ESTABLISHING AN ENVIRONMENT FOR PERFORMANCE
ESTABLISHING AN ENVIRONMENT FOR PERFORMANCE
Strong beginnings are a crucial component to human communication. During an interview, an audition, or a first date, someone’s first impression of you can determine whether you get the job, the role, or a second date. The most memorable opening lines of books can become the inspiration to yearbook quotes, or tattoos. And finally, a great deal of the audience’s experience and/or expectations are formulated when they enter the space to watch your performance .
Imagine the following:
You, as a director, have prepared a couple of scenes for performance for your teacher. This exercise is stronger if you imagine your teacher as someone you greatly admire, respect, and from whom you desperately want approval. The scene is being performed in the large, empty basement of your apartment. You frantically rush to let them in the door; emotionally spent because for the last hour and a half you’ve been restaging the second scene since not one, but two of your actors dropped out at the last minute. Suddenly, instead of watching objectively from the audience - you yourself have had to step into the role of Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby, and recast the person playing Jordan as Daisy, and bring in an actress from your second scene into understudy for Jordan.
You lead your teacher through the hallway, apologizing in advance for the scene they are about to witness. The two of you step over the cast of The Great Gatsby, who are utilizing your kitchen as a green room of sorts and have a spread of bodega food on the floor. Introductions are made between bites of deli sandwiches and you usher your teacher hurriedly down the winding staircase.
As you descend into your basement, you try to compose yourself and focus on the first scene, one of your favorites from Proof by David Auburn. The three actors stand ready, looking at you for an introduction. You sit down, next to your teacher, then stand up again and awkwardly rush saying the name of the scene and the names of your actors. Embarrassed, you return to your seat and tell the actors they may begin whenever they are ready.
The two women playing the sisters inhale and wait for their third scene partner to begin, but instead, he freezes, staring at his hands and then closing his eyes. After what feels like eternity, he nervously and abruptly looks out into the audience at you and asks, “I’m sorry, can I take a minute to breathe and count to ten?”
This is not how you begin. I don’t have to imagine this scenario along with you, dear reader. I don’t have to imagine it at all, because I lived it.
To say I was embarrassed would be to grossly downplay the pure humiliation I felt that day. But like all mistakes I made, Colm was able to turn it into a lesson. The following are imperative in establishing strong beginnings in the directorial process: audience management, actor management, and self-management.
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AUDIENCE MANAGEMENT
“The beginning of your performance begins the second the audience steps foot in the door,” said Colm, as we walked to Nook, the coffee shop near my apartment. “You have to treat these performances, regardless of the fact that they’re in your basement, for what they are. Performances.”
He then broke down the events of the disaster above. When I greeted him at the door, I began by apologizing for the hecticness, I over-explained what happened to the actors who dropped last minute, and I was visibly growing increasingly more panicked. He applauded me for going through with the scene despite the worst circumstances unraveling prior to the performance. However, the manner in which I tended to the situation was where I fell short.
There’s an old saying that says, “you teach people how to treat you”, and I’ve found that the same is true for theatre audiences. You, as the director, treat your audience how to, perceive your work. The same set of events could have happened and Colm would have been none the wiser, if I had merely kept my composure, and treated him like I would treat a full house of audience members when something goes wrong in a show. By apologizing for what I deemed “the shit show he was about to witness” I was setting myself up for failure. I was telling him to expect something “bad”, without giving him the chance to draw his own conclusions. I was also telling myself how the performance would go, and negative mindsets are more catching in a theatre setting than chicken pox in a third grade classroom. The frantic energy of the room communicated to Colm was that I was not prepared, my actors were not prepared, and I was not confident in what I was about to present.
ACTOR MANAGEMENT
The blame for the actors not being as prepared as they should have been, to the point where one of them broke the fourth wall, falls at least partially on my shoulders. As the director, I should have allowed more time for the actors in Proof to prepare ahead of time, instead of solely focusing on the Gatsby cast. And, more importantly, I should have instilled into the actors the idea that this was a performance. If actors wouldn’t turn to a full house once the curtain was raised and ask to take a few breaths, they shouldn’t do it in this space either. It is on me, and me alone, to create a sacred space in which certain rules and standards must be upheld.
Creating a sacred space in theatre can be achieved in a number of ways, but the following is the one I feel is most applicable to the craft of directing:
A sacred space is created when the director begins with the expectation of a space being sacred. In short, a space that is held in reverence and forbids any sort of frivolity from the very start will be treated with the status necessary to achieve show-level conditions. This is not to say that there is no room for play or that the actors must never (in rehearsal, at least) call for a line or mess up in any way. On the contrary. By establishing a sacred space from the start, you inherently align the company’s goals, and the process as well as the product will be more unified. The goal of performing a scene for fun in a basement is quite different from the goal of performing a scene as if it were before a full house and a reviewer of the New York Times was in the audience.
SELF-MANAGEMENT
The final step to a strong beginning in your directorial process is establishing a set of self-management practices. These practices serve as a cornerstone to which you can always return when nerves begin to take hold. It is important to note that it is natural to have doubts, but these steps are meant to alleviate those doubts and replace them with confidence.
Confidence doesn’t come easily, and it is not something that can necessarily be taught. What I have found, however, is the seed for confidence is trust. As a director you have to trust yourself, trust your actors, and trust your audience.
When things went awry that day in the basement, I assumed the worst of all parties. I assumed that the uncontrollable circumstances I found myself in were indicative of my failure as a director. I assumed that my actors would succumb to the same pressure of the situation that I felt, and would thus perform less than their best. Lastly, before he even arrived, I had already assumed that Colm was going to hate my performance and his critique of it would embarrass me in front of the actors. Instead, I should have trusted in my adaptability, as I had proven I was quick to find a solution to my problem. I should have trusted that my actors would have my back, and I should have trusted that Colm could form his own opinion about the performance I was presenting.
Another word of advice I have directly relates to the creation of a sacred space I mentioned earlier. You must remind yourself that you are the one who determines your standards from the beginning. Before the very first moment of rehearsal begins, you have the power to set the precedent of expected behaviour and work ethic in your creative process. How auditions are run, the communication pre and post audition, your own timeliness (or in some cases, lack thereof), and decorum both in and out of the audition room all serve as an unspoken set of rules by which the actors and management team will operate from that point onward.
This is the foundation upon which you will build the rest of your show. You have the opportunity to set high standards for everyone involved in the project, including yourself, at that moment. Don’t waste it. Remember: you teach others how to treat you, and how to treat your work.