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Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Jack in the Box: Or, How to Goddamn Direct by Jack O’Brien
New York Theater: “I am the director,” a young man protested to Dame Edith Evans as she was giving instructions to the other cast members of a play in which she starred.
“Never mind,” she answered. “We’ll find something for you to do.”
1 comment:
Carly Tamborello
said...
The more subjective areas of theatre are hard to write a guidebook on, unlike scenic drafting or something with obvious rules. I’ve found the anecdotal style is very helpful for acting and directing books; in high school, we studied Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting and Sanford Meisner on Acting, both of which are heavy on the examples and anecdotes and less heavy on the how-tos. So it makes sense that O’Brien’s directing manual would follow a similar format. It sounds like the book covers a lot – a mix of craft and examples, with techniques for dealing with the team, be it playwrights, actors, designers, producers, so forth and so on. The director kind of has to have a handle on all those sides of the production. I’d be curious to give it a read and see if it spurs a deeper understanding of working with directors for me.
1 comment:
The more subjective areas of theatre are hard to write a guidebook on, unlike scenic drafting or something with obvious rules. I’ve found the anecdotal style is very helpful for acting and directing books; in high school, we studied Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting and Sanford Meisner on Acting, both of which are heavy on the examples and anecdotes and less heavy on the how-tos. So it makes sense that O’Brien’s directing manual would follow a similar format. It sounds like the book covers a lot – a mix of craft and examples, with techniques for dealing with the team, be it playwrights, actors, designers, producers, so forth and so on. The director kind of has to have a handle on all those sides of the production. I’d be curious to give it a read and see if it spurs a deeper understanding of working with directors for me.
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