A break from building to talk about directing
Actor Samuel Horwitz
Spondees
I have great admiration for Dr. Ralph A. Cohen from the American Shakespeare Center. He does an awesome talk on rhetoric and how rhetorical devices are what moves Shakespeare in so many ways to write what he does. In his talk, Ralph defines the terms and emphasizes that what’s important is not the terminology, but rather what these individual terms do. He’s just plain right. His talk reminds me so much of diagraming (analyzing) work through the system that Stanislovsky created. They just use different words. But, it seems to me anyway, that they are both talking about what a character wants and what he’ll do to get it. Shakespeare’s characters just use speech a lot more in order to “get” what they want. Also, they talk through the things that Ibsen’s characters might nottalk through. Ibsen’s characters might just act without explanation. Shakespeare’s characters usually “tell you they’re going to tell you, tell you and then tell you they told you.”
Most super-smart guys like Ralph also know dozens upon dozens of poetic terms. Anyone who wants to study the poetry of Shakespeare is going to need to be armed with that. Anyone who is going to work on a Shakespeare play ought to do their best to understand what poetry does and how it works. Knowing what something like a spondee is, can’t hurt. Knowing what a thing like a spondee does, surely is helpful.
Yesterday, I was reading one of Shakespeare’s lesser-performed plays. I do that from time to time. I am the Artistic Director of a Shakespeare company after all. Reading this play, it occurred to me that it was a beautiful play on many levels. But, it occurred to me that there were some challenges to producing the play. I don’t mean “challenges” like I’m fat and so running is a challenge. What I mean is that you have to know some important things about stagecraft in order to stage this particular play. The words won’t take care of themselves. Some of these things are not necessarily the first things one think of when thinking about the knowledge one needs to have to direct Shakespeare.
So, it got me thinking…
Probably most people agree that to mount a compelling production of Shakespeare, one ought to know about how he constructed his language. Most people would probably agree that a basic knowledge of society in the author’s life would be helpful. I betcha most people would agree that, in case a director hadn’t a great deal of acting experience themselves, that they should have a detailed understanding of an actor’s process.
But I think, there are other things that are important to know when directing a play written by Shakespeare. So, I made a little list. If you’re playing along at home and don’t know some of the answers, I invite you look ‘em up.
- You oughta know why the song “Comedy Tonight” was added to the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It says a lot about expectations and what audiences bring with them into the theater.
- You oughta have an understanding about how children process language. You oughta know how adults and children differ in the way their brains process language. It’s illustrative about the connection between visual and aural communication in the theater.
- You oughta know how the Victorians viewed the level of “realism” in their stagings. It’s helpful to have perspective about doing things “the correct way.”
- You oughta know about painting and perspective and the many visual principals of staging that our predecessors practiced. Our brain interacts with visual data in ways that we are not always (usually) conscious of.
- You oughta know why those great musicals of the 40’s and 50’s started act two with a big musical number and why their act ones were longer than their act twos. Those guys knew what people liked and how audiences interacted with plays.
- Not only should you know the difference between Brighella and Arlechhino, but you should know the difference between Curly and Shemp. You oughta know why Zeppo doesn’t ever have any funny lines or why the 4th Ghostbuster isn’t funny. It helps to understand how comedy is constructed.
- You should know where the line “ it took me three hours to figure out F.U. meant Felix Unger” was from, what the blocking was in the original Broadway production for the moments after that line and why that blocking was necessary. Rhythm is so important to staging Shakespeare and it needs care and feeding.
- If you’re an American theater artists, you oughta know about Hellzapoppin and Abie’s Irish Rose. You just should.
- You oughta know about depth perception. It’s just really important in staging. If you think you know about it, you might want to check again just to make sure.
- You oughta learn how to play a musical instrument or paint. You just should. Because they have a lot to do with staging a Shakespeare play.
I’ll get back to the building next time.
