To paraphrase Freud's eternal question: What do directors want? More specifically, what do they want from actors in rehearsal and performance? To find out, I posed the following questions to a handful of East and West Coast directors:
-- What qualities do you want/expect from the actors you're working with in terms of attitude, work habits, skills, etc.?
-- What actors' habits tend to drive you crazy?
-- What is the most important thing you'd want actors to know about working with you?
Turns out they want thinking, experimenting, passionate collaborators, not Gordon Craig's 端bermarionettes. As Rebecca Novick, artistic director of San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theater Company, says, "It's a lot to ask of myself to have all the good ideas. We can do better work if everyone comes up with ideas." She likes actors who actively join in — who are willing, say, to talk to the choreographer about how their character moves. "Occasionally you'll get somebody who just wants to memorize lines and be told where to stand," she says. "That's frustrating."
The others agree wholeheartedly. Jessica Kubzansky, co-artistic director of Los Angeles' Theatre@Boston Court, says that if actors disagree with her direction, they should tell her why. Adds Bart DeLorenzo, artistic director of the Evidence Room in Los Angeles, "I love to be inspired by actors, especially when they surprise you with new ideas or approaches to things that I've never thought about." He says to actors, "From the time you open, it's your performance. You're not following my orders so much as pursuing what [your character] wants in conflict with others who are also pursuing their goals." He hopes actors are not thinking, "This will make Bart happy."
"I never want an actor to say, 'What do you want me to do?' " concurs Libby Appel, outgoing artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (she'll cede that position to Bill Rauch at the end of this season). Mark Jackson, a San Francisco-based playwright and director (The Death of Meyerhold), echoes Appel: "It's easy and understandable for the actor to do what the director wants — which isn't very interesting. They'll ask me, 'Is that what you want?' When I hear that question, I say, 'Please don't try to do what I want.' I'm searching for what the character wants, and I encourage them to do the same thing."
Kent Nicholson, director of new works at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, Calif., agrees: "I'm not looking for them to do what I imagined but to do something filtered through them that makes it bigger and better. That can only happen if they bring their own creativity and ideas to the table. The best actors are able to transcend [my direction] so the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts."
Peter Flynn, director of the Off-Broadway musical Henry and Mudge, arrives at his first rehearsal with questions about the characters and their relationships, expecting a healthy conversation. "I come knowing exactly where we want to get for the first performance, but it will make my job easier if you show me the most interesting route there," he says. "I'm going to look to you for that."
Says Berkeley Repertory Theatre artistic director Tony Taccone, "I admire actors who think. Thinking is a value that's underrated in American culture. Many come in abdicating their thinking to the director. I tend to like actors who express themselves in deep ways and feel good about that but who aren't going to fight me. There's a difference between fighting and arguing. I'm not into fighting, and I can grapple with arguing."
I think what Taccone means by "fighting" is actors being unwilling to try something the director suggests, putting up a wall of resistance. Several directors complained about this. "There shouldn't be anything off-limits in terms of trying," says Annette Jolles, who directed the Off-Broadway revue That Time of the Year. "I don't know all the answers! I'm coming in with ideas and choices. Sometimes you have to see things to know if they're going to work or not."
Jackson, who directs in a physically based style, says that in rehearsals he encourages actors to try it first, trust their intuition, and understand it later — a process that can feel uncomfortable to many American actors. "But in real life, that's what we do," he points out. "We put our hand on the hot stove and pull it away instantly."
So the jury's in: Actors must be willing to think for themselves and try anything at least once. But what else do directors want?
Preventing Peevishness
Lee Sankowich, who put One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on the theatrical map several decades ago (and until recently was artistic director of the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, Calif.), wants actors to bring vulnerability and passion to the work. With those essential ingredients, he says, "they'll be capable of doing a lot of different things." Someone else who praises passion is Simon Levy, producing director and dramaturg at Los Angeles' Fountain Theatre. Waxing eloquent via email, he writes, "I want to enter into a relationship with someone who...has a kindred passion for the mountain we're about to climb...who's willing to dare the heights and reveal something of [him- or herself] that hasn't been tested yet."
Kubzansky, too, cites passion: "I love actors who are amazingly passionate — as people, that is, not [necessarily] in a sex scene." Comments Jolles, "[Directing] is a hard job: Producers come down on you, critics come down on you, and with new pieces it's a hard job in terms of rewriting, making last-minute changes. Having people willing to put themselves out there with openness and a good spirit makes a big difference."
Directors, of course, want actors who are team players and willing to be part of an ensemble "no matter how huge their parts are," Kubzansky says. They want actors with a sense of humor, as well as an understanding of the arc of the play and their place in it.
But as united as these directors are in their expectations, they are idiosyncratic in their pet peeves.
Kubzansky, for one, is aggravated by "lazy speech" — actors unfamiliar with the standard American dialect, who use sloppy colloquial pronunciations like "pin" for "pen." This is more common with actors who haven't gone through four-year training programs, she says.
"I don't like actors who are defensive or arrogant or say, 'This is the way I'm going to do it,' " comments Sankowich.
Jolles says she's a doer, not a talker; she likes to get a show on its feet quickly and economically, so it's problematic when actors are unprepared to work or don't know their lines or lyrics. (Kubzansky, on the other hand, doesn't like them to be off-book when rehearsals start.)
"I'm interested in clarity of purpose," says DeLorenzo. "Actors who know what they're doing at all times. I hate meandering on stage, shifting of weight, busyness."
Actors' insecurities and self-criticism also annoy directors. "It's hard when actors psych themselves out," says Novick. "They decide they're not doing a good job and that makes them not do a good job. Sometimes you can't help them with that. You want to reassure them, but you can't talk them off the ledge. Sometimes they come back from that and sometimes they don't." Similarly, Nicholson hates when actors think he doesn't like what they're doing simply because he hasn't praised them: "My job isn't to buck up their self-esteem," he says. "It's a vulnerable task they're engaged in, so I try to create a supportive environment. There are certain actors, if you're not forthcoming with praise, they can become disproportionately scared and worried." DeLorenzo agrees: "I don't flatter a lot as a director. If I don't say anything about it, it means you're doing it just right."
Taccone and Flynn complain of actors who can't remember the notes they're given from one rehearsal to the next. "If you can't remember and don't write it down, that's a problem," says Taccone.
Regarding performance, Appel points disapprovingly to actors who become overly broad, especially in comedies, during the long runs that are typical of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. "When a performance gets out of hand, that's discouraging," she says. Flynn comments on a problem that's almost the opposite: "Actors, especially in a musical or comedy, suddenly get in front of an audience, and the choices we've made together and that play well when played full out, they hesitate and play at 70 percent instead of 100 percent." He considers that a lack of bravery: "For you to be brave in baring your soul — or in slipping on a banana peel — is going to be a rare moment in the audience's life. Don't deprive us of that!"
The main thing that irritates Levy is actors who don't take the work as seriously as he does. He concludes philosophically, "The actor-director relationship is ultimately a love affair and a working partnership. It has to be. How else can we trust, let go, and dare to be vulnerable?"
Have you appeared in a play or film with your spouse or significant other? If so, I'd like to interview you for an upcoming Craft column. Contact me at jeanschiff@earthlink.net.