Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I recently worked on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; these are some pictures I took during an open rehearsal. I was lucky to work with two fine actors, and they taught me some things:

1) Using the language of permission works pretty well. That is, instead of saying, "You're too nasal" (or something, you say, "You can use your lower register -- it'll make Martha more powerful." Not the best example, but you get the idea.

2) Focusing first on simple, physical elements solves many problems. A different pair of shoes works wonders. The placement of a chair has a transformative effect. Weird, but true.

3) Reinforcement is necessary, and maybe even welcome. I kept trying to make George less fidgety. I came at it a number of different ways, and keeping at it added to the performance. There's just too much going on for an actor; you have to have consideration and realize that among all the things happening, even a simple and concrete piece of direction can get lost.

4) Repetition is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, just running through a piece a lot can improve it, no direction necessary. This is a dirty little secret that you should keep confidential. On the other hand, bad habits can take root, so just running a scene won't raise the level all by itself. Hey, I got my job back again.

Some -- like Mamet -- argue that actors don't need directors at all. Without getting into a long discussion about the director's concept of a play and the interpretive act that really does have to happen, I'd say that  on the most basic level, actors need a mirror, a sounding board, an audience, and  someone to tell them if they have psychic spinach in their teeth.

After the Fall

I recently worked on scenes from After the Fall, by Arthur Miller. He wrote it two years after his ex, Marilyn Monore, died. It's his most autobiographical play that takes place, as the stage directions say, in his protagonist's mind. Quentin, 40, puts himself on the witness stand to understand his own life, to struggle to a way to live honorably, authentically, justly. He addresses the audience directly as his memories play out.

Many of the scenes center on betrayal -- his mother of his father, himself of his father, and later, he weighs his own integrity during the McCarthy era. And, finally, his relationship with a beautiful and sexually charismatic singer who plunged into drink and drugs and whom, finally, he could not save.

We had three actress play Maggie, the character based on Monroe. Stole it from -- no, wait, I mean "inspired" by -- Bunuel's Obscure Object of Desire. After all, one woman, desired, is many women; Monroe herself had several faces both in public and in private: coquette, sex bomb, naif, comedienne, martyr.

We were really lucky with the actors. One sings well; we had her cover "Little Girl Blue", a Hart song that, according to the play, was Maggie's big hit.

I learned a lot from this. That you can't ignore icons -- you have to address them, either by subversion or incorporation. Thus the mix you see in the photos of the Wig. We didn't land hard, and we should have chosen -- but we justified the back-and-forth by the many faces of Eve idea. Not sure it played.

Curiously, sexuality is a huge block. The women, who in daily life are far from prudes, really had a challenge getting in touch with their inner seductress, in channeling blatant sensuality. Maybe it's an antique notion, maybe it's because they're too American, but making them into 50s torch singers with all that flirty, sexy hints of raw desire, that was tough. They had a hard time going there. The men, too, were awfully shy about just being horny for the girl. For all the supposed openness about sex and all the frankness, we really have lost a directness and a respect for desire. We're still, on some level, buttoned up Puritans, and I think, judging from the lit and the reading only, we're more prudish than we were. A paradox.

Also: There were a few tics and choices that I should have done more to eliminate. My old mentor Brusilovsky said that directing was like training bears to dance. He has a point.

It's fascinating to see the effect of adrenaline on a performer. The quality always makes a leap upwards. The nerves add electricity, focus, life. But, at the same time, the performers tend to fall back on their "tells" -- their habits. What was good in rehearsal, what we'd worked on getting rid of tends to creep back in under pressure.

But the audience liked the performance; it went over well, and that's what counts.