Reading Comprehension

Directorial Concepts By Elias Stimac | June 20, 2005

When a director initially considers a new production, he or she usually approaches it from a

specific point of view. Then follows the task of translating it from that first idea to the final

show. The take on it can be traditional or unconventional, subtle or outrageous, but it should

never be boring.

Directors may also choose to change the time period the show takes place in, the location in

which it is set, or even the age or race of the characters in order to bring new insights to the

piece. Of course, changing or reworking scripted pieces cannot legally be done without the

author's written permission. You can only experiment freely with material in the public domain -

- that is, works no longer protected by copyright. The plays of Shakespeare, MoliĂ ̈re, and

Chekhov, for example, all fall into this category.

All material published in the United States before 1923 is in the public domain. And, in general,

American laws are more restrictive than other countries' laws regarding public domain. The rules

for works published in the U.S. after 1923 are complicated, and the law has been revised several

times, causing additional confusion. You can go to www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html for

complete details on how to determine what is and is not still covered by copyright in the United

States.

So as a director, how do you find a winning concept? Back Stage consulted with a group of

working directors to get their ideas on the subject and their experiences from past assignments.

Development Deal

Often a director is brought in to help create a concept for a production that is still being

developed. Such was the case with David Warren on "Drumstruck." An "interactive theatrical

drumming experience" that enjoyed sold-out engagements in Johannesburg, South Africa, and

Sydney, Australia, the show was in effect a concert presented on a bare stage when Warren was

brought on board. Now a fully realized version will be making its American debut Off-Broadway

at Dodger Stages, Stage 2 (www.drumstruckny.com).

Warren has helmed Broadway revivals of "Holiday" (which garnered an Outer Critics Circle

nomination for best revival of a play) and "Summer and Smoke," Off-Broadway revivals such as

"Hobson's Choice" (Lucille Lortel Award nomination for outstanding revival) and "Misalliance,"

and groundbreaking new works like "Matt & Ben," "Barbra's Wedding," and "Pterodactyls"

(Obie Award).

The director came to this project with a background in classic and contemporary works that are,

in comparison, far more conventional: "The show is literally unlike anything I've ever done

before, because it is in fact different from anything else. There wasn't any precedent for it. But

essentially, directing is directing, and the craft of directing is the same no matter what the show

is. Interestingly enough, what I knew I could bring to the show and how I knew I could make it

better was mainly as kind of an experienced director and not as a sort of musical consultant. That

area of the show was so strong and powerful from the very beginning. What 'Drumstruck' needed

was someone to help shape it and give it something of a dramatic through-line, which it now has,

albeit a very subtle one. We also had to figure out how to design the show so that it would feel

like a real evening in the theatre and not just a music event. So that's basically been my journey

with 'Drumstruck.' "

Warren first saw "Drumstruck" in Australia: "The Dodgers had become very interested in

producing it in New York, so they sent me to Sydney to see it. And I fell in love with it. I also

felt like it needed me. I sat there watching the show, coming up with ideas. That's all I ever do.

It's so rare when any director sees any show and doesn't sit there and just redirect the show.

When I don't, I'm always thrilled because that means it's a great production and I can turn that

mechanism off and be something closer to a normal audience member.

"But in this case I was specifically sent to figure out what the show would need, so I was clearly

in working mode. And I got very excited about the project. Finding the solutions took a lot of

meetings with the creator of the show, Warren Lieberman. We had a very intense week of

throwing ideas back and forth. By that time I had done a lot of research about the music and

history of South Africa, and so I had a lot of ideas about what text there was and how it could be

improved and clarified. So we set out to rewrite the text and restructure the show and work

through what the design would be."

The director knew that the show's bare-bones story line needed fleshing out in order to appeal to

a more sophisticated playgoing audience: "The most important thing was figuring out a concept.

I wanted to find out a way to string together the pieces of 'Drumstruck' so that they would add up

to something. And one of the ideas that kept coming back to me was the importance of music in

South Africa -- it is the glue that connects communities. Music has always served that function in

that country. Historically, music in South Africa wasn't simply considered entertainment; it was

how communities came together. And when I came to understand that, I realized what was so

special about 'Drumstruck': Every night in the theatre, 400 people who don't know each other at

all are united by music. Everyone is given a drum to use during the show. So the members of the

audience all play their drums together, and they become part of the storytelling on stage. That

seemed very powerful to me."

The sense of community he uncovered became the concept behind "Drumstruck." Once Warren

hit upon that germ of an idea, the rest came easy: "What happens when you're directing a show

is, once you have a basic idea, that idea then informs all your choices. You end up with a forest

and not just a lot of trees. So we in effect built a community out of the audience, and watching it

take place every night is very moving. To see people have that kind of fun, wild, emotional,

cathartic experience with a bunch of strangers is amazing, and people really do walk out elated.

