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Written Documents of the Assistant Director: A Record of Remaking1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

SOPHIE PROUST
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Abstract

The aim of this article is to establish a classification for the various written documents produced by assistant directors (before and during the rehearsals, during the run-throughs, from the first performance onwards and so on). It also underlines theatrical work as an autonomous subject of interest. These written documents are useful, and even indispensable according to certain directors. The notes may differ in nature at different times in the production process. In their finality they preserve a record of what is to be redone, a record of the work whose existence the audience does not suspect. Contrary to what one might believe, it is not always the actors who retain the truest memory of their work. The following is based partly on my own experience as assistant director, or intern, to Yves Beaunesne, Denis Marleau, Matthias Langhoff and Robert Wilson.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 33 , Special Issue 3: Genetics of Performance , October 2008 , pp. 289 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2008

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References

NOTES

2 Féral, Josette, ‘For a Genetic Study of Staging’, Théâtre/Public, 144 (1998), pp. 54–9Google Scholar.

3 McAuley, Gay, ‘Towards an Ethnography of Rehearsal’, New Theatre Quarterly, 53 (1998), pp. 75–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Cf. Laban, Rudolf, The Mastery of Movement, revised and enlarged by Lisa Ullmann, 4th edn (London: Northcote House, 1988), p. 196Google Scholar; and Benesh, Rudolf and Benesh, Joan, An Introduction to Benesh Movement Notation (London: A. & C. Black, 1956)Google Scholar.

5 Cf., for example, the works of Ball, William, A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing (New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1984)Google Scholar; Frerer, Lloyd Anton, Directing for the Stage (Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1996)Google Scholar; Grandstaff, Russell J., Acting and Directing (Chicago: National Textbook Company, 1987)Google Scholar; Miles-Brown, John, Directing Drama (London: Peter Owen, 1980)Google Scholar; and Taylor, Don, Directing Plays (London: A. & C. Black, New York: Routledge-Theatre Arts Books, 1996)Google Scholar.

6 Frerer, Directing for the Stage, p. 263.

7 Moscoso, Sophie and Thomasseau, Jean-Marie, interview, ‘Le Simple, le concret et les outils’, in Théâtre, 2 (1999), pp, 107–25Google Scholar, here p. 111 (published with the assistance of the UFR Arts, Philosophie et Esthétique and the Service de la Recherche de Paris 8).

8 Braunschweig, Stéphane and Proust, Sophie, interview, ‘Il faut que l'Acteur ait une troisième oreille’, in Proust, S., La Direction d'acteurs dans la mise en scene theatrale contemporaine (Vic la Gardiole: L'Entretemps, 2006), pp. 447–65, here p. 453Google Scholar.

9 Philippe Morier-Genoud and Sophie Proust, interview, in Georges Banu, ed., Les Répétitions: Un Siècle de mise en scìne, de Stanislavski à Bob Wilson, Alternatives Théâtrales, 52–4 (1996–7), pp. 150–1, here p. 150 (re-edited by Actes Sud in 2005).