A week or two in advance of the first performance, the whole play should be run through, no matter what state it is in. We need to
concentrate now not just on the detail, but also on the flow, the through-line. Once again, the director checks that the key idea is clear. But she also needs to remember once again that the actors will be nervous at this point, and patience and forbearance should be her constant companions. There are likely to be several run- throughs, so that the actors can find and feel the rhythm, and also adjust the pace, or tempo of the whole. Gradually, everyone needs to feel even the pauses filling up with energy. The director may invite one or two trusted outsiders in to watch an early run- through, and will talk to them frankly, in private, afterwards. After a run-through, the director will set aside time for detailed work on bits and pieces which have been exposed, and also for specific work with individual actors. And very near the first performance, he will probably ask for a speed run, or ‘marking’ rehearsal, in which the actors must run through the whole play at double speed – speaking and moving like a fast-wind film or video. There is no need to project their voices, or even articulate precisely: the aim is to ‘mark’ the performance, to see that it can be done virtually without thinking, and to expose what the actor is still unsure of. Moreover the speed run re-injects energy into the performance, as the actors feel they can fly with the play, and by giving them a significant confidence boost, it helps them to relax and feel able to change, adapt and improvise in performance.
Contact with the stage management team and the designer, which has been maintained throughout the rehearsal period, is now consolidated. The stage manager and her crew will certainly attend several run-throughs, and the designer, or scenographer, will also attend. Both will have attended other rehearsals, too, from time to time, but if the rehearsal period is no more than three and a half weeks, their scope for this may be limited. Members of the publicity team should also attend at least an early run through.
Technical work is scheduled for the production week (or pro- duction period, since a week, though frequently all the time that is available, is really too short a time for the technical work to be completed properly). Once the set is complete and the lights hung and focused, the director must work with the scenographer, or scenography team, to plot the lighting, sound and other effects, setting the lights’ brightness, the sound’s volume and noting each time anything technical changes. The show may have many such
cues, and each is noted punctiliously by the DSM (see Chapter 7 below).
Then comes the technical rehearsal, when the whole play is run through on stage, with lights, sound and in addition now, with costumes and props. Everyone must be given time in this phase to adjust to the actual playing conditions, and again the director will notice that many of the company are nervous. She remains calm and serene throughout all the traumas of this phase in the pro- duction process. Before the actual run-through, the sensible direc- tor allows the cast time to ‘walk’ the stage, maybe before they receive their costumes, certainly in costume. Actors who need large wigs or outlandish make-up should be given an opportunity to work with these long before this point is reached, but they need to test these again now. They also need to test the furniture, assure themselves of the props, try opening or closing windows or doors, and so on. Actors are well advised to try speaking in the theatre in order to feel the acoustics there, though the director will remind them that the presence of an audience tends to deaden sound. The technical rehearsal, when it arrives, will be a full dress run-through, with all the technical elements added, and proper communication established between stage management, DSM and director to ensure everything is as it should be. Technical rehear- sals may be stopped so that problems can be attended to; dress rehearsals should never be stopped.
Some time close to the opening night a photo call will be arranged, and it is usual for the director to set up the scenes which should be photographed. The photographer decides whether the actors will pose for photographs, or whether the photos will be, as it were, action shots. The photographer also decides about how to light the shoot.
There should be two dress rehearsals at least. The first dress rehearsal is still likely to be slow, as actors continue to adjust to their new surroundings, and after it there are certain to be changes required, even if only to small details. An outsider who does not know the text may be useful at the first dress rehearsal, to listen for the actors’ audibility. After dress rehearsals, the stage manager and, probably, her team join the actors in the auditorium for notes. The good director’s dress rehearsal notes are careful, constructive and positive; for actors they are more likely to suggest checking intentions than simply demanding changes to, say, particular moves.
Certainly a director is not advised to start rejigging whole scenes at the dress rehearsal stage.
The professional theatre often has preview nights for the actors to accustom themselves to playing before an audience, and these provide opportunities to make adjustments, weigh up spectator responses and so on. On the first night, when everyone else’s nerves are strung tight, but the director’s job is all but done, the director should exude an air of quiet confidence. She will attend some performances (but not all if there are more than three or four), will keep contact with the company, and may give notes and even suggest changes and improvements. This is unlikely to transform into rehearsals after the opening, but the director, like the rest of the company, has a responsibility to ensure that stan- dards are kept as high as possible all the time.
Summary
The director, as we know the position, emerged in the late nineteenth century, probably in response to the rise of naturalism, though many of the great directors of the twentieth century rebelled against naturalism.
The director’s job is to control the whole artistic side of the pre- sentation; she is ultimately responsible for everything the audience sees or hears. This includes:
choosing the play;
working with the scenography team on preparation and design; auditioning actors and casting the play;
researching the play, deciding the ‘key idea’, the style of the production, etc.;
preparing a ‘book’ to work from;
rehearsing the actors through discussion, blocking, runs-through, etc.;
overseeing the production week, technical rehearsals and dress rehearsals.
FURTHER READING
Edward Gordon Craig’s The Art of Theatre (London: Heinemann, 1911 and later editions) has been enormously influential over the
last 100 years. My Life in Art by Constantin Stanislavsky (London: Bles, 1962) records his struggles to create truth on the stage.
Specifically on directing, Toby Cole and H. K. Chinoy’s Direc- tors on Directing (New York: Crown, 1970) is invaluable. More or less practical advice is given in: Harold Clurman, On Directing (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972 and later editions) and Frank Hauser and Russell Reich, Notes on Directing (London: Atlantic Books, 2006). Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares (London: Routledge, 2001) is more inspirational, and therefore idiosyncratic.