Should a playwright’s intention be your main guide in staging their work? – American Theatre Magazine
A seriously loaded question that caused a haughty debate among theatre-folk yesterday. I think most of us would agree that if it were up to the playwright, the answer would be yes. Of course they would want their intentions to be illuminated and supported by the staging of their piece. But is it really theirs anymore? They created it for others, so why not let others understand and interpret it in their own way? We all know that plays have tons of hidden meanings and messages that speak to different people in many different ways, some that the playwright may not have even been aware of. It is up to the director, then, to decide which message he wants to convey to the audience. &
As an extremely amateur director, I do not have a definite answer to this question, but I do believe that a director’s responsibility is to the script, not the playwright. It is within the director’s creative license to make the script their own, to bring it to life, to make a statement. I directed a One Act play this past spring, for example, where I made a violent and conscious decision to deviate from the playwright’s intention, and it ended up working brilliantly (or so I’m told). The play was “The Still Alarm” by George S. Kaufman, which is a comedy of manners written by an American playwright and intended to be set in New York. Being that a comedy of manners by nature is to satirize the manners of social classes in a particular culture, I would say that it was probably Kaufman’s intention to satirize a group in America. Having just come back from studying abroad in London, however, I had my own vision. I quickly realized that the play addressed universal issues that could be transferable to other cultures as well. So I decided to set the play in the London. While the spine stayed the same, setting it in the UK added a whole new layer that I never would have uncovered without my own personal experiences and desires. By allowing myself to take a risk and be creative, I made the script come to life in a whole new light. One of my own teachers even believed the playwright to be English rather than American after seeing my interpretation of the script. Had I been limited to the playwright’s intention alone, my directorial debut would not nearly have been as successful or rewarding.
A response from our Creative Director:
Some forms of visual art (Dadaism, Surrealism, etc.) are based upon free association and subjectivity and do not impose the artist’s intentions (Basquiat, Rauschenberg). In fact, they emphasize the role of the observer in creating art’s meaning. Many artists refuse to tell you what their work is about. They might explain the circumstances in which an image was created and what the subject matter means to them. But they will never tell you exactly what their work means because they want the viewer to come to their own conclusions. Sure, an artist’s vision alone can be powerful. But isn’t art most compelling when it takes on multiple meanings, especially those which the artist had not seen himself? Playwrights should not assume that their’s only one perspective to their work, but more importantly, directors should be expected to incorporate some degree of interpretation and stylistic choices when staging a work.
Read more responses on American Theatre Magazine’s Facebook page. Look for their June 26th post!
