Thursday, November 30, 2006
An Interesting Letter -- Theatre Application?
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/05/a_letter_from_k.html
The Role of the Director
A lively conversation over at Parabasis about the role of the director. I suggested that we might want to revisit the job description for the director, and decide whether it needed to be changed.
Historically, the rise of the director is fairly recent -- the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, generally acknowledged as the "first director," doesn't come on the scene until the 1870s. The Duke was known for detailed crowd scenes and an insistence of ensemble acting. When he toured, the troupe was seen by all the major first generation directors (Brahm, Antoine, Stanislavski, etc.) Arguments could be made for others as the "first director," but I think it is significant that opinion has settled on the Duke, because in that case not only were the actors who worked for him his employees, but they were also his subjects. Thus, he had great power over them both professionally and personally. In addition, his actors were primarily amateurs, and he funded the theatre from his own coffers. In other words, his power was complete, and extended to all elements of the stage. This was the model that influenced the early directors.
Prior to that, plays were staged by the playwright or main actor according to generally accepted conventions of staging. Actors were largely expected to plan their performances on their own time, and they would come together for a few rehearsals to walk the blocking, not unlike, say, the musicians in an orchestra. In other words, interpretive power was dispersed among multiple artists.
But with the birth of the director, the interpretive act was centralized. The director was responsible for the "concept," and for the interpretation of the individual scenes and the play as a whole. This overarching concept was to serve as the organizing principle for all other aspects of the production: designs, performances, etc. The movement from a dispersed interpretive model to a centralized interpretive model was not simply a smooth evolution -- power was wrested from the other artists, especially the actors, who were no longer the sole interpreters of their role, but now were asked to create within the confines of the director's interpretation. How did that transfer of power occur?
Primarily, it came through acting theory. It is very interesting how many of the first generation of directors wrote acting theory, most notably Stanislavski, but also Meyerhold, Brahm, Antoine, Tairov, and Craig. (Sidenote: take a look at the book woefully mistitled Actors on Acting and figure out what percentage of the articles are by directors and playwrights! Hint: it's a large percentage.) What is significant about these acting theories is that most of them shifted the focus of the actor from the exterior to the interior. Whereas in the past, actors would rehearse alone while looking in a mirror, say, and consciously plan their performance moment to moment, now the acting process became a psycho-spiritual process that sought to minimize the actor's awareness that they were on a stage -- they were now to trick themselves into believing that they were the character.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this shift of the actor's focus to the subjective part of the equation strengthened the need for this new position of the director, who now was required in order to provide the objective part of the equation. The sheer difficulty of what the actor was being asked to do cemented the need for an outside eye to evaluate the actor's performance ("Did I do it?"), and to guide the interpretation. It is also significant that much of the initial acting theory was written as a dialogue between a wise old teacher director and youthful, impetuous actors (An Actor Prepares, for instance, of Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons). In such instances, actors were infantilized, presented as naive children in need of a wise parental figure to guide them toward success.
This process was then cemented into place by the death of the repertory companies, in which actors developed powerful positions by working together over a series of years, and the rise of productions that brought the artists together for a only specific production. These productions were put together following the industrial model that was dominating the business world. Production lines, with workers whose jobs were totally focused on one small piece of the construction process with only the supervisors having a knowledge of the entire process, were being hailed for their efficiency and productivity. The theatre fell into step: directors became the theatrical equivalent of the supervisor who knew the entire process, while the actors and designers specialized and focused on their own small piece of the product. To this day, one of the primary defenses of the director having interpretive control is one of efficiency -- production "by committee" is too inefficient and time consuming.
The point I am trying to make is that the rise of the director was not some sort of "natural evolution" toward perfection, but rather a shift in power that was rooted in historical circumstances and ideology. An Actor Prepares is an ideological manifesto that suggests a certain division of labor and distribution of power. It is not only a "better way to act."
