Breaking Character: Directing is elusive. There is something ephemeral and fleeting about the art of directing. You can’t read it, hold it in your hands, or e-mail it. It must be felt. Direction lives in the thin space between the play and the audience—the exchange of performer and spectator. It lives in the freedom and rigor of the physicality of the performers and in the detail of the design world that ensconces the text. Directing lives in the tone of the play and in the perspective by which we view the play.
4 comments:
As a Design a Production major I enjoyed seeing the point of view from a director, Danuya Taymor. The play she chooses to focus on in this article further ecentuates a directors point of view. She describes Pass Over as “an ideal text”, being very free when it came to stage directions, she sees this as the playwright having “confidence enough in her craft to trust her collaborator, and that trust extends to her audience..” alowing room to drawing “them in, hypnotizing them with lanquage, humor and humanity confronting them with the brace light of truth”. The way she approached this play, by first knowing who their audience is, “white, upper class with liberal leaning tendencies”, showed me how directors have a main job of not only presenting the message of the play, but making sure the audience can connect with it. This especially was needed in the play Pass Over, since the motive of the preformance is to challenge “its white audience to accept that the way they see and experience the world is not the only way the world is seen and experienced” which is a hard task. Seeing a different perspective, to accept others point of view, without feeling like its attacking your own. Keeping this in mind, this play is not only a perfect play for a director but for the theatre, she even says that it “more than any other play I have ever directed, is written for the theatre”. A play that teaches feeling responsibility for your fellow humans, really resenates with theatre in general. Theatre can not be accomplished with out all these different mediums working together and understanding how each other works and thinks.
I always find it extremely interesting to watch people during performances. How they experience a piece in the dark, where they forget they are surrounded by possibly hundreds of people and the way they are engulfed is fascinating. This play is carefully tuning themselves in every location, and are noticing the way different people of different races are reacting. I am happy to the are that is being taken to not alienate an audience that is somewhat the target, because the way to diversity inclusion is not by reversing comfort and alienating the people in power (at least, it shouldn't be the only way), because by truly communicating, is how people will finally grow to understand each other and sympathize with their struggles. This play is a well-timed dialogue, and I would love to watch it (and the audience).
I would love to be a part of a production of this play. People are very interesting to watch and observe especially when they are put in an uncomfortable situation. I am glad that this play was created with the intention to make people uncomfortable and force them to recognize the humanity in others. "Pass Over, more than any play I have ever directed, is written for the theater, to be played live, to provoke a discourse, to create true feeling and discomfort." It would be very interesting to see this objective achieved.
I think that ultimately theatre is created for the audience. Everything we do throughout the process leads us towards a finished product intended to be watched by other people, and I love watching audiences react to a piece. It was interesting to hear this director’s take on her piece and how it all seemed designed to make audiences react and think. I found her point about white audiences visibly relaxing once the first white character showed up vs black audiences was very interesting and that on its own could be an article about American race relations. It was also interesting to hear a director’s take on the creative process- she is very passionate about the ideas of this play, its wording and rhythm, and how to convey those ideas to the audience and make them look at themselves in the process. This article definitely made me think more deeply about direction and how the choices made by a director can change the performance and the way an audience reacts.
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