There's something so visceral about what audiences go through each evening, because

'Drumstruck' is so physical. They play their drums and go into a 'drum zone,' a meditative place

where they can free their minds. It's almost spiritual."

Warren worked with his design team to conceptualize the stage as well: "I suggested that we set

the action in a traditional meeting place, and Warren Lieberman said, 'You want a boma.' It was

an idea he had originally come up with but did not use. In every village in the bush in South

Africa, the central meeting place is this circular fenced-in area called the boma. The fence

functions to keep the animals out and keep the people in a protected area. In the middle of the

boma is a fire, and people would play music and sing together around it. That's where the

community comes together. So I said, 'That sounds exactly right.' Set designer Neil Patel and I

began to research bomas and discovered that they're very beautiful. And so I think our set makes

the audience members feel as if they're in the same place as the performers."

Perspective

Stephen Burdman has been directing for the past two decades, and his recent repertoire as artistic

director of New York Classical Theatre (www.newyorkclassical.org) has included revivals of

time-honored shows such as "The Feigned Courtesans," "The Winter's Tale," and "The Triumph

of Love." This summer he has two shows in motion, literally: outdoor versions o f "As You Like

It" (through June 26) and "Scapin" (Aug. 4-28) that travel from location to location in Central

Park.

The unforgettable experience of transporting a play -- and its viewers -- around woodsy locales is

what sets this New York-based company apart from most groups: "Almost every show I do

involves some integration of design and script -- a concept, if you will. I was very pleased with

my production of 'The Winter's Tale,' which relocated a very difficult play into Central Park. In

fact, we removed the winter from the play. And our production of 'Macbeth' also left many of our

audience members thinking that they were actually in Scotland. Someone even described it [as]

like being 'inside a movie.' "

Actually, Burdman hates the word "concept": "I focus on what the play is about, and as a little

exercise I try to narrow this idea down to one word. And it is that word that forms the basis for

my approach to the play. I have found that giving the actors and design team one word, rather

than a concept statement, results in more-cohesive work on the part of my collaborators.

"For example, my current show, 'As You Like It,' is about perception. 'The Tempest' was about

trust, while 'Hamlet' was about betrayal. The word I pick is unique to each production, and it

may vary as I grow as a person and an artist. However, when I directed 'Waiting for Godot,' I

failed in my attempt to get the play down to one word. After meeting for several hours with the

dramaturg, we decided that it was six words -- 'searching for the meaning in life.' "

Sometimes an experiment with a classic may not work completely but will illuminate the script

for a future production: "I once directed 'Twelfth Night' with four actors in 15 roles. This

preceded the well-known Off-Broadway run of 'R&J,' which did the same thing to 'Romeo and

Juliet.' Our 'Twelfth Night' was very grad-schooly, and though it was good for my artistic

development, more importantly, I learned what not to do. My production in 2002, with a full

cast, was much more solid."

Burdman cites three conceptual productions that have inspired him: "A few years ago, I saw

'Brothers and Sisters' from the Maly Drama Theatre [in St. Petersburg] as part of the Lincoln

Center Festival. 'Bratya i Sestry' was successful in translating an epic story and personalizing it

for the individual without ever losing sight of the big picture. The scenes alternated back and

forth between large sequences and very small ones and took tremendous advantage of the

audience's imagination.

"Robert Lepage's 'The Dragon's Trilogy' was able to stage events that cannot be accomplished in

a traditional venue by using symbolic techniques, such as a chase around a Quebec city

accomplished using only shoes and a shoebox. They also 'delivered' a baby on stage -- quite

magical.

"Finally, it was the late great John Hirsch who reinterpreted 'Coriolanus' in light of the Oliver

North trial in the late '80s. The production starred Byron Jennings at the Old Globe Theatre in

San Diego. Dakin Matthews was unforgettable as the Southern senator and war veteran

Menenius. Hirsch also made extensive use of television screens by creating mock TV news

reports, filmed by an actual TV anchor, that appeared on 50 video monitors between scenes.

When Coriolanus speaks to the Romans, Hirsch transformed the address into a press conference

with live video feeds."

Burdman advises directors to "listen to how you feel about the work first. Then translate those

feelings into ideas and words that can be transmitted to your designers and actors. A concept is

only as good as its realization, and many directors have great ideas that need to be integrated on

all levels of production, not just the scenic and costume design."

Other Directions

Edward Einhorn has directed for 13 years and lists among his favorite productions "Fairy Tales

of the Absurd," "Rhinoceros," and "Richard III." His upcoming projects include directing his

script for "Unauthorized Magic in Oz" (a puppet piece being staged at St. Ann's Warehouse) and

organizing a festival called NeuroFest. To Einhorn, a director's concept is "an approach to

interpreting the text. In an ideal world, a bold concept illuminates the text in a way that a more

straightforward rendition might not."

