Much Ado About Something

     Having had a good experience directing Death of a Salesman I am seriously considering directing again. As I told the President of the Charleston Community Theatre, though, it would have to be a script I am passionate about. That pretty much eliminates all modern scripts, so I started looking at Shakespeare. I had done two comedies and one tragedy in my previous life and enjoyed them all, but this audience would likely not sit still for a tragedy until comedies have got them used to Shakespeare. So if it is Shakespeare a comedy it will be. Other options might include Moliere, eighteenth century comedy like The Rivals, or possibly something from the nineteenth century. All things being equal, though, my preference is for a Shakespeare. After considering As You Like It, Love's Labour's Lost, and one or two others, I settled on Much Ado About Nothing. At this point, of course, I haven't even been approved to direct again at CCT, and I haven't given them a definite title, but even though the production would be more than a year away (I asked for Fall 2018) it is none too early to start pre-rehearsal preparation. So I have begun, on speculation you might say.
   
     I imagine this prep will take around 100 hours before auditions. It begins with multiple readings of the text (well, actually, several different editions, to see how they vary and to figure out why). It continues with viewing DVDs of different productions, both made for the stage and made for film. So far I have six different versions, all I can find except the BBC Shakespeare from the eighties, because I remember it as rather dull. I've watched three so far, and enjoyed them all but liked the RSC version the best by far. It was a filmed stage production and absolutely wonderful; I'll probably show it to the cast (if I ever get that far).  There's very little if anything I can borrow from these productions, but it is useful to see how various production concepts are realized. I am very far from developing a production concept of my own; that comes much later, after a good deal more research.

     One of the things I am doing at this stage is looking at the text and trying to find reasonable cuts. You may recall that in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare refers to 'the two-hours' traffic of our stage'. That is the running time I always shoot for, but it is almost impossible to achieve. Much Ado, for example, has about 2700 lines, which would take about 2 1/2 hours. I estimate I need to cut about 500 lines to get the running time down to where I want it. Why do I aim for 2200 lines? Partially it is experience, but mostly it is Romeo and Juliet. The first published version, the so-called 'bad quarto', contains that number, along with the line about two-hours' traffic. Conventional wisdom has it that the bad quarto is the script used in a provincial tour when the London playhouses were closed because of the plague. It therefore represents the best evidence we have of the length of a script cut for performance.

     The best way to cut is interlinearly, rather than cutting entire scenes or characters. It is relatively easy to find 100-200 lines this way, but 500 is a different matter. Another reason to view all the videos is to see what cuts each has made, and frequently I find which lines are a mistake to cut. I have not yet reached the point of making cuts, but I have downloaded the Folger Library version of the script and am ready to try different combinations. I am keeping an open mind on the songs, even though it would save a lot of lines to cut them. But songs are an essential part of a Shakespeare comedy, and I want to keep them. Of course that means finding, having composed, or composing (yes, directors must be able to do that, too) settings for them.

     Another thing that my early work on the text has helped me with is double casting. All of Shakespeare's plays are written for double casting (that is, casting one actor in two different roles), and unless a director has a lot of actors to cast in small roles he or she will double cast. In my case it will be a necessity because I will be hard-pressed to find enough male actors to fill all the roles. At the moment I plan to double the Messenger and the Sexton; Conrad and the Friar; Leonato's brother and the First Watchman; and Don John and the Second Watchman. This will mean I will need four women and 12 men unless I cut the songs. I used a total of four women and 11 men in Salesman, so this size of cast is just manageable.

      Needless to say I have to make sure I know the exact meaning of every word in the text as well as its pronunciation. This is relatively simple, but I must also determine how the language used by each character illuminates his or her world view, and how the imagery in the text helps the actors. It is the director's job to understand the text, to communicate his or her understanding of the text to the actors, and to help the actors communicate his or her understanding of the text to the audience. That also means determining the structure of the play; where is the climax and how do the scenes build towards it? Who is the main character, and why? What is the tone of the play? For example, Beatrice at one point tells Benedick she wants him to 'kill Claudio'. Should this be taken seriously, or played for a laugh--even the biggest laugh in the show? It has been played both ways, and I need to know how I want it played, and why. This is the time to make those decisions, in the quiet of my study rather than in the bustle of the rehearsal hall.

     I do not do the work of the actors, now or later. I do not determine the subtext; I do not decide individual line readings. I don't even, at this point, determine the blocking. How could I; I don't yet have a floor plan. If I had a designer, the floor plan would be that artist's responsibility. Since I will not have one, I will need to design the set (not to mention the costumes and the lights, as I did for Salesman). My work at this point will help me in those tasks in the future. Eventually I will need to prepare a rehearsal schedule, and my work on the text will help me do that, too.

     In short, my work pre-audition and rehearsal may well exceed my work in rehearsal. Perhaps my work with the actors is the most important and enjoyable, but without the work I am doing now I will not be prepared to do that work then. It may not seem important to the uninitiated, but any well-trained and experienced director will tell you it is crucial. For Much Ado About Nothing it is very little ado about something. The audience will never know, and for the most part the actors will never know, but I will know and will take great satisfaction when the process yields the product.