The Act of Directing: A Theatrical Viewpoint
The Act of Directing: A Theatrical Viewpoint
Have you ever wondered what it means to direct a play? We have, so we asked Director Laura Higgins to tell us all about it.
I have always enjoyed going to the theatre to watch a performance that takes life before my eyes. I always felt like something almost magical was taking place and I was one of those fortunate ones to have lived it. It is in theatre that we are able to witness Hamlet’s grief and doubts during his famous soliloquy ‘to be, or not to be’, a magical moment where the spectator is able to truly connect with the character and fully understand his emotions, something that will stay with them forever.
With so many people involved in the making of such an incredible experience from the playwright to the actors, how does the magic all happen?
Having just finished directing a new play, Three M’others by Dr Antonia Mackay at North Wall Arts Centre in Oxford last week, Senior Lecturer in Drama at Oxford Brookes University Laura explains that it’s less formulaic than you’d think. ‘I don’t have a set directing process, instead, I like to get the shape of the scene first by seeing how the actors would perform it, and then I give the actors exercises to try and discover together what the scene needs’.
That might be asking her actors questions like, ‘What would happen if you did this instead of that?’ or ‘How would they have to trust you first to try that?’ This helps the actors in pushing the scene further, explains Laura. Another one consists of getting the actors together and having them talk to each other using only one sentence or helping actors find their tone of voice and work with distance and closeness by giving them the stage: ‘There’s you, there’s me and there’s the space’. She also encourages the actors to perform every single scene using a certain emotion that often comes in the lines they speak in order to help them bring the little nuances together. These exercises seem to work wonders for the actors.
Chloe Downes, one of the actors under Higgins’ direction in the Three M’others play, told me that Higgins’ exercises really helped her understand her character - M - and enabled her to piece her together like a puzzle: ‘There’s M with her husband, M before the birth, after the birth, there’s so many different parts of life that M went through in such a short amount of time that Laura really helped me understand.’
Esme Anderton, another actor working on the Three M’others play with Higgins, said that she helped her connect and develop her character - A - more deeply as she was asked to look at her character’s circumstances and background.
‘Let’s create theatrical moments’
Chloe describes Laura’s style as ‘explorational’ and that ‘Laura sees all the possibilities making choices that are ‘visionary and emotionally captivating’. Laura explains that she does this simply by asking herself questions, such as, ‘What is the moment in the second scene that you can make the audience really clock? And that will live in their memory?’
She often does this by working with objects. ’I believe that props are really important in order to find rhythm, peace, action and moments of comedy’. They help actors find those nuances and understand who they are talking to and interacting with. From a spectator point of view, objects also help the audience to understand and visualise a scene better.
But it’s not all down to props and exercise. The story matters. ‘When history is performed’, says Laura, ‘it makes the story matter again for a new community.’ Three M’others tells real-life stories of first-time mothers during the pandemic and Laura believes it has the potential to ‘act as a discussion piece for mental health professionals and education for people in schools’.
A play that is more than just a performance but a milestone moment in people’s lives? Now, that’s how real magic is made on the stage.
Three M’others was performed at The North Wall Arts Centre on the 30th and 31st of May, followed by a Q&A with experts on the subject on its final night. For more information and updates on the next stages of the play, check out their social media pages on Instagram, X and Facebook.