so cold at this time of year but no I am very well. I just came up to Liverpool to see a play no less. I spent time watching Rio Matchett’s play Fanny and Faggot yesterday and I spent a good while trying to deceive her from my appearance there.”

As an old graduate of the University of Liverpool, how does it feel to be back, especially as one of its rising stars?

“London is the love of my life, my first love and I absolutely adore that city. Liverpool however is my eternal mistress. However much I try I cannot keep myself from here too long and I adore this city, I think it has such a heart of culture to it. Everybody, everybody in Liverpool is somebody or trying to be somebody and whether they are writers, dancers, painters, actors…anything musicians, comedians and I think that is so, so beautiful. It paints the city in such a wonderful vibe and it gives if a wonderful energy that I don’t think you find in many other cities.”   

Not only did you graduate from the University of Liverpool but you also had a very special play, the excellent Happy, put on at The Lantern Theatre as well.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, it was a very exciting time in my life and the first full length play I had ever written and I decided I was going to save up the money to produce it. I was picking up shifts in café’s and working in shops and saving and begging and borrowing to get the money together but in the end got the money together to produce it. I really sort of pulled together a team of people who sacrificed quite a lot to be in it and that for me is a better compliment than anything else.

I had a great team of actors in it and support staff that really believed in what we were doing. It was a wonderful experience and more so because of the end result, I have learned so much. I have never been to the Edinburgh Fringe before let alone produced there and it was a trial by fire. It has helped me learn so much in term of what a producer must do to put on a successful production so one assess and one considers their strengths and makes it stronger.”

There are moments of genuine insanity in Happy, how did that come about?

“I think Happy for me is an expression of self-indulgence, nothing else, all art is self-indulgent and Happy was very much that for me. It sickens me that anyone would think of Happy as a criticism of the banking system, I couldn’t think of anything worse. For me Happy was an expression primarily of a look into theatricality and what theatre means, what a script is, the script as an entity, an art form within in itself. I wrote an essay about this recently of which I am hoping to release very soon, What does a script mean? Some will think of it as an instruction manual to create a piece of theatre, for me it is a construction of a fictional world. The rules beneath the scripts are their own. If a script says there is no gravity then by no stretch of the imagination can there be any gravity. If the script says that Juliet dies in act five then there are no circumstances in which Juliet can live as it goes against the physics of the script, the law which dictates what happens in a play. That’s what Happy was, these rules and these laws which say that the man shoots himself in the head and a rainbow explosion comes out the back of his brain, what then does that make the audience feel.”

That was one of the most powerful endings to a play in Liverpool this year; it must speak volumes to the audiences who witnessed it.

“I think there is a modern day epidemic spreading round the stages which I have seen which seem to dictate that theatre is in anyway a reflection of the real world and I despise that belief. I think that if theatre, which is primarily a narrative art form, has the potential to let someone escape their dull and dreary every day realities then why on Earth would anyone want to go to the theatre to watch a play about dull and dreary realities of everyday life. It is escapist and it fantastical in the literal sense of the word and it should let people escape their reality even if it’s for a split second and it is a man conveying rainbows out of his head and if that makes you go what have I just seen?”

The ability to make someone think? 

“Yes, yes…that is so underrated on stage these days. People almost go to the theatre to switch off and I think that is horrid, why go to the theatre if you aren’t going to be moved and forced into emotions that you didn’t know you could experience and to see something that you don’t see in real life. It becomes a wasted opportunities in lots of the theatre I see these days, these are issues I am striving to tackle really and it’s going to be a long journey and hopefully, health permitting, I shall be able to challenge these pre-conceptions for the rest of my life.”

Congratulations on getting on the first rung of the ladder at the Hampstead Theatre. How did that come about?

“Any actor, writer, producer, dancer, painter…anyone who goes to the fringe on a regular basis will know the horror of the bleak September, the post-Fringe September, where without transfer or without…signing onto any long terms plans as the result of your play enters that bleak September you start to think, I have been carrying this thing for nine months in my womb and now it’s sort of done and I really don’t know what to do now.

 Ninety nine per cent of one’s job is dealing with rejection letters and as it came about I simply phoned Hampstead Theatre on a whim and quite clearly said I am looking for a job to get some industry experience and they offered me the job after an interview the very next day as a front of house position which is entry level work but anybody who is anybody in this industry has done front of house work and you are exposed to, what I can only call, a beautiful array of people in their young twenties who are aspiring to something, every single one of them are on the path to achieving great things. It is all we need to know in this industry is to know that we are not alone, we are surrounded by others who are trying to succeed in the same path that you are on then it is worth its weight on gold. You get to watch professional theatre and see how it works. After you have watched the same play ten times you get to pick up things which will help you reflect on your own artistic creativity, never mind the contacts you make which are invaluable at the same time.

I’m very lucky. I know some of my artistic heroes wrote letters in their day looking for work and people could laugh at such prospects these days but it happens.”

As you say you came up to Liverpool to see Rio Matchett’s excellent play Fanny and Faggot and I know she cites you as an inspiration. What is the bond between you two as directors and actors?

“I would absolutely would refuse being in any way an inspiration or mentor to Rio, good heavens, I think it’s a lot more personal that than. We have an affinity between us. We only work together on Happy for the first time and suddenly realised we click artistically so I wouldn’t call it an inspiration, it is simply two artistic minds that have the same views. Perhaps it is too early in each of our careers to call each other contemarys but I think that is what it is, suddenly you realise you have the same artistic goals and we work wonderfully together. She was so much than an artist and assistant director on Happy, to call her my assistant director would be an insult to the work she did. She was the glue that held that play together and to be quite honest, prevented me from having a nervous breakdown in a sense she was worth her weight in gold.  I am notoriously difficult to work with and I pride myself on being so as I demand so much and she works well with keeping the team together and I simply could not have achieved the accomplishment without her. Already we are discussing our next productions.”

Before you talk of the future, what drove you in the first place?

“My family jokes that it is genetic. My great uncle was back in Mostar, where I was born, a very famous theatre practitioner. I walk round with him to this day and everybody knows him and I think the best art created in history is under social restriction and oppression and he was practicing theatre in a time under a Government where his life was at risk, which was brave of him. He is a big inspiration, so my family say it is genetic. The first time I stepped on stage from about the age of 11 I think that it was the only place I wanted to be. I write and produce and direct theatre but I belong on stage.”

Going back to the production with Rio Matchett, what’s the next stage?

“Like I say, I realise how invaluable she is too me and how much I want to work with her again and hopefully we will for a very long time. We will be producing a play in April hopefully, I shan’t give away too much (laughs) a play about poetry no less regarding a very famous Irish poet and one of his more obscure works but this will hopefully be in production in April and then the next Fringe, we shall be taking a classical piece of verse up to the Fringe and she will be directing and I will be acting. I absolutely adore the thought of being directed by Rio as an actor. Every actor wants to work with a powerful director and Rio has proved herself as one to watch. There is no place on Earth like the Fringe.    

Ian D. Hall