Play: The Dumb Waiter
Programme texts:
• Markus Isch as Gus
• Adrian A. Baumann as Ben
• Matt Kimmich, Director
• Acknowledgments
Reviews:
Matt Kimmich (Director)
What I always wanted to know about directing...
How does one go about directing a play? Perhaps even more central - how do you actually get to direct a play?
In my case, the answer is simple. You say: "If you don't find anyone else to do it, I'll gladly try." And then, before I noticed, I was it. Was I qualified? Do chickens have lips? I had done some acting, but I had never directed a play, spoken to experts about directing, or even read a book on directing. Admittedly, every time I stood on stage, I felt an urge to go: "Wouldn't it be better if you stood there? And we need more expression from you, love, that'll do, thank you." When going to the theatre, I always composed reviews in my head that mainly were concerned with what the director should have done.
Was that enough? Is being a director the same thing as being an overly critical know-it-all? All those who have stood on stage have the right to remain silent on that last question... In any case, it had to do as a starting point for me.
Bigger, energy, pace, cues!
I knew that I would be directing The Dumb Waiter when we started rehearsing All's Well that Ends Well, helmed by Peter K. Tarrant. I'd worked with Peter before, on the Caryl Churchil play Owners, so I knew some of his approaches to directing. I decided to keep an eye on Peter's methods - which admittedly is difficult when you're lying on the floor, humming with your eyes shut. It didn't take me long to recognise that group hugs in the warming up phase might work for more than twenty actors, but would prove a bit pointless with a cast of two.
However, the main thing I decided to take over from Peter's directing style was the following: I wanted each actor to "know" his character, to know his motivations, needs and fears. Even if we only had about 40 pages of text and more menacing pauses than we cared to count, I believed - and still do believe - that we had to take all the information we did get and interpolate in order to put real, three-dimensional human beings on stage. The feelings portrayed in The Dumb Waiter had to be genuine to convince the audience. As a result, most of the initial phase of rehearsals was spent on getting to know Gus and Ben.
The bottom line
Now, one week before the première, what can I say about having directed my first play?
First of all: I'm glad it was The Dumb Waiter. Not only can it be an exciting and powerfully tense play, but one act, two characters and no scene changes is less frantic than a full-blown cast-of-hundreds-spearcarriers-not-included Elizabethan history play.
Secondly: Of course I can't make valid generalisations about acting and directing - but it definitely felt more distant than the roles I'd acted on stage. A director has control over all actors, but in the end, it's the actors who actually do it. They stand on stage and, for the duration of the performance, live as someone else. They are in direct contact with the audience, whereas a director is always at one remove, realistically speaking. For actors, the play is over after the dernière, and sometimes not even then. For me as director, my job will be done by the time you read this. But then again, that's just my impression of this one production. Ask me again in five years or so.
Would I do it again - different play, different cast, me as director? Depends. If I can work with a text I like, with people whose abilities I trust - possibly. And for those who know me, that is closer to a definite Yes! than I'd care to admit. If they don't find anyone else, I might give it a try...
Read the next programme item: Acknowledgments