An Inspector Calls' Barbara Marten on Soggy Costumes, a Collapsing Set & Her Show-Biz Marriage

Barbara Marten is a veteran presence on stage and screen with a sizable range of British TV credits that include a series regular on The Bill. The actress has returned to the West End to give a scorching performance as the imperious Sybil Birling in two-time Tony-winner Stephen Daldry’s legendary production of An Inspector Calls, the 1940s J.B. Priestley play that is back for an encore London run, this time at the Playhouse Theatre. Marten spoke one recent afternoon about the enduring appeal of a play set in 1912 that speaks to us now and of acting in the rain and on a set that collapses (on purpose!) eight times a week.

Were you surprised to find yourself part of a production that was first seen at the National Theatre in 1992, before transferring to Broadway and, many times over, to the West End?
I’d seen the Alastair Sim film [from 1954] and another adaptation for TV several years ago, but I actually hadn’t seen this particular production—even though it’s only been around for 25 years! In a way, that wasn’t a bad thing: I was quite glad to come to [the play] completely fresh.

Was it difficult finding your way into so high-concept a production [the production conceives the Birling family home as a sort of doll house on stilts, surrounded by a dank, gritty landscape]?
Stephen’s take on the production is all about music, setting and the sheer size of the piece all making a difference across three acts that we perform without an intermission, so it was a question of finding my way into that. What I discovered is that it’s a beautifully simple idea—the way, in our staging, the Birling family are people of privilege and responsibility who quite simply don’t see the lower classes; they regard them as a class apart as if they’re not quite people.

How do you interpret the set, given that the house sits at a precarious angle toward the back of the stage before it all comes crashing down?
What's so amazing about the design is the way the Birling family are almost drawn down by the Inspector from their eyrie, if you will, so that he can get at them and drive through his mission—which is to get them all to state their case and defend themselves.

Do you ever get vertigo?
There is, in fact, a slight feeling of vertigo when you first come out and we have had one cast member bump their head on the set already. The task for my character is all about navigating her extraordinary dress down the spiral staircase. I have to grab hold of it almost as if it's another character. My first thought was, what am I going to have to do to get through this eight times a week, but I've found it quite energetic, really.

How do you respond to the onstage rain?
I get wet—sometimes very wet. I have two costumes because it does get fairly soggy, and we have had two cast members off with tonsillitis. I tend to be all right because I'm wrapped in a blanket, but I do have drawers full of remedies. 

What do you respond to in Sybil Birling—the family matriarch—as a part?
As it happens I grew up in County Durham and have lived in Yorkshire, where our play is set, for 25 years, so I know the industrial landscape with the cobblestones and terraced houses that our production draws upon. But I wanted not to play Sybil as a Yorkshirewoman but a representative of her class, so that we could be in London just as well as Yorkshire. The arc of the part is interesting in that I have quite a quiet time in the final act, really. It's the central section of the play that is the most high-powered for Sybil, really. She's the one the Inspector has to crack who seems to be the least sympathetic and the most defensive—until such time as she is broken. 

Is it fun playing the power she at least thinks she has?
It's terribly good fun! I will say that it took me a while to adjust to the size with which you've got to pay her because she really is quite heightened; you can't get all naturalistic with it. But the fact is her attitudes are who she is and I like exposing those. It's intriguing, however briefly, to feel that power. 

Have you been surprised to see so many young people at the play? I attended a sold-out matinee that consisted largely of schoolchildren.
Well, [the play] is a set text on the British curriculum at the moment, so we have had a lot of school parties, but what’s great is how connected they are to the story. They really see Mrs. Birling for what she is, which is that she’s appalling, however, glamorous she may seem.

Why do you think young audiences connect so well to the enduring message of the play, about civic responsibility and belonging to society?BR> I just think younger audiences have a very keen sense of justice and that, of course, changes as you get on in life. One becomes more selfish almost by necessity as you get older because one has to find one's way, but our audiences may not yet be aware of that.

Were you worried that it might seem at all message-laden?
In fact, as you know, the remarkable thing is that it really isn't. Priestley obviously has something to say but he's done it via a dramatic, enthralling detective story where an inspector who seems to come from another realm [the aptly named Inspector Goole] interrogates each member of a particular Yorkshire family quite vigorously. [The play] is highly theatrical and dramatic and also full of unexpected thrills: the story takes you on quite a journey where people really don't know what is happening next.

Does the production have a pertinence to today?
When Stephen first did it, the relevance was all to do with what we now see was the end of the Thatcher era and her famous comment that there was "no such thing as society." Now we have this situation in Europe and across the Middle East where we have this community of the dispossessed and have to ask how much are we really stepping out to help people? In the play, the Birlings don't really see Eva Smith [the unseen factory worker whose fate drives the plot] as anything beyond factory fodder, just as we don't see what is going on the third world. 

What's it like being in a show-biz marriage? [Marten's husband is the writer Mike Kenny, whose plays include the long-running London hit The Railway Children].
There are always moments where, for instance with The Railway Children, I will hear that Mike has written a great part for me and then I find out that [the play] is going to be on during the summer holidays when our three sons are home. I'm sad that I never got to do that particular play because it's a lovely piece and is coming off now in January, but there's been talk about repositioning it in India on the railways there which would be quite something. 

Did you find recompense of sorts in being in last season's West End sensation People, Places and Things, for which leading lady Denise Gough [soon to be seen in the National's Angels in America] won an Olivier? 
I loved doing that play. In terms of naturalism, that was almost diametrically opposed to Inspector in that it was all about making those characters as real as we could, and that was very much led by Denise's performance, which was so uncompromisingly true.

Was it a challenge to keep pace with her performance?
Particularly in the psychiatric scenes [Marten played the Gough character's mother, doctor and therapist] I found her power quite daunting because the doctor didn't have anything to say to equal it. But we developed a good onstage relationship that meant I was very much there alongside her. Doing that play with Denise was like watching someone grow up.