The transcriptions of performed plays to the printed page come to us from two traditions. The ancient tradition was to write down plays as though they were poetry, for indeed the distinction between playwright and poet is relatively modern. The Greek and Roman plays, the works of Shakespeare and Moliere, are presented to us without any but the barest of stage directions. We just get the requisite “enter”s and “exeunt”s so we know who is onstage, and the occasional “he dies”, which is also very handy to know. But for the most part the director and actors are on there own, forced to use their brain power to decipher the true meaning of each phrase. Obviously, this horrendous oversight has meant that no one ever performs Shakespeare, and that it is impossible to do anything creative with it.
The other tradition is much more modern, that of publishing the script in nearly the format of a novel. Along with the spoken lines, full stage directions, place settings, even line readings are included in the script in parenthesis. With these parentheticals already given, the reader can imagine a fully realized production from the very first reading. As a reader, I love it, for I have absolutely no confusion as to what any given bit of dialogue is supposed to mean, and I get a chance to get more of the author’s perspective on the piece:
(Late afternoon, a few clouds. A bird flies overhead, possibly a wren, but we cannot see or hear it. The smell of honeysuckle is in the air, mixed with a bit of neoprene. It rained three days ago, so the ground is soft. It might rain again in another day or so, so no need to set out the sprinklers. Just be sure to water the flowers on the porch. And pick up the mail if you get a chance.)
MORINA
(speaking as if to a peplum) What do you think about getting some sushi tonight? (deliberate pause, as though the air in the room had suddenly become thick with undulation) If we go now, we can get back before sundown. (Morina crosses upstage and picks up her sweater, pausing briefly to notice that one of the cuffs is slightly frayed. It probably had always been.)
SALFORTIO
(looks out the window) It looks kind of dark outside, (looks at his watch) but I think we have time. (looks at her sweater) Hey, is that your sweater?
MORINA
(indefatigably) Yes. (maladjustedly) Do you have your wallet?
SALFORTIO
(with two fingers of his left hand adjusts his right sleeve) (hesitant, but mangrovish) What?
MORINA
(predispositiously) Your wallet. (lifts her chin slightly to the right, hypersplenic but not pyelogramic)
SALFORITO
(rectilinearly) Yes. (leans against bookshelf) (enucleatingly) Are you ready?
MORINA
(deeply fimbrinated) Sure. (chancellerious, but nasal) I’ll just put on my sweater. (puts on her sweater, left arm first) (remittally, with a hint of basil) Let’s go. (she crosses to him, coniferous and dispensary.)
SALFORITO
(idiomorphically) OK. (they step down center in a slight arc so as to miss tripping over the ottoman, which was purchased by the previous owner, then cross left to exit through the front door, which is hinged on the left.)
Ok, I’m obviously exaggerating, but not by much. And honestly, I don’t really care if publishers feel compelled to make the plays more descriptive and readable. I completely understand that they need to make money, and including a goodly amount of non-spoken narrative make the published work more accessible to the non-theatre audience.
The problem I see in this form of playwriting is that not enough of our nation’s actors and directors know how to read a script and separate the wheat from the chaff. I can’t tell you how many rehearsals I’ve sat through, biting my tongue and averting my eyes while the director and the actors slavishly follow every single stage direction in the script. There have been rare moments of brilliance where a brave actor will want to try a change in the described action, or say a line with a completely different tone, only to be shut down by a boorish director who always follows the parentheticals as though they are the one true gospel.
When you get a modern script, it went from the writer to you in one of two very different routes. If you aren’t paying much in royalties, then it’s more than likely a self-promoted play that didn’t see a successful Broadway, off-Broadway, or even off-off-Broadway run. There are a lot of these that are performed every year by high school drama departments and community theatre troupes. Every word spoken and every stage direction given came from the writer directly onto paper, and then to the publisher. These are not terrible pieces, but nor are they great works of literature. As such, reading what’s in the parenthesis might be the only way to figure out what is happening in the play. And there is certainly no reason to believe that the playwright was an exceptional actor, and that his work can’t be helped considerably by trying different interpretations of the same lines. Good actors can make pedestrian scripts good merely by freeing themselves of the mediocrity of the delivery.