He imposed a stirring concept when he directed Shakespeare's "Richard III": "I had all his

murdered victims -- even those he had murdered before the play began -- stay on stage after he

murdered them, watching him as outraged ghosts, until they came to him in the dream in the fifth

act and finally participated in killing him during the climax. Their presence added to the sense

that his fate was the result of the accumulation of his crimes." Some of Einhorn's concepts have

literally spread out into the audience: "In 'The Good Woman of Setzuan,' in the spirit of

Brechtian alienation techniques, I invited the audience to speak up and interrupt the play at any

point if they disagreed with what was being said on stage. I encouraged the actors to do the same,

which they did, even to the extent of questioning whether they themselves agreed with that

directorial approach. And in Richard Foreman's 'Lava,' I used no actors. I just had an audience,

whom I would direct in a performance of the play on the spot."

Kate Marks has written and/or directed many plays in New York over the past eight years, most

notably with the Looking Glass Theatre. Her script for "Flyers and Other Stories" is being

produced as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival this July. She also had the chance

to stage "The Odyssey" at the Baracke Theatre in Germany.

Marks defines a director's concept as "the vehicle used to tell the story." She feels her most

successful application of a concept to a production occurred when she directed "Bumping

Umbrellas" by Kymberly Harris Riggs, which dealt with themes of seduction: "To heighten the

language and tension in the play, the actors did tango-based movement while speaking the

dialogue." The most outrageous or unexpected concept Marks ever applied to a play was when

she directed a production of "Romeo and Juliet" "in which our only prop was a rope made out of

bed sheets tied together. The rope was constantly changing in form and function according to the

needs of the play. For example, as Juliet left the party scene, she walked the rope like a tightrope

up to her bedroom."

Ted Sod is a 16-year veteran of staging theatre productions. His credits include the recent run of

"The House of Blue Leaves" at T. Schreiber Studio, "Scarlet Sees the Light" for the 2004 New

York International Fringe Festival, and "Agnes of God" at the George Street Playhouse. His idea

of a director's concept is "something that enhances the text rather than just showing off." He

successfully staged the French play "L'Histoire du Soldat" in a church: "We used the venue as a

sort of jungle gym. We got into a little trouble with the church group for what they viewed to be

sacrilegious behavior around the altar, but I reblocked it and they seemed appeased."

Glory Sims Bowen has been directing for over a decade and has tackled such classics as "The

Snow Queen" and "The Tempest" with fresh treatments. She will be helming "Measure for

Measure" in the coming months. She feels that a director has the responsibility to know his or

her audience as specifically as possible: "Directors need to make a production hit home for the

type of audience that will be viewing it. However the director decides to do that is his or her

concept. I would approach directing a show differently depending on who may be attending and

where it was going to be done."

One of her recent favorite concepts was for Shakespeare's "The Tempest": "We did the play with

a lot of gender-bending, which has been done before, but I think we did it in a unique way. For

example, we had Caliban played by a whiny, childlike blond girl pitted against a more confident,

womanly Prospera. We also made Ariel and the air spirits more prominent by having them on

stage the entire time, intertwined amongst the trees. The spirits had numerous dance numbers and

created more visual imagery for the play. You would forget they were there. And then they

would begin moving for the transitions between scenes. This helped create the spooky yet

magical aura of the island."

Adaptable Bard

As suggested by the examples above, no writer is adapted more often than William Shakespeare.

The Bard is perhaps the one playwright who has intrigued, encouraged, and even defied directors

to come up with ever-evolving conceptual approaches, simply because his scripts seem to work

no matter where or when you place them. That is why you might see a version of "Hamlet" in

space, "Much Ado About Nothing" placed in the Roaring '20s, or "The Merry Wives of

Windsor" set in the South (as in the case of the recent Off-Broadway musical adaptation, "Lone

Star Love").

David Warren opines that Shakespeare's plays almost demand a strong concept: "Of course, I

think his plays work if you do them in what we would consider a traditional way, although I

don't think anyone knows what that means, because they were done traditionally in Elizabethan

clothes regardless of the period of the play. I think the plays work if you do them in Elizabethan

clothes, or if you set 'Antony and Cleopatra' in ancient Egypt -- either way it works if the concept

is strong. But because the plays are so powerful, and so poetic and abstract, they leave a lot of

room for high concept. Such a concept would not undermine the play the way it would a more

recent script, or a play that is still part of our cultural reference, like Philip Barry's 'The

Philadelphia Story.' It would be risible to change the period of 'The Philadelphia Story,' because

the play's power comes from the very specific world in which it's set."

