Directors’ Theatre
Edited by Peter M. Boenisch: with David Williams, David Bradby, Edith Cassiers, et al.
Macmillan Education UK
2nd Edition 2019
ISBN: 978-1-352-00795-4
275 pages: e-book pdf
DOI: 10.64741/796376fwijjh
Review author: Batya Reich
In 1988, theatre scholars David Bradby and David Williams published Directors’ Theatre. The book, a foundational text for the (at that time) nascent field of directors’ studies, explored the work, techniques, and theories of seven directors from the end of World War Two up to the book’s publication. Eventually, this original edition left print, making it difficult to access Bradby and Williams’ groundbreaking scholarship. In 2019, a newer edition of Bradby and Williams’ writing was released, with four additional chapters covering topics and contexts not included in the original publication. This second edition of Directors’ Theatre ensures Bradby and Williams’ work will remain accessible to modern readers.
Williams opens the book with a preface, covering his work with David Bradby on Directors’ Theatre in the 1980’s. He outlines the process of theoretical analysis and writing of the original edition. Williams also introduces this edition’s editor, Boenisch. Peter M. Boenisch then discusses the rationale of the updates to this second edition of Directors’ Theatre. This more modern version of the book leaves the original text largely unaltered, choosing only to update any missing ‘historiographical and biographical data’ (23). However, the book’s second section consists of contributions from a range of theatre scholars, addressing a range of topics missing from the first edition that have become increasingly vital in the intervening years.
The book properly begins with a chapter reviewing the history and development of the director’s role in European theatre. It covers major innovations in theatrical direction from the eighteenth century through the Second World War. Within this opening section, one influential auteur seems to loom large over a majority of Bradby and Williams’ writing, namely Bertolt Brecht. Brecht’s politics and theatrical theories are foundational to a majority of the directors identified by the authors as figures in the ‘‘second generation’ of theatre directors’ (20). Indeed, the ‘Brechtian style’ of theatre remains one of the best known and influential theatrical aesthetics. Specifically, Bradby and Williams emphasise the influence of Brecht’s philosophy of ‘whom it was supposed to serve’ and his focus on class and economics (40).
The main substance, largely unchanged from the book’s first edition, provides a look at the lives and work of several directors: Joan Littlewood, Roger Planchon, Ariane Mnouchkine, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Peter Stein, and Robert Wilson. The authors biograph each artist’s life, detailing events and transitions. Additionally, there is analysis of each director’s philosophy and general approach to the art of direction. Then Bradby and Williams detail several examples of the directors’ work, painstakingly recreating rehearsal processes, performance/stage aesthetics, and audience reactions. Though these chapters are dense with information, they are well written and easy to follow. While not a textbook, these descriptions of how the directors collaborated with actors, designers, writers, and others can be instructive for those looking to develop their artistic practice of directing.
As previously mentioned, class is foundational to the practices of many of the directors explored in the book. Following in the tradition of Brecht, multiple innovative artists from this ‘second generation’ of directors began developing their styles and working ethos from the initial belief of what audiences theatre should serve. Both Littlewood and Planchon mainly operated in lower income areas and several of the directors created work inspired by and rooted within class consciousness. This foundation of class can also be seen in the multiple directors discussed who formed and worked within collaborative collectives, where (ideally) all of the artists were equal, performing an even split of labour for an equal split of pay. Such considerations and understandings of class at all levels of these directors’ craft, should be instructive for modern directors, as theatre as an art-from looks to continue drawing audiences.
One critique of Directors’ Theatre that one could offer regards the diversity of who is considered an auteur. Boenisch and other contributors recognize the ‘geographic and gender imbalance’ of the book’s original publication (23). The first section highlights only two female directors and almost exclusively focuses on directors from the West (mainly Western Europe). The additional chapters in the second section seek to address this imbalance, particularly chapters 9 and 11 address geography with a focus on directors in Eastern Europe (chapter 9 by Katalin Trencsényi) and interrogating the concept of directors’ theatre with the context of 21st century globalisation (chapter 11 by Patrice Pavis). However, one element of identity is conspicuous in its absence, namely race. All seven directors discussed in the first section are White; overwhelmingly, even when trying to broaden the directors’ locations, the book focuses on White artists.
Notably, when any of the featured directors interact with and are inspired by cultures of the Global Majority, most often Asian cultures, the book does not mention specific mentors or artists/practitioners. For example, when the book describes Ariane Mnouchkine drawing from Asian, specifically Indian and Japanese, theatre styles and Jerry Grotowski finding inspiration in ‘classical Chinese and Japanese theatre training [and] hatha yoga,’ the authors refer to broad, exoticised cultural practices rather than innovative or inspirational artists (109). Bradby and Williams critique the unnamed Asian theatrical traditions drawn on by Mnouchkine, saying the emphasis on gesture and mask, ‘favours the emergence of types or fixed characters: the hero, the wastrel, the clown,’ (93). The authors choose to leave the particular styles of theatre unnamed and to not identify any Asian individuals who taught or influenced Mnouchkine. Additionally, this criticism from Bradby and Williams’ leaves the obvious connection to comedia dell’arte unstated. Comedia is a style which, based in gesture and mask, relies on character archetypes; however, the belief that these elements are stylistic weaknesses is only explored in relation to Asian styles, not the European style of comedia. In chapter 11, Pavis describes how the ‘cultural power of . . . national identity’ remains central in several Asian cultures, specifically, China, Japan, and Korea (250). However, he does not name any significant artists from this country or give specific examples of how, ‘Here, the mise en scène of cultural identity remains an important social link connecting the spectators and the stage, so much so that productions of European classics often feature local costumes as well as acting and choreographic traditions of these countries,’ (250). Such absences unintentionally leave the reader to ponder what makes an artist worth naming in theatre scholarship, whose innovations are deemed as worthy of commemorating, who gets to be labelled as an auteur, and who is privileged with making such designations.
While Directors’ Theatre may still generally bias towards White, male, Europeans in its account of the innovations to the director’s role, Bradby and Williams’ study of directors’ productions and the development of their theories and practices remains informative and compelling. Directors’ Theatre is an important text for theatre historians and those in the field of directors’ theatre, who study the artistic role of director. Additionally, it is an important text for anyone who wishes to pursue the art of directing, providing a basic overview of several directing practices. The 2019 edition of the book gives us a glimpse into the lives and careers of seven, innovative directors whose influence can still be seen in many modern directors and approaches to the art of theatrical direction. As Boenisch writes,
Directors’ Theatre thus stands as a testimonial that reminds us that many aesthetic aspects of theatre directing, which we now take for granted, had been radical innovations only a few decades ago (20).
This second edition also supplements and expands directors’ theatre with the addition of several authors and the hindsight of an extra 30 years.
