Dinosaur directions

As I mentioned previously, Brett and I are involved in a production of 'Fiddler On the Roof'.

Having just finished a 6 hour rehearsal for the same, I am, as usual, more than a little disgruntled with the 'Director's Process'.

This Director is obviously not, nor ever has been as actor. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of great directors have been similarly inclined, but it is absolutely essential that a director has some idea about an actor's process/processes in creating a character.

To be a little more specific, an actor is about the business of creating a multi-dimensional human being from a bare script. We do this to encourage the audience's 'suspension of disbelief', i.e. when you've paid $40 for a theatre ticket,you generally want to believe for the 2 1/2 odd hours that you're sitting in a theatre that the people you are watching are real characters in sometimes extraordinary or foreign circumstances. If you never believe that the leading man is human/real, you will not ultimately care/have an emotional response to whether he lives or dies, whether he finds his true love, etc.

In order to create this human being an actor must make a very diligent study of what compnents there are in other's perceptions of what it is to be human. How one walks, how one talks, whether you walk with confidence, whether you have a stutter, whether you have a physical tic or habit, and certainly, the conviction and belief with which you speak.

These things are the physical means that come from internally 'inhabiting' a character.

Like most human beings, who we are and what we believe etc inform our actions. For example, if you are motivated by hunger and there is a plate of bread and cheese in your kitchen, you are unlikely to head to the library to fulfill this 'inner motivation'.

If you wish to embrace your lover, you will be better served by moving towards them than backwards and to the left.

Generally, in the actor's process, a character's actions are quite logically informed by their inner state. This state is derived from the text you are given to speak and the character's surrounding circumstances. In an exciting and artistic rehearsal process the director and actor will have an open dialogue in this regard.

i.e. Let's assume Motel (a poor Jewish tailor) wishes to ask for a woman's hand in marriage.

The line he is given is;

'The truth is sir, your daughter and I gave each other our pledge that we would marry over a year ago'.

He has unlimited options available to him for physical expression, but they must be based on his intentions.

Our director has no interest in our character formation. No interest in our internal states. The way his directing works is this;

'In this scene you will take two steps downstage, turn, gesture with your right hand. Stop. Turn around 180 degrees, walk 5 steps. Stop. Sit down. Stand up on line 14 and move to centre stage.'

This 'technique' means that the thought does not inform the action, rather, the action informs the thought. We now have to go through the laborious and difficult process of saying to oursleves; 'What possible internal state could my character be in in order to sit down on this line? It doesn't seem to match the script, or the character work I've done'.

What generally results is wooden and unbelieveable performances. We wear the costumes, say our lines clearly and hope to God that the director's decision will allow the audience to impose a suitable emotional/motivtional state on our characters. The actor is summarily denied all control of their own performance (except perhaps for vocal pitch) and our three years of intensive trainng is wasted and ignored.

Now, some may say 'But you're not in a professional production. Most of your cast is not trained in that way and may benefit from the Director deciding everything'. Fair enough. But to use a more accessible metaphor; if you're building a house, and 80% of your labour is unskilled, it would make sense to explain every step, to direct every hammer hit, to supervise diligently every aspect of the building. But if you have 3 or 4 master builders in your team, you would have to expect them to get a wee bit cheesed off with being treated like morons. You would also save yourself time, and may learn something yourself if you collaborated with them and/or just accepted their ability and left them to get on with their job.

So, after 6 hours of being told to 'Stand still, go left, turn around, sit down' I'm mightily cheesed off. I have tried to negotiate this situation, but to no avail. We were told in no uncertain terms that this is the way it shall be, amen.

I'm sure the show will end up watchable, but it's going to be a hell of a frustrating/artistically boring process for Brett and myself, as well as a couple of other highly trained individuals.

End rant.