Re: RAT Toastmaster

[Cat Hebert <virtualdrama@juno.com>]

Mark Lutwak,
> I'm not sure that it is about changing how playwrights write.  I 
> think it's about changing how directors and actors read.
> 
> I am exhausted with directors thinking that their job is to do 
> something TO a play, as opposed to discovering what is there.  Once
again, 
> another argument for having the playwright in rehearsal.

I think that it's that exhaustion that needs to be shared with directors
-- in forums like this list. The act of discovery is a much more
difficult process, and it not only argues for having the playwright in
rehearsal, it also argues for playwrights developing very specific
relationships with people who know, understand and (important) like their
work and see value in it.

Longtime collaboration case in point was the London production of Hedda
Gabler directed by Ingmar Bergman -- with Maggie Smith and Robert
Stephens. The set was designed by Bergman's cinematographer, Sven Nyquist
(sp?). An extraordinary set that managed to frame the actor's faces,
support the symbolism of the play and the production. And Bergman's
"revelation" of the script. Every line told volumes. The relationships
weren't EnglishAmerican. Subtext. Subtext. The whole thing made sense.
Sigh.

Another case in point. I spent a while in the South of the United States.
I saw community-theatre productions of Tennessee Williams work that were
breathtaking. Why? Because the actors/directors lived (or were raised) in
Williams world. They knew the subtext, the code words, the nonverbal
relationships. They didn't have to go very far afield to be able to
"reveal" the text.  (Note that I'm not a big Williams fan. He and the
other psych-realists broke important barriers, but they also plunged U.S.
theater/film into a gloom-glorifying frenzy that lasted for decades.)

Cheers,
Cat Hebert
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