director's notes 3

Mamet has this analogy about acting in one of his books that I like. He says (and I paraphrase) "If you are getting brain surgery, you just want the doctor to make a good clean cut, go in there fix it, sew it up well and make you better. You don't give a shit about how he feels."

Yesterday was a challenging day for me..one of those days where you feel you are letting your actors down. One of my actors was having difficulty with some lines and no matter how many times I tried to explain where I thought the character was coming from, why the character was saying what they were saying, what the character was "feeling", I just couldn't get the light bulb to go on in the actors eyes.

So once more I felt that uselessness of a director when confronted with that divide between what is so clear in my mind and what is unclear in the actors mind.

I believe my job as a director is to facilitate the creative process of telling a story. ideally to create an atmosphere in the work place where all of us can be as creative as possible. But when that facilitation breaks down I feel that the "failure to communicate" begins with the "warden".

My response to my actor (at least in my head) is: "that's your job..to figure out why you are saying what you are saying." That is at the core of the imaginative process of acting..making choices, bold choices, trying them on and discarding them if need be, but above all committing. As an actor myself, I know the frustration of saying lines that don't seem to have a connection in a play..but I also know that especially in a new play, there are things that will not make sense, and things that need full commitment from the company to see if they fly. I know at times that what we "feel" is really irrelevant. What we need to do is make a good clean cut (and I don't mean text cut although that is sometimes the answer and too often the actor's default request "It must be the line that doesn't work, not me.")--make that cut, sew it up and let the patient go home.

I think that, unwittingly, many of our actors, especially those that make a living doing TV and Film, become anesthetized by atrocious writing that we are allowed to change on the set to "make it work". This often leads to a tendency to think that "my character wouldn't say that" instead of "that's the line, make it work".

This is why Mamet got so aggrieved by what he calls Hollywood "huh" acting. He wants the actor to just say his words. If he is doing his job..the thing will fly,if he hasn't then it won't, but let the writer own it.

Back to my actor..I don't want to suggest that this was going on in their mind or behavior, not at all..but my failure to help, leads me to question not just my process and its failings but the whole process of how we rehearse plays..as I said yesterday, a world premiere done with three weeks rehearsal.

Today, hopefully I can give better facilitation--I want to help, but I also want actors to take full responsibility--I can't expect that unless I do too.


DIRECTOR TIED UP BY INABILITY TO ANSWER ACTORS QUESTIONS: