My main interest with Shakespeare and other texts is to try to reveal what the author intended. It's always in service of the search for ways to illuminate the playwrights meaning.
The most important part of my directing work happens before the first rehearsal. I spend months poring over the script, line by line, until the images have been unpacked and there is a firm understanding of what each character is doing at every moment, and why the author put that moment in the play. Once that is done, I begin work with the designers. How can we use music, light, set and costumes to bring the story to life, simply and beautifully? Then there is the rehearsal room. The most important part of working in the theatre to me is keeping the rehearsal room safe while at the same time focusing on the relationship between the actor, the author and the audience as direct and unencumbered as possible. All of the actors have very different training, are in different phases of life, with different aspirations and widely different points of view. How can I help this group of actors to a place where they are all telling the same story, in harmony with each other and with the text? |