Directed by William Shakespeare

Abstract

Thanks in part to Hollywood and in larger part to the general public’s congenital indifference to artistic process, there is no commonly-shared understanding as to what a theatre director is or does. According to film legend, he is either a zealous bully standing in the stalls of an empty house venting his spleen on terrified actors, or a pulsating Svengali riveting his gaze on the young understudy and exhorting ‘the youngster’ to ‘go out on that stage’ and ‘come back a star’. If the public looks for his work at all, it is in the more obvious elements of the physical production: the cut of the costumes, the feel of the set, the trick of the lights, the tempo of the performance — factors more attributable to designers and choreographers than to directors. Invariably critics will compliment the director for startling performances whose success can be traced back to an actor’s stubborn refusal to bend to the cock-eyed demands of a man who knows next to nothing about a craft over which he has been given unlimited jurisdiction. Generally speaking, the director is some kind of nebulous presence which everyone tolerates on the wobbly assumption that every ship must have a captain and every orchestra a conductor.