Directing must be wielded not suffered.
By David J. Glover
“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” Plato
Answer this question: “What aspects of directing do we want to discuss?”
I am fairly certain such an exercise should illicit a series of responses relating (though not limited ) to the director’s use of space, their relationship with actors, their methods of rehearsal, the benefits of warm up exercises or a practical methodology for providing what White calls, a “generous environment” (1). While contemplating these aspects of directing in my rehearsal process for Towson University’s participation in Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365U, I am repeatedly reminded by my own rehearsal procedures that I have very strong opinions on these issues of directing; opinions which, like bamboo, are malleable enough to sway but which are tough enough not to snap under pressure. My bamboo’s roots are planted in personal experiential learning. Having acted, directed, written and designed for the theatre, I will not limit myself by stepping into the steaming, putrid mound which is the trend of “self-identification.” I am not an “actor” or a “director.” I will not label myself as an “artist” or a “writer.” I am someone who simply works in theatre – and, to mis-quote Brecht – “Should I add alas?”
To this end then it is not enough for me to simply (re-)consider my relationship with my actors or my exploration of space as aspects of directing to be discussed, neither academically nor during my creative process. I am, for the purposes of those discussions, happy to accept the limitations imposed by pragmatism.
Space equals blocking and text equals acting. Done!
I am quite prepared to acquiesce to the basic functionality, the semiotic relationship, which such a simplified equation of terminology affords us in our working environment. We have, after all, seen the confusion which abounds through Post-Structuralism’s emancipation of the rigidities of what defines a “text,” while the legacy of Grotowski’s work leaves us blindly searching for a constitution of “action.” I am even willing to utilize Lee Breuer’s potentially faulty syllogism that “music tells you what to feel and acting tells you, for the most part, what to think.” (Breuer, 2007) I am happy to accept these as givens because they are of little relevance to my work. They are finite, they are or are not. They are either done or are not done. The audience either experience the actor visually and audibly, or they do not.
The most important aspect of directing which needs to be addressed, therefore, is the role and authority of the director themselves. The who, what, where, when and how of directing can be answered by those who feel the need to continue fighting what is evidently becoming a losing battle. Those self-defined theatrical directors who are focused solely on the front lines, choose to remain vulnerable, out-gunned and out-numbered. The skirmish must be out-flanked, attacked from behind by the handful of artist/practitioner directors who can brandish directing like a weapon; those who use direction as an artistic medium in its own right. Not those who are an indebted second string to the playwright, beholden to the dramaturg for every aesthetic decision and grateful to the literary manager for any opportunity to direct yet another half-assed play-in-development.
I am not suggesting anything new. Stanislavsky questioned the authority and creative voice of the director many times over, saying,
My experience tells me that you can not create a director – a director is born… the true director comprises within his own person a director-teacher, a director-artist, a director-writer, a director-administrator. What can we do if one has these qualifications while another has not? (p.109)
In this quote from 1936 Stanislavski is actively promoting the director as a self-aware artist, the director as self-evident auteur, the multi-inter-disciplinarian whose artistry is circumjacent to the production, not genuflecting at the feet of the “text.”
In an interview at Towson University in the fall of 2006 Jim O’Quinn, editor of Theatre Communication Group’s (TCG) American Theatre Magazine, declared categorically that American theatre belonged firmly in the hands of the playwright.
JO’Q Our theatre is a writer’s theatre and it’s going to stand or fall on the backs of playwrights, I think.
TU Do you still think that’s true?
JO’Q I think it’s still true.
TU There was a time in the past there where directors were awfully important…
JO’Q Yeah but they’re not really! It is a writer’s theatre and it really always has been.
O’Quinn’s dismissal of the role of the director, albeit the director in America, is indicative of traditionalists and academics who complain bitterly about the demise of American theatre and the lack of NEA funding on one hand while extolling the marvels of America’s institutionalization of play development on the other. In the same interview O’Quinn states that Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365days/365plays project is a radical and challenging work while the “show-offy” direction of JoAnne Akalaitis, Robert Wilson and Peter Sellers attempts to “place the meaning in the mise en scene” and thus “doesn’t succeed in a big way.” What hope is there then for the director when such condemnation abounds in both academic and trade press? Preceding this assault, and possibly inspiring it, Eric Bentley recently delivered a killer blow to the art of the director in his acceptance speech for the International Association of Theatre Critics’ Thalia Prize, awarded to him in Seoul, South Korea in October 2006, “I wouldn’t mind if stage directors didn’t exist, either. The 20th century welcomed them but they have outstayed their welcome, and are now a hideous imposition, he stated. Bentley went on to compare the role of the director with that of the orchestral conductor, saying that the role of time keeper was, until the 19th century, kept by the first violinist and similarly the role of the director as conductor is unnecessary.
I agree.
