I am preparing some workshops and training sessions, and thought I’d try to encapsulate some of my ideas about directing. This follows some previous attempts, captured here, here, and here.
In brief: do less, but better.
Acting: the right gesture, the right sound, text-speaking, but no more. Do each element well, with good technique, and it will be enough.
The same with blocking. The goal is not to simulate reality, but to express the theme/feeling/ideas as cleanly as possible, with as little distraction.
Likewise design, both from an aesthetic point of view and an ecological one.
The performer should not waste energy unnecessarily. They will age. Be gentle, and move the energy around in the exact way needed, rather than relying on raw power to get a similar approach.
That is to say ‘do as near to nothing as possible in that context’.
The flipside of all of this is a faith in beauty. Thus a need for faith to make it, which requires trust in the ability to see beauty. To earn trust, there must be care and respect. These things are earned, until someone gets to the point where there’s enough to trust to jump where there is nowhere to land—
Until you get there.
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