Given the historical and ideological nature of this arrangement, my suggestion is that we step back and consider whether the doxa (the given, the natural, the it-goes-without-saying, according to Roland Barthes) is really as obvious and natural as it is presented. Is centralized interpretation, for instance, what is best in all circumstances and at all times? If not, what other models are there? Can we look to Ariane Mnouchkine, say, or the working model of Joint Stock as possible alternatives? When a playwright is living and present, should the traditional model be altered in any way? Should we look back to the past, and the examples of Moliere or Shakespeare, each of whom staged their own work, for possible models? What would happen if the responsibilities of the director was redefined in such a way that he is an equal among equals? Perhaps the responsibility of reaching an interpretation was the result of discussion, and the director was responsible for physical staging alone, while the actors worked amongst themselves to develop each scene. The possible arrangements are endless, but not until we acknowledge that the director-as-Grand-Arbiter is not the only effective model, and might not even be the best model.
I am not suggesting that directors are superfluous. What I am suggesting is that their role was defined during a time when authoritarianism and industrial efficiency was paramount. We are now in a democratic and post-industrial age -- should the way we make theatre change as well? I'm just asking.
Historically, the rise of the director is fairly recent -- the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, generally acknowledged as the "first director," doesn't come on the scene until the 1870s. The Duke was known for detailed crowd scenes and an insistence of ensemble acting. When he toured, the troupe was seen by all the major first generation directors (Brahm, Antoine, Stanislavski, etc.) Arguments could be made for others as the "first director," but I think it is significant that opinion has settled on the Duke, because in that case not only were the actors who worked for him his employees, but they were also his subjects. Thus, he had great power over them both professionally and personally. In addition, his actors were primarily amateurs, and he funded the theatre from his own coffers. In other words, his power was complete, and extended to all elements of the stage. This was the model that influenced the early directors.
Prior to that, plays were staged by the playwright or main actor according to generally accepted conventions of staging. Actors were largely expected to plan their performances on their own time, and they would come together for a few rehearsals to walk the blocking, not unlike, say, the musicians in an orchestra. In other words, interpretive power was dispersed among multiple artists.
But with the birth of the director, the interpretive act was centralized. The director was responsible for the "concept," and for the interpretation of the individual scenes and the play as a whole. This overarching concept was to serve as the organizing principle for all other aspects of the production: designs, performances, etc. The movement from a dispersed interpretive model to a centralized interpretive model was not simply a smooth evolution -- power was wrested from the other artists, especially the actors, who were no longer the sole interpreters of their role, but now were asked to create within the confines of the director's interpretation. How did that transfer of power occur?
Primarily, it came through acting theory. It is very interesting how many of the first generation of directors wrote acting theory, most notably Stanislavski, but also Meyerhold, Brahm, Antoine, Tairov, and Craig. (Sidenote: take a look at the book woefully mistitled Actors on Acting and figure out what percentage of the articles are by directors and playwrights! Hint: it's a large percentage.) What is significant about these acting theories is that most of them shifted the focus of the actor from the exterior to the interior. Whereas in the past, actors would rehearse alone while looking in a mirror, say, and consciously plan their performance moment to moment, now the acting process became a psycho-spiritual process that sought to minimize the actor's awareness that they were on a stage -- they were now to trick themselves into believing that they were the character.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this shift of the actor's focus to the subjective part of the equation strengthened the need for this new position of the director, who now was required in order to provide the objective part of the equation. The sheer difficulty of what the actor was being asked to do cemented the need for an outside eye to evaluate the actor's performance ("Did I do it?"), and to guide the interpretation. It is also significant that much of the initial acting theory was written as a dialogue between a wise old teacher director and youthful, impetuous actors (An Actor Prepares, for instance, of Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons). In such instances, actors were infantilized, presented as naive children in need of a wise parental figure to guide them toward success.
This process was then cemented into place by the death of the repertory companies, in which actors developed powerful positions by working together over a series of years, and the rise of productions that brought the artists together for a only specific production. These productions were put together following the industrial model that was dominating the business world. Production lines, with workers whose jobs were totally focused on one small piece of the construction process with only the supervisors having a knowledge of the entire process, were being hailed for their efficiency and productivity. The theatre fell into step: directors became the theatrical equivalent of the supervisor who knew the entire process, while the actors and designers specialized and focused on their own small piece of the product. To this day, one of the primary defenses of the director having interpretive control is one of efficiency -- production "by committee" is too inefficient and time consuming.
The point I am trying to make is that the rise of the director was not some sort of "natural evolution" toward perfection, but rather a shift in power that was rooted in historical circumstances and ideology. An Actor Prepares is an ideological manifesto that suggests a certain division of labor and distribution of power. It is not only a "better way to act."