Those shows which find themselves in need of a director whose concern is the use of space, their relationship with actors, their methods of rehearsal and the benefits of warm up exercises - those regional theatres whose artistic director would not dream of doing a season without personally directing at least one “classic” - let them remain in the trenches being assaulted by the O’Quinns and the Bentleys and whoever else wishes to take potshots at them. Let them give away their position by quoting Method or Viewpoint aphorisms, such as,
If a director foists upon an actor his own, the director’s thoughts, derived from his own personal emotional memories, if he tells him “You must act precisely so,” he does violence to the actor’s nature.
(Stanislavski 1953, cited in Cole and Chinoy p110)
Or
I work with a company of artists who have learned to disagree with one another with generosity. We developed a way to use violence with compassion and kindness
(Bogart, 59)
This is not the level (perhaps, more appropriately, “severity”) of directing which is addressed in my work.
Directing must be wielded not suffered.
It is simultaneously too much and not enough for the director to assume that the opinion of everyone involved in the production is valuable or that the playwright’s text is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. The playwright is not god; though one might being to think so when considering the models of play development such as the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrighting conference. Is it too soon to decry the development process? I think not! More than twenty years ago playwright Steven Dietz commented on the increasing redundancy of the text-based play development process suggesting that “playwrights have not made their language rise to the occasion. [New plays] continue to subsist on that good ‘ol realistic dialogue that the small minds in theatre value as gold.” (sic.) (42). And where are all those “new plays” by upcoming writers that made it through the development mill twenty years ago? Sorry Mac, I didn’t see you there behind Mr. Albee and Mr. Stoppard’s latest award winning works!
The director is the only true warrior in the battle. The playwright has the development process available as a training ground. If they should foray onto the field untrained, undeveloped, they still have the director to shield them from the slings and arrows of the critical eye. The director however, being generally unapprised of the developments made in the development process, must take the text - the convoluted, distorted, multi-headed hydra that it is – and wrestle it. The director interpolates the elements of time and space, aesthetics, visualizations, transitions, images and juxtapositions, and only then, lays him or herself open to the barrage of criticism. Just as Jim Steinman’s music and lyric are only a small part of a Meatloaf concert or the gas in the car’s engine only a small part of the process of driving, the playwrights work is just a fraction of the exertion require to achieve live theatrical performance. Furthermore, until playwrights embrace the artistry, vision and intellectual manipulation required to direct their own plays, playwrights will need directors much more than directors will need playwrights. There are considerably more texts out there available to the director-artist than there are directors available to the playwright. For that matter why should the director-artist require a pre-written play text at all? Ladies and gentlemen please put your hands together and welcome to the battlefield our heavy artillery: Mr. Robert Wilson, Mr. Peter Brook, Mr. Jerzy Grotowski, Messieur Lepage et Madam Lecompte, unt Herr Piscator. Not a play in development among them. Meanwhile, The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl (Who?) went through a staggering thirteen professional readings and development workshops and to what end[1]?
Is my answer then simply that playwrights should shut up and put up? Well, yes! The play text is simply a product like any other thing. The chef has no right to an opinion as to how I cut my steak or if I put pepper on my potatoes. I would say that the question “what aspects of directing do we want to discuss?” is the exact question which every director worth their salt should be asking themselves in every rehearsal. Every time we, as directors, commit an allegedly “violent act” with our apparently “necessary cruelty of decision” (Bogart, 43) we should be asking ourselves not “how can I better serve the playwright, the text, the story?” but rather “how can this text better serve me? What aspects of my art, my directing, do we want to discuss?” If my art is weak then I will be picked off by the critics in the sniper towers, but why should I put myself in the line of fire armed only with someone else’s words?
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, in 1986, Steven Dietz wrote “We must empower out playwrights to challenge, not placate, directors. We must enable our playwrights to educate, not emulate, dramaturgs.” (43). Is there any evidence that the system of American Play development has ever taken up this flag? Within the confines of this paper I do not want to labor the point, suffice it to say that I personally believe that the role of the director is far from over because it has never truly begun.
Works Cited
Bentley, Eric Acceptance speech for the Thalia Prize.
www.hotreview.org/articles/bentleythaliaspeech.htm
Bogart, Anne The Director Prepares. Seven Essays on Art and Theatre.
Brecht, Bertold The Messingkauf Dialogues.
John Willet (trans.), A&C Black, 2002
Breuer, Lee A Conversation.
Interview at Towson University 2006.
Cole Toby, and Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern
Chinoy, Helen Krich Theatre,
Dietz, Steven “Opinion: Developed to Death?” American Theatre
Magazine. May 1987, 42-43
O’Quinn, Jim In Conversation.
Interview at Towson University 2006.
Parks, Suzan-Lori 365plays/365days
Unpublished play text. 2006
Stanislavski, K. Creative Work With the Actor; A discussion on Directing
1936. Cited in Cole and Chinoy, 110
White, Dr. David, For Directors: Creating a Generous Environment.
25th May Revision, unpublished.
[1] To be fair The Clean House was a Pulitzer prize finalist in 2005.