Thank You, Mr. Sondheim

I have been slowly making my way through FINISHING THE HAT, Stephen Sondheim's instructional memoir about musical theatre. I say slowly, because each chapter is an in depth analysis of a different musical, complete with lyrics, anectdotal stories , biographical information, commentary, confession, and cautionary tales. I'm reading this book one chapter at a time.

Now this is less a review of the book (I'm only half way through - having just finished DO I HEAR A WALTZ? ready to jump into COMPANY) as it is a reflection on what I've learned thus far. I figure, as an aspiring writer, former musical theatre performer, lover of musicals, and all out musical theatre fanatic who has thus far failed to successfully create one of her own, I might as well learn from the best, right? Each chapter of FINISHING THE HAT feels like a master class taught by Mr. Sondheim.

There is much to be learned about rhyme scheme. He has strong feelings about what he calls the "sin" of the misplaced stress in lyrics. But, the one line in the book that hit me between the eyes, made me close the gigantic blue cover, sit back, desire to argue, and then force me to face my own conceit, was that writers "should not direct their own work."

He uses his experience with ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, the show that he and Arthur Laurents created, and Laurents directed as the basis for his warning. While arguably the first "absurdist" musical, it was by all rights, a commercial failure with some great songs.

Sondheim says that a writer, "creates." A director, "interprets."

"Yes," I thought. "That is exactly right. I am more of an interpreter than a creator." Now grant it, my directorial experience has primarily been in the field of educational theatre, thus it comes with the many layers of "teaching" along with interpreting. In fact, getting to the interpretation is itself an educational process. Through my directing, I teach how to analyze. Because it is my job to encourage young artists, my work with them is often their first collaboration.

There is so much for them to learn. I have never been a director who spoon feeds. At the point I'm forced to spoon feed, I have become desperate. It has happened only a couple of times in my career as a theatre educator.

No, my way is the way of digging, questioning, working with the actor to come to some understanding of the playwright's intent. It is my job as the director to make that clear - moment to moment -through physical and inner action, stage picture, pause, and delivery. As a theatre educator, each one of these aspects of an actor's performance includes teaching - the degree to which depends obviously on the innate, intuitive ability of the student. Sometimes the job requires a lot of "undoing" particularly with the "highly experienced" student whose background includes a lifetime of children's theatre.

More often than not, students come with no training, only performing experience. Moving them from "performer" to one who appreciates the "craft," is a process that requires immense patience and an understanding that the awakening of the artist may not occur until long after the rehearsal and performance experience is completed.

The young, new, actor is blindly trusting me to mid-wife their own artistry without realizing that that is what is happening. Through a uniquely individualized, nuanced process, the student, grows to understand that in acting, he is the instrument. A musician learning to play the violin must know how to read music, commit to a discipline of practice, and develop the technique of bowing. These skills ultimately move the player into the world of interpretation and artistry.

It is the same thing for an actor, only in his case, the instrument is himself.

Interpretation of a musical includes understanding the plot, characters, and story - "the book", the lyrics of songs, and the orchestration of the score. The role of music in a musical may seem the obvious distinguishing feature of the genre - but as a director, I spend as much time listening to what story the music is telling me through its style, melody, tempo, rhythm, crescendo, decrescendo, and structure as I do analyzing lyrics. The music often conveys a character's motivation, decisiveness, uncertainty, and feeling. How the lyrics fit with the music and how they interweave with the book are also part of the interpretation.

In FINISHING THE HAT, I have learned that the process of creating what, as a director, I interpret, takes enormous skill. It's not that I didn't know that. Nothing in art comes easy. But it is important to recognize in one's self, where one's expertise lies.
A writer "creates." A director "interprets."

The desire to create may be a driving force. Whatever the motivation to do so, wisdom, and Mr. Sondheim, dictate that there be someone with some aesthetic and emotional distance, to interpret what you have written.