San Jose Rep asked me to write a short blog post describing my experience as ‘Assistant to the Director’ for Freud’s Last Session. You can click here to read it!
O, is there no end to my fame and fortune? :) (Did I really write ‘very particular’ twice? Sigh.)
Two eminent men with widely opposing views sit down in the same room to discuss their differences in front of an audience. Sound like a presidential debate? If only! Instead, it’s another day of rehearsal for Freud’s Last Session, in which two of the most brilliant minds of the last century engage in illuminating, thought-provoking conversation.
In my view, working in theatre is always a joy and a privilege. Whether it’s an all-singing, all-dancing cast of fifty, or an intimate two-man drama like this one, watching any play come to life is a magical and absorbing experience. From the first rolling-up of sleeves for the read-through, to the beginnings of tentative movement within the carefully marked-out rehearsal space, to the moment when the play starts to breathe on its own, every hour reveals endless riches, great and small.
Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to assist the director for San Jose Repertory Theatre’s upcoming production of Freud’s Last Session. This show, which tells of a fictional meeting in November 1939 between confirmed atheist Sigmund Freud and recent religious convert C. S. Lewis, offers more than theatrical magic. It offers up questions which have challenged men and women through the ages. Who was Christ? If God exists, why does He inflict pain? Does man have an innate moral conscience? Sometimes, listening to the actors exploring the text, I feel as if I’m back in college, in one of those three-o’clock-in-the-morning conversations, when we sat on the floor and earnestly hammered out the meaning of life (although I suspect we were never this erudite).
But even though the two characters stand on opposing sides, there is an overwhelming sense of human connection. At one point, Freud loses his patience with Lewis: “You believe in revelation; I believe in science… there is no common ground.” Perhaps theoretically, there is not. But through the warmth and humor of their debate, conducted on the eve of a national crisis by two men who sincerely want to understand each other, there is certainly a coming together in friendship.
As students, we also made those connections. But somehow as adults, they seem much more rare. Part of theatre’s enduring power lies in its ability to stimulate discussion during a shared experience. As I sit in the rehearsal room enjoying the cut-and-thrust of the argument, I can’t help but think that Freud’s Last Session is exactly the kind of meaningful debate we should all be having.
For more details on Freud’s Last Session by Mark St Germain, click here!
The theatre director Harold Clurman once said that if you get 60% of what you saw in your head onto the stage, you’re doing well. It has been nearly six weeks since Betrayal ended, and I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on that comment.
One of the things I’ve concluded is that I don’t have a complete picture of a show in my head before I start, even when I’m pursuing a dream. In fact, sometimes I think that as a director, I have something of a blind spot. I can usually hear the text inside my head pretty clearly. And I know, when I think about it, the kind of colours that I want for the set, and an idea of what the costumes might need to look like for the time period, and if you really push me I might even come up with some key lighting moments, or a sound track that’s a must.
But it isn’t until I sit down with designers and then with the cast that I start to see how the show could really look and sound and feel, and often not until deep into rehearsals.
Perhaps I’m not alone in that. Perhaps Mr Clurman would allow for that kind of time lag. But I can’t help thinking that experienced professional directors of his standing read a script and just – know. On the other hand, where does that leave the art of collaboration?
In any case, it doesn’t matter, not this time. When I try to sum up how I feel about the end result, I can’t resist recalling some words that I wrote back in May:
Last weekend I was lucky enough to see a matinee performance of Beckett’s Play and Endgame… what struck me most as I waited outside afterwards was that every person who came blinking out of the theatre…was talking about the show. Some liked it, some were perplexed by it, some were discussing its significance…; but it was the topic of conversation…. And that, above all else, is what I hope for with Betrayal.
I hoped for it, and we did it. After every performance, people lingered in the foyer to talk about what they’d seen, what they thought, what they wanted to ask, just as I had dreamed they might. I brought Pinter to Palo Alto, and people familiar with his work and those who came fresh to it enjoyed and appreciated him. As one man said to me on his way out, “Pinter would be proud”. I think so. I don’t know about the 60%, but I do know that I got exactly what I wanted.
And that, for now, is that.