Given the historical and ideological nature of this arrangement, my suggestion is that we step back and consider whether the doxa (the given, the natural, the it-goes-without-saying, according to Roland Barthes) is really as obvious and natural as it is presented. Is centralized interpretation, for instance, what is best in all circumstances and at all times? If not, what other models are there? Can we look to Ariane Mnouchkine, say, or the working model of Joint Stock as possible alternatives? When a playwright is living and present, should the traditional model be altered in any way? Should we look back to the past, and the examples of Moliere or Shakespeare, each of whom staged their own work, for possible models? What would happen if the responsibilities of the director was redefined in such a way that he is an equal among equals? Perhaps the responsibility of reaching an interpretation was the result of discussion, and the director was responsible for physical staging alone, while the actors worked amongst themselves to develop each scene. The possible arrangements are endless, but not until we acknowledge that the director-as-Grand-Arbiter is not the only effective model, and might not even be the best model.
I am not suggesting that directors are superfluous. What I am suggesting is that their role was defined during a time when authoritarianism and industrial efficiency was paramount. We are now in a democratic and post-industrial age -- should the way we make theatre change as well? I'm just asking.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Wealth
I once read somewhere that real wealth is not about having money, but rather about having time and space. While I don't remember who said that, I'm pretty sure he or she wasn't talking specifically about the arts. In essence, it is what Virginia Woolf was saying in A Room of One's Own, except she mixed in the monetary: a room of one's own and 1000 pounds a year -- which, in essence, buys time. When I read the blogs of many of the theatre artists, this really comes home. Playwrights, directors, actors, designers all need the time to create, and a place to do it in.
It seems like a truism, really, and yet what happens to our idea of fundraising if we shift our focus just that little bit? If, instead of raising money, we went out to try to raise time and space. Many artists work day jobs in order to pay the rent, i.e., they make money to buy space. Artists, what if a patron or foundation offered you, not a grant, but a rent-free apartment for a year -- would this make any difference in your artistic life? What if a grocery chain offered to give you groceries for a year? Or the electric company paid your utilities for a year? How much real estate stands empty while someone seeks a buyer? What if they could get a tax right-off for renting it to you? What if empty warehouses could be leased for a penny a year to artists looking for a place to rehearse, or a place to put together a very basic performance space?
Of course, this is the world of bartering -- I am not having any particularly new and brilliant ideas. But it seems to me that the grantwriting scene has become so professionalized that another approach -- one involving smaller amounts of basic goods -- might lead to more time and space for artists.
So a question to the artists: would any of this make a significant difference to your artistic life?
It seems like a truism, really, and yet what happens to our idea of fundraising if we shift our focus just that little bit? If, instead of raising money, we went out to try to raise time and space. Many artists work day jobs in order to pay the rent, i.e., they make money to buy space. Artists, what if a patron or foundation offered you, not a grant, but a rent-free apartment for a year -- would this make any difference in your artistic life? What if a grocery chain offered to give you groceries for a year? Or the electric company paid your utilities for a year? How much real estate stands empty while someone seeks a buyer? What if they could get a tax right-off for renting it to you? What if empty warehouses could be leased for a penny a year to artists looking for a place to rehearse, or a place to put together a very basic performance space?
Of course, this is the world of bartering -- I am not having any particularly new and brilliant ideas. But it seems to me that the grantwriting scene has become so professionalized that another approach -- one involving smaller amounts of basic goods -- might lead to more time and space for artists.
So a question to the artists: would any of this make a significant difference to your artistic life?
Monday, November 20, 2006
Suzan-Lori Parks
On the recommendation of Brian, I have read Suzan-Lori Parks' essay "Elements of Style," which is published in The America Plays and Other Works. He was certainly right -- great stuff! I will pass it along to my students.
Some gems:
"As a writer my job is to write good plays; it's also to defend dramatic literature against becoming 'Theatre of Schmaltz.' For while there are several playwrights whose work I love love love, it also seems that in no other form of writing these days is the writing so awful -- so intended to produce some reaction of sorts, to discuss some issue: the play-as-wrapping-paper-version-of-hot-newspaper-headline, trying so hard to be hip; so uninterested in the craft of writing: the simple work of putting one word next to another onstage. Theatre seems mired in the interest of stating some point, or tugging some heartstring, or landing a laugh, or making a splash, or wagging a finger. In no other artform are the intentions so slim! As a playwright I try to do many things: explore the form, ask questions, make a good show, tell a good story, ask more questions, take nothing for granted."
