Thinking Like a Director
by Michael Bloom
Most people who buy this book may be hoping it's a cookbook.
Death of a Salesman
Serves 4
Combine 1 Willy and 1 Biff; beat till frothy.
Fold in 1 Linda and chill.
Turn onto a board and work in 1 Happy.
Bake 2 to 2-1/2 hours at 125 degrees. Garnish with 1 Bernard
. . . and so forth. Well, it isn't. It's a possibly useful and definitely well-written work (and does contain a few dozen recipes), but to get any of the use out of it you have to have some directing background already.
Bloom has a couple of decades in the business, and the great strength of his writing is that he draws his points from cases, not principles or slogans. The chapter on research, for example, ends with an account of how the Tectonic Theatre Company went to Wyoming in a body and conducted a vast number of interviews with people who had knowledge of the Matthew Shepard murder. A very funny but instructive story comes from Bloom's engagement to direct The Glass Menagerie in Japan, a country whose language he does not speak.
The work falls into four sections, Preparation, Pre-Production, Rehearsal, and Resources. The treatment is generally pretty straightforward, with chapters arranged in a logical order (not simple time order!).
Here's a bit of one of the many "Tips" scattered through the book—this one comes from the Casting chapter in the second section:
It's often helpful to think of character as based on typology, but not all characters are types. On the contrary, realistic plays are more or less successful to the extent that characters vary from type. Most playwrights consciously or unconsciously consider type and then adjust it. Tom is the young, disaffected artist, but his concern for his sister distinguishes him from being merely narcissistic. Amanda is an overbearing mother hen, but she also represents an era of courtship and refinement. These divergences from type are what make The Glass Menagerie a rich play.
I'm finding this tip resonant as I prepare to cast Lettice & Lovage.
What Bloom doesn't try to do is address a naive reader. At every step he assumes the user of the book has either done this or watched closely as someone else did it. I said "closely." In community theater, I've seen new directors who thought everybody should just do as they are told and others who took it for granted that their actors would create artistic value without guidance. Or in some cases feared that they could not communicate the vision they had of the property. Before seeking a gig as director, even in an amateur setting, it's vital to have seen other directors work out their ideas and then coax the talent into putting them over. Without that experience, nothing good happens; without it, nothing good will come of studying this book either.
Like any other non-cookbook, this has to be read carefully and intelligently. Then it's quite good, well worth the price.
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Thinking Like a Director