Michael Bogdanov in Conversation

Summary

The following conversation took place on a number of occasions beginning on Friday 3 September, 2004 and ending on 4 February 2005, in Cardiff, where Michael Bogdanov’s Wales Theatre Company has its administrative base. It has often been the case that discussions of literary and artistic matters have historically taken place against backdrops of national politics or crises. Dryden’s Essay of Dramatick Poesy was cast in the form of a dialogue that was conducted against the backdrop of an Anglo-Dutch trade war, and these interviews with Bogdanov were no exception: on the day of the first interview the siege of the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, that was to end in massive loss of infant life, was in its third day; the aftermath of the war in Iraq continued, with President Bush of the USA announcing an aggressive foreign policy directed at ‘changing the world’, and declaring the USA to be ‘liberty central’. At the same time as being sensitive to larger global issues, Bogdanov’s theatrical endeavours are also firmly rooted in a strong sense of community; indeed the two are integrated at a fundamental level in his own thinking.