Homage Essay

There was a theatre director my mother used to call Mr. Sweater. His real name was Garland Wright, and my mother, who was a buyer for a west coast department store, and a card carrying member of the rag business, dubbed him thusly. I knew Garland because I was romantically entangled with his comely assistant. On again, off again and over great distances, but entangled nonetheless. He was a slight man, pale skinned and black haired with a trimmed goatee and mustache. Fey to a fault, sharp-tongued, intelligent, insightful, droll, and a chain smoker to beat the band. He was a wonderful director. Mostly because he adored actors. He was an actor himself for a very short time. If asked he would have considered himself, like the playwright David Mamet claims to be, a failed actor. Garland however, unlike Mamet, developed a love for acting and by extension the actor. This affection permeated his work. When I direct, I generally start out the rehearsal process hoping to emulate my memory of Garland’s approach to the work. I end up however much closer to my memory of another director’s methods and temperament, that of Dan Sullivan. Dan is also a wonderful director, but much less exuberant, not as demonstrative nor outwardly supportive, some say a bit of a cold fish. I disagree. He and I just don’t gush. Dan was an actor who turned full-time director early on. I am an actor who started as a fledgling director then turned my sights toward acting as I fell into the thrill of it, and now I direct occasionally. I love acting and admire those who do it well and those who try. Dan, I believe, still holds a love of actors and their struggles in his heart although he, unlike Garland, wouldn’t let it be known. These days it is quite common to find yourself working with a director who has never acted. In this age of specialization the collaborative art of theatre has fallen victim to ever-thicker lines of delineation. So and so writes, someone else directs, others act, she does lights, he’ll handle the sets, the husband-and-wife team will design costumes, a guy does the sound design, his girlfriend will do multi-media and projections, oh and casting directors want an oscar category. Generally none of these people have ever acted, know anything about acting nor typically give two bits about an actors task, which is by far the hardest in the room bar none. But don’t tell all those folks that last bit, they tend to get defensive. Shakespeare was an actor, so too Moliére, Chekhov, Strindberg, Stanislavski, Chaplin, Nichols, Shepard and on and on. All directors and/or writers too, but critically also actors. The theatre has lost something quite crucial in the exchange. I have spent ample time on both sides of the tech table. In and among the cast when acting and sitting in the house with directors, designers, crew, producers etc. when doing otherwise. I have witnessed first hand the decay of respect routinely awarded the actor in days past. And so, when not acting, and as I take up the baton of the director, or craft scripts never-to-be-performed in the quiet of my office-ette, or stage manage tours of Grease through mid-sized German towns, I vow to dedicate my efforts as an homage to the days before specialization. The days when the centrality of the actor (the only indispensable creator in the theatrical process) was not conveniently overlooked.