To control the audience’s gaze, put an object in motion. No eye can resist. This is a critical tenet of stage direction since the audience is free to look wherever they like.
If more than one object is in motion at the same time, the eye will track to whichever object was most recently set in motion or was most newly revealed by the motion. When motion is combined with sound, however, the eye will look in that direction regardless of whatever else might be happening.
A shift in light will also appear as movement to the eye and is among the director’s most powerful tools for controlling the audience’s focus.
In a properly created on-stage world, nothing is extra and nothing is missing. (Recall 13 . Realize that the end is in the beginning.)
To paraphrase Chekhov, “Never hang a musket over the fireplace in Act I unless someone gets shot in Act III.” That is, do not create visual anticipation without exploiting it.
Playwright Romulus Linney stated this same idea more strongly: “Everything on the set should be used up, burned up, blown up, destroyed, or otherwise completely chemically altered over the course of the story or else it didn’t belong there to begin with.”
Two actors on stage establish a single visual relationship. Add just one more actor and you have up to seven relationships: One relationship between any two of the individuals (that’s three relationships), one for each of the possible pairings of two individuals in opposition to the third (that’s three more), plus the unique relationship that exists between all three. Look for threes. When you have a triangular situation —and therefore rich dramatic possibilities —make clear choices as to who is in opposition to whom and how alliances and allegiances shift moment by moment. (Recall 53 . Every scene is a chase scene.)
Space between characters creates tension as well as greater possibilities for physical and psychological maneuvering.
When blocking, imagine an elastic band connects the characters. When they come together, the tension is gone, the chase is over. (Recall 54 . The strength of the characters’ wants equals the strength of the play.) Look for ways and reasons to separate them, to reestablish the tension, the chase, the very reason for watching.
Bilateral symmetry can be boring. Unbroken lines can be boring. This is true for sets, furniture, and actor placement. Severity, balance, and formality have dramatic value in specific instances, but not generally.
In staging the play, value the diagonal, the visual interruption, the rough.
When an actor faces an audience straight on, each audience member will feel he or she is being addressed directly. A slightly angled address prevents this, if you want it prevented.
Seating an actor suggests a long, boring scene will follow. If you can find a credible excuse for the actors to stand, use it. (Lighting a cigarette or pouring a drink have often been used for this purpose, albeit now with heavy cliché baggage attached.)
If for some reason the actor must remain in place, there must be meaning and intention in the non-movement. The standing character must either be interested or repelled. She must desperately want to move, but cannot. Or she is immoveable, adamant, standing as if reaching the stars and sky. Or she is moved to stillness.
Royalty sit in chairs, not on stairs, floors, or boxes. They always walk in straight lines, regardless of who is in their way. It is the reaction of others that defines royal status: nonroyalty get out of the way...fast. The alternative is certain and sudden death.
Note, too, that there are many forms of royalty to whom this reactive behaviour might apply. In his realm, for instance, Al Capone was royalty.
Keep an eye out for disinterested responses such as yawning or an actor’s gazing upon anything other than what the audience should be looking at. Watch extras in large groups, especially. They frequently steal vital focus by being negative listeners, hating everything they hear. Here’s the rule: Listener reactions that are positive and interested focus audience attention on the speaker. Listener reactions that are negative and disinterested steal attention away from the speaker and toward the listener.
The audience should (usually) know how the characters feel about what they’re hearing. Feelings are conveyed through the body: Yes, I agree with that (and so I will approach); no, I disagree somewhat with that (and so will retreat slightly); I’ll shut-up here (and let my hesitation cause my opponent to squirm); I’ll threaten with an approach there...(Recall 54 . The strength of the characters’ wants equals the strength of the play, and 55 . Ask: Is it nice or nasty? Big or little?)
ACTIVE: “Don’t do that!
PASSIVE: “Oh, don’t do that!”
Strength and confidence in staging can be indicated by occasionally having an actor turn his or her back to the audience. This is often not, however, a good choice for the first time we encounter a character, nor for long speeches.
Basic but often forgotten: When choosing props and furniture, be mindful of upstaging the actors with, for example, tall candlesticks or a high table. Hats, too, often obscure the face. If it is absolutely necessary to keep the hats on, it will be absolutely necessary to continually remind the actors to keep their hats and their heads up.
Elements of style are best applied with intention, purpose, and meaning —not as ends in themselves. A character in a Restoration drama, for instance, bows with open palms extended away from his body to demonstrate he has no weapons. Ironically, this may also indicate he still wants them, needs them, or has them hidden somewhere. A woman desperately waving a perfumed handkerchief as she speaks does so to hide her atrocious breath. Without intention, style is empty.
Costume designer Patton Campbell once said every play should have at least one costume moment. I don’t know if this is true and have only vague ideas about what it really means, but it can’t hurt to look for one.
Music has the ability, second perhaps only to scent, to bypass our emotional defenses. In a director’s hands, therefore, music is a powerful tool for guiding the audience’s emotional experience.
Don’t throw this power away. Don’t use music indiscriminately. Don’t choose music that has only a strong personal connection for you. Ask instead how the music you select might guide someone else’s feelings, someone unlike you.
Lyrics are especially dangerous in this regard because others might interpret them differently than you. Are they hearing the same lyrics as you? Are they even listening to the lyrics at all?
Consider, for example, having characters occasionally say beginning lines off stage, then having them enter.
Enough said.
Yes, nudity might bring in a crowd, but at what cost? Earnest nudity imposed by sincere directors is rarely the reliable conveyer of inner emotional nakedness and vulnerability they suppose it is.
More typically, when the skin makes its appearance, the audience is ripped from the world of the play along with the clothing. The audience is deposited in a prurient inner world far from the plot. Their eyes no longer watch the eyes, mouths, and hands of the performers, but are diverted, no, riveted to other body parts. The audience and the story often become lost to each other.