And I didn’t even know we were in the running! More about this when I get back from vacation next week, but for now…
Last night finished, set torn down, everything carted away, floor swept, lights turned out. Betrayal. My love affair with Mr Pinter. “It’s all…. all over.”
Except that it isn’t, not really. I’m off to Canada for a welcome vacation, but I’ll be back here before too long, ready for the next adventure.
Thank you to everyone for your support!
Back in February, when this journey had only just begun, I mentioned that one of the stage manager’s many allotted tasks is to take control of the show after Opening Night. The director, you may remember, collapses gracefully with a large drink while the stage manager makes sure that for all subsequent performances everything runs like clockwork.
The good news is that my stage manager is making sure everything runs like clockwork. We have happy, engaged audiences who like nothing more than to talk about the show afterwards (sometimes for several days), an efficient and cheerful backstage crew, and actors who calmly and professionally give wonderful performances night after night.
And then, of course, there’s me.
I never know quite what to do after a show opens. Some directors like to attend every performance, making illegible notes in the dark and passing them onto the cast afterwards so that the show can be continually refined throughout the run. Others like to clink a celebratory glass after the opening performance and then disappear into the twilight, often only making a second appearance when the show closes. The director is no longer necessary, you see. We’ve spent all those weeks rehearsing, and being asked for our opinions, and having input into set designs and costume changes. And then quite suddenly, the show takes on a life of its own and we get to watch it from the back row of the theatre, almost as if we have no idea how it got there.
I will confess that in the past I’ve been the kind of director who disappears after Opening Night, partly because I’ve felt increasingly distant from the activity backstage, but also because even a good show can stale if you watch it too often. With Betrayal, though, it’s been different. The script bears plenty of repetition. In fact, one of the most rewarding things about this play is that every performance of it reveals something fresh to me. Even though I thought we’d already covered every hidden meaning of the text, I still clap my hand to my forehead at least once every evening and think So that’s why he says that!
But there’s still one thing that bothers me, and it’s this: of all the things a director has to do, the most difficult is to really see the play as if for the first time.
And I wish that I could. I wish that I could exit this No Man’s Land in which I find myself, switch off my directing brain, enter the theatre with the other audience members and simply watch Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, for the very first time.
And it’s a good one! You can read it by clicking here.
I did it, you see. Can I just say that, here, among friends?
I had an idea, and I made it happen. I surrounded myself with a band of committed, dedicated, passionate and professional people, and between us (and believe me, I couldn’t have done it without them), we put on Pinter from scratch.
After opening night, I lay in bed, sleepless for hours, and all I could think was: I actually did it! I felt proud of everyone, of everything we had achieved together. And, maybe for the first time in my life, I felt just a little bit proud to be me.
Is it Wednesday already?
This blog is late, it’s tech week, the white paint on the set is too bright under the lights, I’m missing a music track for the top of scene 4, there are still costumes to be finished, I’ve can’t find a piece of affordable carpet, I need a fake carnation, we’re out of postcards, the coffee machine was broken, I had a root canal, a big boy did it and ran away……O, and Note to Self: never use an airbed on stage and think it will look and feel like a real mattress.
No, really, I’m calm.
But short on time. Let’s just say that we open on Friday, we have a substantial audience for preview night on Thursday, and we need a poor dress rehearsal tonight because, quite frankly, it’s all been going far too well and it’s time we were shaken up.
So I’m going to race around for today like the proverbial decapitated fowl, and worry about everything, which should successfully throw everyone off their game. My actors will be given permission to have tantrums, since, disappointingly, they haven’t had any yet; and the crew members will be allowed to grumble and mutter that it wasn’t like this in their day (even though most of them are only half my age) until everyone will feel thoroughly put upon and miserable.
And then all will be well. Because it’s always alright on the night. Trust me.
The link to the TV program that we recorded last week is here: http://blip.tv/peninsula-backstage – for your infotainment (wow, did I really just say that out loud?)
One of the many reasons I like Betrayal so much is that it’s so finely written. Every word is precise, even when it’s deliberately ambiguous. I’ve been blogging for several years now in one place or another and, purist that I am, have never used anything more than the written word. But today for the first time, I am going to put a picture, right here. No more words needed.
With grateful thanks to Thomas Gowen, and featuring Diahanna Davidson, Brendan McCall, and (the left hand of) David Koppel.