Proving his point, Warren updated "Twelfth Night" to great acclaim by giving it a cinematic

spin: "I updated it in the sense that I found a physical world for the play that wasn't explicitly

where the play was written. I set the show in the 1960s and referenced Italian films, such as those

directed by Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. That was my one foray into high-

concept Shakespeare. For years I had been obsessed with the Antonioni film 'L'Avventura,' and I

was thinking about it as I was reading 'Twelfth Night.' I actually had a year to prepare for the

production, so I just kept reading it and reading it with no pressure to start solving it right away.

And one day as I was reading it, the opening scene from the Antonioni film -- which was set on a

barren island off Sicily -- popped into my mind, and I saw it as the place where the shipwreck

should take place and what Illyria could look like."

Burdman's proposed concept for "The Comedy of Errors" would take the show to Wall Street:

"The play is so focused on the transaction of currency -- and the transaction of love -- that I

would like to give it an environmental staging in the lobby of one of downtown's big financial

buildings. I would be interested in using an elevator or escalator as one of the entrances and

exits." Marks has an athletic take on one of Shakespeare's most produced masterpieces: "Make

the forest floor of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' a trampoline!" And one day Bowen would like

to direct "Romeo and Juliet" with Romeo as a good ol' Texas boy and Juliet as a wealthy Arab.

But an overall concept would take more time to develop.

Einhorn is inspired by the possibilities offered by "The Winter's Tale": "I would love to take

'Winter's Tale' and split it into its two parallel sections. The first would be a tragedy and the

second half would be a comedy called 'Spring Story.' It would be cast among the same group of

actors, which tells the same basic tale. The split would happen when the bear runs across the

stage." And Sod's favorite Shakespeare works are the later plays, including "The Winter's Tale,"

"Cymbeline," and "The Tempest." He says, "I would love to do a site-specific 'Tempest.' Staging

it on an actual island where the survivors of the shipwreck come onto the shore could be

marvelous. Lee Breuer did something unique with helicopters in the park in his 'Tempest' -- but I

wish the royals had actually parachuted onto the Delacorte stage."

Not to overlook more-contemporary works, Marks would like to stage "Our Town" with puppets,

and Sod would recast "Gypsy" with a black or mixed-race Rose, June, and Louise. "But I don't

think the authors would allow it," he laments. So he'll just have to wait until "Gypsy" goes into

the public domain -- in 2054.

Advice and Ideas

To summarize, there are many ways to reinvent plays with a directorial concept. Here are just a

few to get your creative juices flowing:

- Use nontraditional and multiracial casting.

- Set the play in a different time or era.

- Set the play in a different place or location.

- Change the sexes or ages of characters.

- Stage the show in a unique theatrical venue (outdoors, in the round, or in an unconventional or

site-specific space).

These ideas work best when you are inspired by the material you are directing. But what if you

are assigned to stage a play that does not prompt a clear-cut directorial concept or simply does

not speak to you? You don't necessarily have to take the job, but if you're willing to give it a try,

you may want to employ one or more of the following activities to spark your imagination:

- Put together an impromptu reading, offering no direction or guidance. You'll be amazed at what

actors can come up with from a simple read-through.

- Read other plays by the same author, which will give you a larger appreciation for and wider

perspective on how the play fits into the writer's body of work.

- Go see a different play or movie, taking the ideas of your current project with you to the

Cineplex or theatre.

- Analyze other plays by coming up with concepts for them and then see if you can apply one of

those ideas to your current show.

- Envision how a famous director would stage the show, then take your cues from that style until

you can adapt them and make them your own.

- Place the material in a contrasting genre; see how the script stands up to a Kabuki or film noir

treatment, for example.

- Envision the show with an all-star cast, which may help you see it in a new light.

- Ask fellow directors what their takes on the material would be, which will serve as a sounding

board and could lead to brainstorming ideas.

- Research what other directors have done with the material in the past, from reviews and online

sources.

- Think of the craziest concept you can imagine, something you would never normally consider.

If nothing else, it may lead to more-practical ideas.

As for final words of advice, Bowen offers, "Sometimes simplicity is best when it comes to

concepts. I also believe that a director's concept should aid the production and make it more

accessible to the audience. I try not to get in the way of what the author is trying to say." Marks

agrees, reminding directors to "find a concept that serves the story and gives the actors

something specific to play." Sod thinks a concept should illuminate the text: "Don't choose

something just to be novel. I'm always hoping that there is logic to the conceptual choices I make

-- that they come from the text and enhance the world of the play, not distract from it." And

Einhorn cautions, "If you aren't interested in the play, don't do it. If you are, use the concept to

communicate what it is about the play that you love."