"We're Building a Theater" Blog 
So, Curly Howard and Shemp Howard were brothers and were both part of the Three Stooges, but not at the same time. Look, there’s a lot of debate about whether the Three Stooges are funny. On different days, I have different opinions on this. Anyway, the make up of the Stooges with Curly was basically- Moe was the boss and was kind of mean, Curly was the fearless man/child idiot who would take on Moe. Larry was, well, the guy who held the ladder. Shemp was more of just a scaredy cat who had the intelligence of a child, but none of a child’s good qualities (unlike Curly). Shemp just kept getting beat up because he was stupid. Curly got beat up because he sometimes acted like a wiseguy. (I personally think the era of people getting beaten as comedy is on the decline, but all one has to do to prove that I’m wrong is to follow the success of America’s Home Videos or Jackass). Most comedy trios are like The Three Stooges. They’re really comedy duos with another guy holding the ladder. In the modern era of comedy films, there are a few movies that attempt the comedy trio. The Three Amigos being one obvious example. But, it seems to me that Steve Martin (one of the funniest people on the planet earth) is not very funny as a three amigo. There’s not enough room. Ghostbusters tries to do it. But, Harold Ramis is not really all that funny in it. The Hangover guys are another example of one funny guy getting squeezed out. Ed Helms, normally a funny guy is forced to play straight man. There is one group who managed to pull it off- the fabulous Marx Brothers. All three brothers funny. In fact, they even tried to pull off a comedy quartet- but the result being that Zeppo ends up being the blandest straightest straight man ever. Monty Python consisted of six guys and five of them were funny (Terry Gilliam is awesome, but not a funny actor). This may blow my theory all together, but maybe not and here’s why: I think the Pythons are the funniest guys for the second half of the twentieth century. Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin all have to fight it out for the first half of the century, but the Pythons are my guys for the second half. But, they changed character every few minutes. If you think of the most famous Python sketches- they were two person sketches- Cheese Shop, Dead Parrot, Minsitry of Silly Walks, Fish Slapping Dance, Nudge Nudge. The Lumberjack song and Spam are just songs, not so much sketches. Self Defense against fresh fruit has all of them in it but only two guys get to be funny- John Cleese and Eric Idle (but that’s only because of the way he says pointed sticks) So, you see, three is hard to pull off. It’s been my experience, that when you get a group of four , five or six actors in a comic scene and they all try and “be funny” the results are hideous. The comedy equation just doesn’t work that way (not to mention how annoying it is to see people “trying to be funny”). Also, I don’t think beating Shemp was ever very funny and the effectiveness is lost a lot on us today. That’s why you have to be very careful with masters beating servants. It happens a lot in Shakespeare, Roman, Italian and Greek plays. So make sure, if you’re going to beat anyone, it’s Curly and not Shemp. I personally think that politics have made only the reverse funny- its much funnier to have the servant beat the master than the other way around!
Great list. I just started learning how to play the piano. When I grow up, I am going to direct a play. Thanks.
There are so many reasons why I join so many other people in being such a big fan of Ralph’s
My take on Shemp as a stooge was affected somewhat by my seeing him in one or two other, non-Stooge movies. My impression of his Stooge work was that he was more knowing of what was going on than Moe and Larry; he had somewhat of an objective distance from the gang, so he was not a full part of the Stooge mojo. That’s an impression gained from a lightweight viewing of Stoogiana, so it is subject to more knowledgeable deconstruction.
And related to your point of how many are funny, Chuck Jones in the PBS series on creativity of 20 years ago quoted Jack Benny as saying, regarding his iconic “Well!” stance, that, “Two fingers is funny. Three is not.”
Just read this for the first time and should have read it sooner. I’d have known why I shouldn’t be in theatre: I didn’t know most of the stuff you gotta know!! I wish someone had told me earlier – would have saved a LOT of wasted time! And think of what we could have spared the audiences!
Oh Steve, I would be completely useless as any kind of career counselor. I was strictly speaking of directing Shakespeare rather than theatre as a whole. Oh, the whole thing was a personal exercise. Mostly when people ask me about what I do, I just stare at them blankly and mutter “I dunno.” I’m trying real hard to create some bullshit explanation for the kind of work I do. So that, if nothing else, I don’t put such a screeching halt to conversations like that.
Now, see, here’s something I DO know about: I know some of what you do.
l distinctly recall saying to someone after watching you and the company at a rehearsal of Coriolanus in some previous decade that it appeared as though the entire group – designers, actors, etc. – were absolutely committed to “getting” what you had in mind, and to getting it to happen.
Of course, part of the reason they were eager to do that is the power of the theatre enterprise to inspire creativity and eagerness. But to harness that and to let it lift up a collaborative work of art is a classic case of leadership. And it’s a kind of leadership that is much needed, widely prized, seldom understood, and regrettably rare.
That’s what you do. You say something along the lines of “hey, what if we ______,” and – because of what you say to fill in the “________” and because of how you say it, and because of the fact that you put as much of yourself into making it happen as you ask anyone else to put in, there are always – always – people who choose to come along and to throw in what they have to offer.
Some arrested permanent adolescent once said “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so …” and he might just as well have said that “there is nothing *in existence* but thinking makes it so.” But it wouldn’t scan.
You think things, mention them to others, and they – some of them (the lucky ones) decide to throw in with it. That may LOOK like it happens by accident, but it doesn’t.
And it’s not because you know a spondee from a bull’s pizzle. It’s because you know what you want to do and how to share that.
Or so it seems to me.