Star Power

Yesterday morning, I'm at my computer sending out long awaited confirmation emails to the cast of 'Wolves At The Window' to let them know that we will be going to New York to play at the Brits off Broadway season in November. I have Radio 4 on in the background - its 'Start The Week', and amongst the guests are Katie Mitchell and Peter Hall.

Peter Hall observes that where as once he was asked by commercial producers "What play would you like to do?" he is now asked "what star can you get?"

Its not just Peter Hall who is asked this, and its not just commercial producers who ask. As a relatively young director I have been asked by several subsidised companies "who can you get?"

I believe this question to be one of the most corrosive questions asked by artistic directors.  It is the question that causes utterly inappropriate casting to ruin an otherwise exciting production. It is the question that stops talented 'unknown' actors from working. It is the question that destroys writer led theatre (as opposed to the previous blogged assumption that its the auteur that kills writer led theatre). And it is the question that utterly undermines the belief that young directors are capable of creating exciting work that will appeal to an audience.

The question says to who ever is being asked it, whether it is Peter Hall, or a young director like myself "you on your own are worthless, you have no power to excite and engage this theatre's audience" and it is this obsession with star fuckery which will kill our theatre because it not only corrodes our industry, it corrodes our audience who start to believe that a play is only of value when it features someone off the telly.

I happen to like many stars, to want to see them on stage. I have no problem with David Tennant or Jude Law playing 'Hamlet' because just as we are feeding off film and TV to find these actors, so film and TV before us fed off us to find their Doctor Who or their next Hollywood darling. We are all grown up enough to get that the barriers between theatre film and TV just don't exist. Actors are actors, and it is only the oldest of farts who talks about a 'theatre actor' or a 'telly actor' as if you can only do one or the other. No, my problem with the question "who can you get?" is that it suggests a play is only worth seeing if there's a name attached. And the question has nothing to do with the excitement of seeing the right actor at the peak of their career tackle a part they will excel in. The question has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with cynicism.

So let the commercial producers ask the question... after all if they cant make their money back, they're not doing a great job. But it's a sign of the corruption of the subsidised arts that it is such a reoccurring question in the subsidised sector.

One footnote that occurs to me as I write this blog is that the desire to attach a name to a project should have empowered the acting community to take an active role in planning the work that is staged. OK - its not going to happen for drama school graduates, but those who have a profile, who have the power to bring in an audience don't seem to take a lead in the planing of productions. There are of course some, like Brannagh (who I believe worked very closely with Grandage on the excellent Donmar season in the West End) but Brannagh is the exception rather than the rule.

If actors have the power to sell a show, why aren't they being given the authority to choose the show?

A Certain Irregularity

When it comes to procrastination this blog has got it sussed. It brilliantly captures the best ways to waste hours and hours on your computer. I'm a big fan of the google search poetry myself.

I've spent many hours trying to sum up the creative process as it is for me via my blog, but now I believe this blog does it far more succinctly. 

I particularly like the absence of any posting for an entire year... now that is procrastination.

http://acertainirregularity.blogspot.com/

checking in

I said I'd check in occasionally re. 'The Directors Craft' and 'Walking in this World'...

They're a funny combination of books to work on at the same time. Julia Cameron talks in a new age, and spiritual way, which grates (although I know for a fact the courses she sets down work very well). Katie Mitchell is all together more practical, very down to earth. And yet that description is a little misleading as Julia Cameron's course for all it's spirituality lays down a very clear frame work of practical steps the student should take, and with Katie Mitchell there is some almost spiritual in the discipline of the work.

So what have I actually been doing.

Walking in this World has three basic principles which need to be followed: 

The first is morning pages - here you write three pages of long hand each day - a stream of consciousness first thing in the morning. Of all her exercisers this one helps me the most. I'm one of those people who wakes up with a black cloud over my head, and this clears aways some of the shite that bubbles round my head and allows me to actually work.

The second is a weekly walk - this is easy for me as I walk as much as possible. I am however planning an epic walk along the Thames during the course as I am not one to do things by halves.

The third principle I have the hardest time with - an artists date, where you go off and do something nice for yourself essentially - a kind of inspirational couple of hours (if that) each week... don't ask me why but I hate this one.

As you work through the book there are odd tasks here and there to be completed each week in amongst the essays, but the above principles are constants.

With The Directors Craft I am busy writing a list of facts and questions for each of the acts of The Seagull. The list of questions guides me to what needs to be researched. Its a bit of a revelation as its such an obvious and simple concept but it has completely altered the way I approach researching a play. I'm someone who has traditionally gone off on aimless research tangents and this is keeping me very focused.

I guess I'll keep updating as and when... it keeps me on track...

Long Live The Auteurs

Billington is concerned that the auteur will kill a writer led theatre industry in this country.

He is wrong.

For years I went around saying that directors should not become auteur's, that they should let the play speak for itself, that they should not impose on to the play. Then I worked with Silviu Pucarete - a Romanian director who now works mainly in Paris. I had long admired his work, his production of The Tempest at the Nottingham Playhouse was a revelation to me as a teenager and I was keen to find out how someone created theatre like that.

His work is that of auteur, and I seem to remember Billington rather enjoying it. Infact whilst I would go around naively dismissing auteur's myself I was infact enjoying their work as an audience member... the work of Katie Mitchell, of James Macdonald and of Stephen Daldry, all to my mind of the auteur leaning are infinitely more appealing than the more British 'let the text do the talking' directors such as Gregory Doran.

