E DITING S TAGE D IRECTIONS

Before you actually start reading you should edit the stage directions—and cross out most of them. At the very least, all stage directions should be adapted rather than swallowed whole as emotional marks that the actors are supposed to hit. Movie people don’t have any trouble understanding that the production designer must adapt rather than execute rigidly the screenwriter’s description of sets and locations. It’s the same for actors.

There are different kinds of stage directions, some more needful of editing than others:

1) Directions that describe the character’s inner life.

“Longingly,” “kindly,” “livid with rage,” “a withering look,” etc. These should all be crossed out, for the same reasons that you stay away from result direction. It is especially important to cross out (or at least approach with serious skepticism) the parentheticals: “pause,” “beat,” and “she takes a moment.”

All these kinds of stage directions are adjectives, adverbs, indications of transitions or psychological explanations, or emotional maps (“He cannot look away”; “She makes a decision”). They are not playable. What the writer has done by putting in these abbreviated emotional guideposts is to take a stab at providing the characters’ subtext. This is useful to the producers, executives, distributors, and agents who read a lot of screenplays—dozens per week—and need such time-saving devices.

It is exactly the job of the director and actors to create the sub-world. Heeding such shortcuts to the characters’ emotional life will make the director’s and actors’ job more, not less, difficult. You might want to keep an uncrossed-out version of the script hidden away to look at at some point during rehearsal, to make sure that the choices you and the actors are coming up with are at least as good as the author’s suggestions. But crossing them out first is an important invitation to your story imagination.

The wrist-cutting scene in “Fatal Attraction” contained the stage direction “laughing.” Actor Glenn Close tried but could not make it work honestly. Given permission by director Adrian Lyne to do whatever she needed to do, she ended up crying in the scene.

2) Directions that depict blocking or business with no plot consequences.

“She struggles with her coat”; “He looks at his watch.” These should be crossed out too. Such a stage direction as “She struggles with her coat” is still a shorthand suggestion of the inner life of the character, another version of the first category above. It’s better writing than describing the character as “frustrated,” but it’s really the same thing.

In addition to finding the subtext, finding the movement and activities that physicalize the emotional events of the script is exactly your job, a big part of the creative challenge of acting and directing. In “The Bridges of Madison County” Meryl Streep created a bit of business around fixing the photographer’s collar that was the

sexiest thing in the whole movie.

If there is a bit of business or blocking in the stage directions that looks interesting to you, that brings to life an emotional event or justifies a character’s line, you might highlight it with a question mark, to try in rehearsal. But if, in rehearsal, the actors’ connection to the emotional event leads them to some other physicalization (activity), you can consider that as well, and make a choice.

3) Directions that give us characters’ personal objects.

In the examples above, perhaps we would want to make note of the one character’s coat or the other character’s watch, as potential personal objects. Objects are very important elements in a person’s (character’s) life. When we find clues as to the objects in the characters’ lives, whether they are in the stage directions or dialogue, we need to circle them, then list them in Column 8 (“Physical Life”) of Chart 3.

“On his desk there is a picture in a silver frame of a woman and two little girls.” This should be circled as one of the character’s personal objects. Any adjectives or adverbs that suggest inner life should be crossed out. (E.g., “A picture of his wife and two daughters has been lovingly placed on the desk.” You should cross out “lovingly”) Even if you end up without the picture frame in any shot of the movie, it is helpful and necessary for script analysis. It leads to questions: “What is the history of this framed photo? Who bought and placed it on the desk? Is its presence a gesture that fulfills obligation and proper form, or deeply felt? Are they still married? Is the divorce too painfully recent for him to have put away the photo?”

4) Directions that give us backstory facts.

“The last time a crime occurred in this town was twenty-five years ago”; “He graduated first in his class at Harvard.” Backstory facts in stage directions fall into two subcategories: a) facts that are referred to in the script, that is, a line somewhere in the script refers to the fact that the character graduated first in his class from Harvard; and

b) facts that are not referred to in the script, that is, there is no line describing his education one way or the other.

In the case of (a), since they are already in the dialogue, you don’t need them in the stage directions and you can cross them out. I find it much more exciting and creative to do the detective work of deducing the backstory facts than being fed them.

In the case of (b), since they are not in the dialogue, they may contain useful or even necessary clues. In that case you might enter them on a list of “facts” (see Column 1 of Chart 2 on page 192). On the other hand such statements by the author may be imaginative choices which you can use, if you find them helpful, and if not, you can reject and invent your own. In that case they belong in Column 1 of Chart 3 (page 207). For now I suggest that you circle them with a question mark.

For example, the feather which escapes Forrest’s fingers and floats up into the air during the opening credits of “Forrest Gump.” This image was described in the original script, and even if it had never ended up in the completed movie, it would have been circled as an image of the script, and a potential clue to the themes of the movie. It should also be listed in Column 6 of Chart 2.

6) Directions that describe an emotional event.

That is, an event with plot consequences (e.g., “He searches through the pile of clothes until he finds a gun”; “They kiss.”) These need to be left in, after you cross out any descriptive words (e.g., “He searches desperately through the pile…”). You should translate any psychologizing explanations (“He cannot look away”) into emotional events (“He does not look away”). Once you have edited and translated the description into an event, highlight it. Make sure you are not confusing essential information about the emotional events of the script with optional stage business; optional stage business may be highlighted but should have a question mark next to it. An important reason for crossing out superfluous stage directions and questioning optional ones is so that you can locate and highlight the necessary ones—the ones that tell you an emotional event which is not revealed by any dialogue.

After you do this, you’ll be left with very sparse, circled or highlighted stage directions, and some question marks. The circled images, facts, and objects will have been entered on the proper charts. Highlighted material will contain clues to the physical and emotional life of the characters.

Below is the opening scene from the play “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” by Mark Medoff. Before you read on, you might want to look at the scene and do your own circling and crossing out.

ANGEL

Good mornin’, Stephen.

(Stephen does not look at her, but glances at the clock and makes a strained sucking sound through his teeth—a habit he has throughout—and flips the newspaper back up to his face. Unperturbed, Angel proceeds behind the counter.)

I’m sorry I’m late. My mom and me, our daily fight was a little off schedule today.

(Stephen loudly shuffles the paper, sucks his teeth.)