.......................
"theatre
Jesus. Right from the jump, ask yourself: "Why does this thing I'm writing have to be a play?" The words 'why,' 'have' and 'play' are key. If you don't have an answer then get out of town. No joke. The last thing America needs is another lame play."
.......................
"Most playwrights who consider themselves avant-garde spend a lot of time badmouthing the more traditional forms. The naturalism of, say, Lorraine Hansberry is beautiful and should not be dismissed simply because it's naturalism. We should understand that realism, like other movements in other artforms, is a specific response to a certain historical climate. I don't explode the form because I find traditional plays 'boring' -- I don't really. It's just that those structures never could accomodate the figures which take up residence inside me."
Some gems:
"As a writer my job is to write good plays; it's also to defend dramatic literature against becoming 'Theatre of Schmaltz.' For while there are several playwrights whose work I love love love, it also seems that in no other form of writing these days is the writing so awful -- so intended to produce some reaction of sorts, to discuss some issue: the play-as-wrapping-paper-version-of-hot-newspaper-headline, trying so hard to be hip; so uninterested in the craft of writing: the simple work of putting one word next to another onstage. Theatre seems mired in the interest of stating some point, or tugging some heartstring, or landing a laugh, or making a splash, or wagging a finger. In no other artform are the intentions so slim! As a playwright I try to do many things: explore the form, ask questions, make a good show, tell a good story, ask more questions, take nothing for granted."
.......................
"theatre
Jesus. Right from the jump, ask yourself: "Why does this thing I'm writing have to be a play?" The words 'why,' 'have' and 'play' are key. If you don't have an answer then get out of town. No joke. The last thing America needs is another lame play."
.......................
"Most playwrights who consider themselves avant-garde spend a lot of time badmouthing the more traditional forms. The naturalism of, say, Lorraine Hansberry is beautiful and should not be dismissed simply because it's naturalism. We should understand that realism, like other movements in other artforms, is a specific response to a certain historical climate. I don't explode the form because I find traditional plays 'boring' -- I don't really. It's just that those structures never could accomodate the figures which take up residence inside me."
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Clurman and Enthusiasm
In preparation for a lecture on the Group Theatre, I have been reading Wendy Smith's fantastic Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940, and Harold Clurman's even-more-fantastic Fervent Years. Of the dozens of quotations that have me inspired, here is one that particularly resonates with what I have been thinking about and writing lately:
"To what human beings, one might ask, were theatre ideas to be valuable. First, to the theatre artists themselves -- to actors, since they were the theatre's crucial factor; actors were citizens of a community before they took on their dubious connection with 'art.' Second, theatre ideas were to be important to an audience, of which the actors were a focus, for it is the audience (seen as a 'community') that has given birth to its artists. The criterion of judgment for what is good or bad in the theatre -- be it in plays, acting, or staging -- does not derive from some abstract standard of artistic or literary excellence, but from a judgment of what is fitting -- that is, humanly desirable -- for a particular audience." (italics mine; from Fervent Years)
Clurman condemned the board members of the Theatre Guild: "They had this fixation on pessimism. If you felt BADLY and said life stinks! it STINKS! you were really an advanced person. There'e something about pessimism that gives people an aura of grandeur. If you think everything is hopeless and down and wretched and dirty, then you really are an exalted person. I've never understood why." (quoted in Smith, p 24)
"If theatre is an art, if it has any value beyond decorating the emptiness of our existence, it too, collective art thought it be, must have an analogous singleness of meaning and direction. It too must say something, it too must create from the chaos which is the common experience of its members, an expression that will have, like that of the individual artist, an identity and significance with which people, sharing the common experience, may sense their kinship and to which they can attach themselves." (italics original; quoted in Smith, p 7)
Clurman taught at CUNY back in the 70s, and a good friend of mine, Alvin Goldfarb (co-author of The Living Theatre and expert in Holocaust theatre), had classes with him. It must have been extraordinary! To warm your mind and soul through the heat of a man with a vision of what theatre should be, and who spoke those ideas in words of passion and intensity -- I can think of few things that could nourish the artistic heart more fully.
