Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
January 10, 2011
Albee on Directors
“No performance can make a great play any better than it is, and most performances are inadequate either in that the minds at work are just not up to the task no matter how sincerely they try, or the stagers are aggressively interested in “interpretation” or “concept” with the result that our experience of the play, as an audience, is limited, is only partial.
“...The problem is further compounded by the kind of theater we have today for the most part—a director’s theater, where interpretation, rethinking, cutting, pasting, and even the rewriting of the author’s text, often without the author’s permission, are considered acceptable behavior. While we playwrights are delighted that our craft and art allows us double access to people interested in theater—through both text and performance—we become upset when that becomes a double-edged sword. I am convinced that in proper performance all should vanish—acting, direction, design, even writing—and we should be left with the author’s intention uncluttered. The killer is the assumption that interpretation is on a level with creation.
“I’m not suggesting you should not see plays. There are a lot of swell productions, but keep in mind that production is an opinion, an interpretation, and unless you know the play on the page, the interpretation you’re getting is secondhand and may differ significantly from the author’s intentions. Of course, your reading of a play is also an opinion, an interpretation, but there are fewer hands (and minds) in the way of your engagement with the author.”
Edward Albee, from the essay “Read Plays?” in Stretching My Mind
Three Tall Women runs from January 13, 2011 to February 13, 2011 at Court Theatre.
1 Response to Albee on Directors
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On the whole, I disagree with Mr. Albee. Although, I suppose it is a frustration shared by many creators: Composer vs. conductor, writer vs. editor, playwright vs. director. Interpretation is what brings a play from the solitary to the communal. A director’s vision is what brings me back to Court for every play. Mr. Albee seems to imply that the very act of producing a play undermines what he feels the role of a piece of theater is: to portray the thoughts of the writer as precisely as possible, to transcend language, the very medium of the play. I don’t think most people would agree with that. A great play in the hands of a great director becomes something sublime.
By Eric on February 3, 2011 at 3:59 pm