Interview: Charlotte Randle Talks COUGAR at the Orange Tree Theatre

Charlotte Randle is currently appearing as Leila in Cougar, Rose Lewenstein's play exploring the impact of climate change and consumerism.

What attracted you to this new play, Cougar?

I got the script just before Christmas. I had a couple of other jobs lined up, but my agent said I should just read it. So I did, and I hadn't read a part that good for a woman of my age in such a long time.

Rose Lewenstein's writing just grabbed me immediately. It's totally conversational but, to me, really poetic. because of all the line repeats that come through this amazing structure of 80 scenes, as the play jumps forwards and backwards.

It's written in a non-linear style that so intrigued me, and I thought that it would be one of the most fun things ever to rehearse and to work out what's going on and how to do it.

You must have read hundreds of scripts over the years?

I have! I do an awful lot of readings of new plays, and I've been in a lot of new plays that have been quite successful and gone on to be produced.

This writing felt so fresh and so different - I hadn't experienced this many scene changes in such a short play before. The writer doesn't prescribe much - a lot comes through the writing and you can guess what she wants - but a lot of the time it's left very open.

Rose was often in the rehearsal room with us and we would ask her for clarification or advice and she'd be like, "Well I don't know..." Some of it had simply just come to her.

The more we rehearsed it and the deeper we went into the run, we found that it just gets under your skin, this narrative arc she has written. It's quite hard to pin down, but viscerally and emotionally, it just makes a form of sense.

What is the relationship between an actor, a director and a writer when all three are present in rehearsals?

It totally depends on the writer - on the three characters you have, who those people are. If you have a very dominant director or writer or a very starry actor, the dynamics would change. In our case, there was an amazing sense of equality and desire to listen to each other and work together.

This is the only production I've ever worked on that is entirely female [apart from Mike Noble, who plays John]. The whole creative team - design, lighting, movement, casting, director, writer are women. There was an extraordinary sense of coming together and collaboration and it felt slightly ego-less and so refreshing.

Of course, there are many men without huge egos! But it's noticeable when there isn't someone striding about and being in charge.

In this case, we all wanted to move forward in a way that made sense for everybody. There were two or three lines (at most) where Mike and I were struggling to make sense of where our characters were going. Rose was totally open to having the discussion - she would go away and come back with something else that would make sure everyone was happy.

She's a real wordsmith, so I could really see the craft in the writing. There are so many repeated lines throughout the play, but slight changes in the line would inform a whole new moment in a relationship.

She writes in a specific way that informs you as an actor as to how you should speak. The script shows the rhythm of the speech and the sense comes through.

In the audience, we see only the end product, not this fluid, dynamic process that creates it.

The most important person in any play, particularly a new play, is the writer.

What an extraordinary thing that this young woman has decided to write a play about wealth and so many different things. It's become more and more evident in the run that we're walking blindly towards the tipping point on climate genocide, but the two characters in the play show that we're just interested in what we want right now, and it's "fine" to have it as long as we can afford it financially.

In fringe venues, actors have to really live in the characters, because the audience is so close - what turned the lock in the character for you?

I think it's a few things. For Yerma [the Billie Piper production], it was staged in a glass box and we were mic-ed up, so we had almost no connection to the audience - we couldn't see or hear them very much. It was an amazing experience, because I'm used to an audience being part of the show.

But it was very focusing - you came on to the stage, looked into the eyes of the actor with whom you were working, and that was it.

It was really helpful for Cougar because it gets so intense. The set is similar: you're in the round, in a bedroom with a couple of glass panels. Of course I'm aware of the audience, but there is the ability to look into Mike's eyes and go, "I'm in this room with you and that's it." The audience becomes flies on the wall - I can't engage mentally with the fact that they're there!

What's it like working in a two-hander that is as intense as this - with an actor that (I presume) you met for the first time in rehearsal?

I was offered the part the day I auditioned for it and I asked if they had cast the boy, and they said that it was Mike Noble. I was so pleased because I'd seen him in Game at the Almeida [2015] and gone up to him at the end to tell him that he was amazing and that I hoped we could work together in the future.

I thought that he's such a good actor, this would be such an exciting thing to do - knowing it was him was a real encouragement to take the job.

How lucky it is that we have got on so well, because the idea of turning up every day to go on that mad journey with someone you don't really like or don't trust would be a nightmare! As an actor you'd get over yourself and do it, and maybe the audience wouldn't notice either way, but the truth is that Mike and I have an amazing rapport.

On a Monday, because we've had a day off, we tend to come in and line-run the whole show and that's completely voluntary. We want to make sure we're match fit.

I'm going to feel at a loss when this finishes next week, because we've really been working intensely together and it's been amazing.

You mentioned that "it was a great part for a woman of my age" - what is that difficulty like and are things changing?

I wondered if I'd noticed a difference in the amount of auditions I get as time passes. I have noticed that there are fewer auditions, and the parts are not the same kind as I could go up for when I was younger - and I've played some fantastic parts!

There's probably a slightly in-betweenie age and then, when you're a bit older, a wealth of older woman parts will become available for me.

That's one of the reasons why I couldn't not do this, because it's so challenging and interesting. Rose said that you rarely see unlikeable women on stage, and you never see women who do not feel the need to explain themselves, yet you get male characters like that across the board, and nobody ever questions it.

She was interested in wondering what would happen if she wrote a woman that we don't have to like and finding out how that makes an audience feel. That woman also holds the power - that's rare and uncomfortable and people might not like it on stage.

In terms of things changing for actresses "my age", it feels like the right moves are being made. For example, in this fully female production of Cougar, Chelsea Walker, our director, has just been nominated for an Offie and she'll go on to do good things. She's very interested in women's stories - well, in stories! She was interested in working with Rose on this because of that dynamic.

All I can do is keep my fingers crossed. But having worked with Billie Piper on Yerma, I see her striding out and making her own work, writing her own TV series and films. Many more women are picking up the pen - and that's where it starts. Women writing women's stories and then theatres having the courage to produce them. After the writers, it's the producers who say "OK - we're going to take a chance on this".

Rose is doing a lot of writing for television and also for the Royal Court. I think she's an extraordinary writer. I know this play has not appealed across the board, but there are people who have come to see it who have grabbed me or Mike in the foyer of that amazing forward-thinking theatre in Richmond and said "That's one of the best things I've ever seen!".

It engenders so much discussion - that's that what makes me so proud of this play. People just want to talk and talk and talk about what it all might mean and that's all you can really want.

What are doing next?

I have these so different, so random jobs that I'm really loving doing. I'm the voice and face of a character in a video game, so I get to fly to Finland and do that. And then I'm just very excited to see what the next thing might be! But it's going to be difficult to match a part like this.

Maybe I should take some of my own advice and start writing my own work.

Cougar continues at the Orange Tree Theatre until 2 March

Photo The Other Richard