A Director Prepares

From Anne Bogart's "A Director Prepares":

Every time I begin work on a new production I feel as though I am out of my league; that I know nothing and have no notion how to begin and I’m sure that someone else should be doing my job, someone assured, who knows what to do, someone who is really a professional. I feel unbalanced, uncomfortable and out of place. I feel like a sham. In short, I am terrified.

I have spoken with a number of theatre directors and found that I am not alone in this sensation of being out of my league at the beginning of rehearsals. We all tremble in terror before the impossibility of beginning. It is important to remember that a director’s work, as with any artist, is intuitive. Many young directors make the big mistake of assuming that directing is about being in control, telling others what to do, having ideas and getting what you ask for. I do not believe that these abilities are the qualities that make a good director or exciting theatre. Directing is about feeling, about being in the room with other people; with actors, with designers with an audience. It is about having a feel for time and space, about breathing, and responding fully to the situation at hand, being able to plunge and encourage a plunge into the unknown at the right moment.

When I am lost in rehearsal, when I am stymied and have no idea what to do next or how to solve a problem, I know that this is the moment to make a leap. Because directing is intuitive, it involves walking with trembling and terror into the unknown. Right there, in that moment, in that rehearsal, I have to say, “I know!” and start walking towards the stage. During the crisis of the walk, something must happen; some insight, some idea. The sensation of this walk to the stage, to the actors, feels like falling into a treacherous abyss. The walk creates a crisis in which innovation must happen, invention must transpire. I create the crisis in rehearsal to get out of my own way. I create despite myself and my limitations, my private terror and my hesitancy. In unbalance and falling lie the potential to create…Rollo May wrote that all artists and scientists, when they are doing their best work, feel as though they are not doing the creating; they feel as though they are being spoken through. This suggest that the constant problem we face in our rehearsals in how do we get out of our own way? I believe that part of the answer is the acceptance of terror as primal motivation and then a full body-listening to what develops out of it.

For me, the essential aspect of a given work is its vitality. This vitality, or energy, is a reflection of the artist’s courageousness in the face of her or his own terror. The creation of art is not an escape from life but a penetration into it.

Martha Graham: There is a vitality, a life-force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you all the time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.