The Theatre
Realism is done better by television and film. There is no point in theatre attempting it. Banish it. Theatre is naturally poor, but it is active - it engages the imagination. Realism is too comfortable. The audience can sit back, at ease with their own expectations. But in theatre, we must lean forward.
The separate strands have become disproportionately important. Because of television, dvd extras, celebrity, we are now interested in actors and acting, directors and directing, writers and writing, design and designing, light and lighing. This is absurd. Everything suffers. The production must count for everything, in which everything is subsumed. Ensemble is the word used for a company of actors, but really it should apply to everyone involved.
There can be no space for the untheatrical in the theatre. To some, video projection is theatrical. But it is anti-theatrical. It takes everything that theatre is not - it was filmed elsewhere, it draws attention to itself as a separate strand, it comments on the work rather than being integral. Theatre with video is an art project, an installation. Is this true of lighting? Some of it. Is this true of design? Some of it. An abstract design is fine, but if the concept of the abstraction dominates or puzzles unnecessarily, it is untheatrical.
Going to the theatre is not like going to the cinema. It's hard work. And so it should be. But audiences are increasingly conditioned to watch a play as if it were a film. But you have to listen to a play. Everything unfolds from the listening of it. The visual supports that, but no more. It is useful, and when carefully and creatively used is hugely effective. This is the opposite in a film - the visual is everything, and the speech supports it. They say the best film is a silent film. The best play takes place in the dark. When you show things, they have to support that. The great playwrights knew this, and great playwrights still do. These plays won't – can't – work if the visual construction is more important.
This means acting walks a thin line. Actors are wonderful but frequently ill-disciplined. Sloppy speaking, poor phrasing undercuts everything they do. It becomes a selfish activity, in which each perfomer jostles for praise and effect, seeks to stamp individuality on a role. They work in a bubble of their own self-interest, and technical considerations beyond basic vocal and physical warm-ups are ignored – or worse, rejected in favour of such loose and poorly defined concepts such as 'instinct' or 'feeling'. Actors must engage with the whole production and not just their role. They must understand that if they cannot simply stand there and deliver the lines with a natural stress and phrasing, with tempi matched to the writing, then they are building everything else, every movement and mannerism on a bed of sand. Otherwise they should work in film or television. Theatre acting is about speaking, first and foremost, and it is pointless working with actors who do not understand this. Talent plays a part, but only an individual part – but the actor should be working towards improving the work of the ensemble. An actor discussing talent or instinct or gut feeling is sabotaging the ensemble. Of course an actor will have a reaction to the situation, or an idea of how things might be done, but this is their own business, and will inform the work they do on their own. In the rehearsal room, in the performance, they should be of no interest to themselves.
We fetishize process. How are things done? It is our responsibility to change this, otherwise it will destroy – and is destroying – an audience's ability to engage with a text. There are two ways to deal with this – either with secrecy, whereby the ensemble deliberately hide their own working methods and refuse to speak about them, or with a production style that is utterly transparent, to the extent that any audience member can simply see what went into the production for themselves. That there be no tricks. This will not stop the assiduous director or actor from enquiring as to how a certain style of delivery or timing is achieved, but this can be batted away by simply having an approach without any complicated technique, one that can be summed up in a sentence or two.
Rehearsal methods are often mad. A rehearsal process should consist of four aspects only: a structural analysis of the script, rigorous work on the speaking of the text (paying great attention to the phrasing, stress, tone, and tempi), rigorous attention to the carrying out of physical actions to the extent that the actors are actually doing them properly, and work on the positioning of people and furniture that they might be consistent with the requirements of the text. The structural analysis should look at actions and events.