I am reminded of Jimmy Porter's plea in Look Back In Anger for "a little ordinary enthusiasm," and his frustration with the fact that "Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm." Clurman had enthusiasm, he thought, he cared, he believed. He was not afraid to look silly because of his passion, he was not afraid to not be cool.
Is there someone who carries on that tradition? I sometimes feel it when I read some of Kushner's essays. Are there others that you can point me toward -- other visionaries who are putting forward a passionate, committed vision of today's theatre that echoes Clurman's 75-year-old prophecies? If I wanted to inspire my young students with a contemporary vision of theatre's power and potential, where should I look? Is there anyone who has transcended the hip postmodern cynicism to propose something that can be believed in? Is there somebody who embodies enthusiasm?
"To what human beings, one might ask, were theatre ideas to be valuable. First, to the theatre artists themselves -- to actors, since they were the theatre's crucial factor; actors were citizens of a community before they took on their dubious connection with 'art.' Second, theatre ideas were to be important to an audience, of which the actors were a focus, for it is the audience (seen as a 'community') that has given birth to its artists. The criterion of judgment for what is good or bad in the theatre -- be it in plays, acting, or staging -- does not derive from some abstract standard of artistic or literary excellence, but from a judgment of what is fitting -- that is, humanly desirable -- for a particular audience." (italics mine; from Fervent Years)
Clurman condemned the board members of the Theatre Guild: "They had this fixation on pessimism. If you felt BADLY and said life stinks! it STINKS! you were really an advanced person. There'e something about pessimism that gives people an aura of grandeur. If you think everything is hopeless and down and wretched and dirty, then you really are an exalted person. I've never understood why." (quoted in Smith, p 24)
"If theatre is an art, if it has any value beyond decorating the emptiness of our existence, it too, collective art thought it be, must have an analogous singleness of meaning and direction. It too must say something, it too must create from the chaos which is the common experience of its members, an expression that will have, like that of the individual artist, an identity and significance with which people, sharing the common experience, may sense their kinship and to which they can attach themselves." (italics original; quoted in Smith, p 7)
Clurman taught at CUNY back in the 70s, and a good friend of mine, Alvin Goldfarb (co-author of The Living Theatre and expert in Holocaust theatre), had classes with him. It must have been extraordinary! To warm your mind and soul through the heat of a man with a vision of what theatre should be, and who spoke those ideas in words of passion and intensity -- I can think of few things that could nourish the artistic heart more fully.
I am reminded of Jimmy Porter's plea in Look Back In Anger for "a little ordinary enthusiasm," and his frustration with the fact that "Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm." Clurman had enthusiasm, he thought, he cared, he believed. He was not afraid to look silly because of his passion, he was not afraid to not be cool.
Is there someone who carries on that tradition? I sometimes feel it when I read some of Kushner's essays. Are there others that you can point me toward -- other visionaries who are putting forward a passionate, committed vision of today's theatre that echoes Clurman's 75-year-old prophecies? If I wanted to inspire my young students with a contemporary vision of theatre's power and potential, where should I look? Is there anyone who has transcended the hip postmodern cynicism to propose something that can be believed in? Is there somebody who embodies enthusiasm?
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Favorite Posts
Yet another crazy week (will it never end?). In lieu of writing a new post, I'd like to draw your attention to an old one that I looked back at and found worth repeating. I hope you find it intriguing.
http://theatreideas.blogspot.com/2005/10/attempt-at-synthesis-analogy.html#links
http://theatreideas.blogspot.com/2005/10/attempt-at-synthesis-analogy.html#links
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
About Theatre During a Time of War
"It is now often said that theatrical entertainment in general is socially justified in this dark time as a means of relaxing the strain of reality, and thus helping us keep sane. This may be true, but if more were not true, if we felt no deeper value in dramatic art than entertainment -- we could hardly have the heart for it now. One faculty, we know, is going to be of vast importance to the half-destroyed world -- indispensble for its rebuilding -- the faculty of creative imagination. That spark of it which has given this group of ours such life and meaning as we have is not so insignificant that we should let it die. The social justification which we feel to be valid now for makers and players of plays is that they shall help to keep alive the world with the light of imagination. Without it the wreck of the world that was cannot be cleared away, and the new world shaped."
-- George Cram "Jig" Cook -- Provincetown Players, 1918
-- George Cram "Jig" Cook -- Provincetown Players, 1918
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