Silviu, during the rehearsal period told the company that directors must direct "the play that is happening underneath the writing" and that all directors whether they admit it or not are doing this.  And that is the  basic crux of the matter - all directors are auteur's, but some are more honest about it than others. When Marianne Elliot and Hofesh shechter work together on 'St Joan' they create their vision of the play - and have a "highly personalised style" that so worries Billington. Directors respond to the work, over time they develop styles, and to say they don't or that they shouldn't is simply dishonest.

Billington worries about whether theatre should acknowledge cinema. Isn't this like worrying if theatre should acknowledge the electric light? Theatre responds to the world it inhabits, it is a world that encompasses cinema, television, music, and the Internet. For theatre to not acknowledge this, or any other technology is once again dishonest. Billington calls Katie Mitchell's use of film within her work "an obsession" and wonders if this obsession actually illuminates the work in question. I assume he hasn't read Katie's book on directing - if he has he'd realise that of all the directors in this country her obsession with the detail of the text and with the writer of the text outweighs almost any other concern. Mitchell is surely conjuring a meaning from within, and is using all techniques at her disposal (including - shock horror that of film) to convey the meaning.

Why does Billington believe the auteur is so anti the writer? Mithcell has a long and fruitful relationship with Martin Crimp, the late Sarah Kane connected with James Macdonald, and didn't seem to find his auteur tendency's anything other than helpful to her writing.

An Auteur is an honest director - one who acknowledges that they will have a style unique to them that will enable them to illuminate the text theatrically. Why are we so afraid of the theatrical in Britain?

Bush Green

The Bush are launching a new website in a month or two, and last week along with a bundle of other industry folk I got a sneak preview.

The Bush hope this new social networking site will do for playwrights what Myspace did for musicians and Authonomy did for novelists, and its sleek user friendly design looks set to achieve just what they want.

Of course amongst those present at the demonstration there were understandable concerns from publishers who could see rights issues being problematic and with agents who wanted to maintain that special relationship they have with theatres. but the message was clear that these issues were being addressed and that if the Bush didn't create this type of site then someone else would and isn't it better if the site was operated by a theatre, and a theatre that puts new writing at its core.

The most leading question for me was "how will you stop the site getting overloaded? How will you stop people posting?". It sums up all that is changing and all that has changed in the creative industries, where, instead of one or two people having the power to decide the agenda we open up the process from the very earliest stages letting everyone and anyone comment, and participate.

One writer applauded the site as a step towards a more democratised industry, and for my part remembering how hard it was 10 years ago as a very young director wanting to work with new writers I can see a a future industry that is more open and more connected.

The Chekhov Way

Back in November I was asked to direct a Chekhov with Mountview's second years, and I jumped at the chance. Drama School productions are a great way of re-evaluating your own process - especially second year productions which are closed affairs and have an emphasis on the rehearsal process.

I decided early on to follow Katie Mitchell's book on directing called The Directors Craft. Its the most comprehensive book about directing I've read. I've met Katie a few times; she was the first director to advise me over a cup of coffee when I first started assisting, and since then have been involved with the occasional master class. I've also assisted at least one director who had in the past assisted Katie, so as happens (or is meant to happen I guess) process gets passed down from director to assistant. Thus much of the book felt familiar, some of the process I already practice, some of the book demystifies elements of rehearsing I find tricky, and every so often there a moments I feel myself disagreeing with.

I'm going to try and follow the process she lays down as closely as possible, including the elements that challenge me. As luck would have it the text she uses as an example is The Seagull - the text I have been allocated to direct with the second years.

I've also decided to give Walking in this World - Practical Strategies for Creativity another go. I worked my way through the author, Julia Cameron's first book The Artists Way a few years ago, and whilst I felt myself almost blushing at the unrelenting optimistic spirituality of the book I did complete the course and over the next twelve months seemed to have the most frenzied and creative time of my life. I've no doubt the course, if nothing else, simply helped me to see previously unnoticed opportunity.

I've had the follow up book for some time now, but never really gotten around to it. Now seems like a good time to give it another go...

I'll try and report back as I work through both of the books. Mainly as I hope it'll keep me on track.

Spring

The lack of posting for February says rather allot about my state of mind during that month. It was all a bit like wading through treacle and as various projects tied up, held up, and generally trampled on by the realities of funding and bureaucracy my will to love  gradually seeped away.

Of course, everything passes and gradually the sun came out, new opportunities arose, old projects found new life and everything seemed much less gloomy.

During all this I was reminded of a friend of mine - an actor, who always states that an actors job is auditioning, getting to act is just the bonus. Its a good way of looking at the world, and I've been applying it to my own life - looking for the next meeting on a daily basis.

The other timely reminder I've had was when I met up with another friend who's been working as a film maker now for a number of years and is looking to break into theatre. (I know - its a topsy turvey world we live in). Her energy is infectious although her knowledge of theatre from a practical point of view, is, at the moment slight... she doesn't know her arse from her Donmar... and yet I'm reminded that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing - not knowing that she cant do something whether it be because of space / budget / time means she never limits herself. Talking to her is much more inspiring than talking to the average young director, who like me last month has decided there is no space for them in the arts world.