The other route is when a new play is a hit, gets a decent run, and the publisher makes arrangements to put the play in bookstores. Now, editors know that scripts change a lot during the rehearsals leading up to opening, so they don’t want the playwright’s copy. Instead, they take the stage manager’s version – the performance copy with all of the additions, deletions, and final line corrections. Along with that is going to be all of the blocking that was performed for that now famous show. But if you try to recreate that same show using all of the stage directions and line readings, you are doomed to failure. For even if you know that an actor said one line “angrily”, you don’t know why she said it that way, or if she still said it that way two weeks into the run. Maybe she said it differently every night. And maybe she said it that way because of what the actor did just before that. A different partner, and she might have said it a completely different way. Uta Hagen in her book Respect for Acting has a great anecdote about rehearsing for The Country Girl. She had trouble finding the right tone for a particular moment, and one day she accidentally got tangled up putting on a sweater right at that point in the script. The frustration of dealing with the sweater brought up just the right emotional response for her. So she kept the bit and it helped her in performance as well. Years later she was shocked to see another actress trying to do the same bit of business. It seems that the struggle with the sweater was dutifully noted in the stage manager’s script and was carefully included in the published play. She was aghast to think that now other actresses had to deal not only with the lines of the play but also an arbitrary bit of business that worked for her but couldn’t possibly have any meaning for anyone else. The sweater for her was a way to connect with the scene, but for everyone else now is a bit of shtick that they have to somehow make meaningful. All because of useless stage directions.
And it’s not just the “acting notes” that writers include that can get actors in trouble, but also the specific actions relating to violence. Some of those descriptions are ill-stated, and some are just wrong. Some describe what the Broadway version did, which even those actors would not repeat if working in a new space or under a new director. So in almost all cases, you are usually better off getting the gist of what is supposed to happen, and then figuring out your own moves to get there. The script may call for a slap, but what if a shove seems to work better? What about no movement at all? You can’t tell if you don’t try.
By the way, the same goes for those props lists and costume plots that are in the back of the script. Just because the production team was very diligent in writing down every article and item that was used for the Broadway version does not mean that you can or even should attempt to duplicate it. You have no way of knowing how any particular item got on that list. Perhaps an extra halberd was put on a wall to hide a hole where a carpenter’s hammer went through the flat. Perhaps a character needed a stool to sit on in Act III because the actor playing him had a sore leg. Just make up your own list from what your production requires.
In truth, there are only two ways for directors and actors to handle the scripted stage directions:
1) Read the play once through to find out what the general flow is, and to pin down any vital bits of action. Then get a heavy black marker and block out every bit of non-critical stage direction. Get rid of them, banish them. That must include every line reading, every mood indicator, every pause, and every blocking note. Explore this play, the one that’s being created for the first time using the talents and abilities of all of the members of the production crew. Challenge each of the actors to find a different way to say each line every time you run the scene. Ninety percent of it won’t work, but sooner or later there will be some fascinating discoveries made. And that ten percent that does work is gold, because it will come out of trying to make a connection with the real people on stage from the real life of the script, not just the ghost of Broadway past.
… or …
2) Keep and follow every single stage direction you see. This must be done without exception when the director has neither talent nor intelligence. By following the line readings and pre-recorded blocking, the actors will not accidentally find any moment of real emotional honesty, which would clash with the rest of the production. Instead, you will have nice little automatons carefully parroting a lifeless version of a theatrical production. With plenty of false sentiments and declamatory pronouncements, they will hit each of their lines with whatever pre-ordained adjective was provided (angrily, quietly, agreeably, quickly, tenderly, wildly,) and convince themselves that they were acting.