STRUTTING AND FRETTING

This is going to be a blog about the trials and tribulations of the theatre in general and our little theatre in particular. I shan't be in the least offended if you turn away now, for I ask myself constantly, "why am I doing this?" - by which I don't mean writing a weekly blog, though I suppose the same question could be just as usefully put in relation to Corner-Cupboard as to the Market Theatre. 'Why, O why?'

When I am acting, forcing myself to learn the lines and then forcing myself again at the end of a hard and long day to remember them on stage while simultaneously trying to remember what the director wants me to do, I say to myself - 'acting is the hardest job in the world.'

My brain positively throbs with this imposed activity. If someone were to cut out a slice it would glow red and yellow with all the neurones firing off at the same time, as I struggle through those lines. My heart goes thump, thump, thump, like a rabbit startled at the approach of a farmer. I strut and fret (oh how Shakespeare put it well).

Of course it gets easier. At some point you know the lines and the movements and how to say what you have to do in a way that holds the audience's attention and doesn't send them to sleep. Or so you hope. It can even be enjoyable then as you slip comfortably into the skin of a villain, a monarch, a witty raconteur, a lover or whatever is called for.

But through those long weeks of rehearsal I feel like Winnie the Pooh who, if you remember, was dragged backwards down the stairs by one leg each morning and thereby hit his head on each successive step - thump, thump, thump. 'There must be a better way,' he said to himself 'if only the thumping would stop long enough for me to think of it.'

And of course there is. And it is to be a director. You miss out on the congratulations at the end of the show, on the adulation - no-one notices the director until you get to the Hall or Spielberg level - you can sink quietly into anonymity. But this is a small price to pay for power without responsibility. The director never has to face dying on stage.

Rather than strutting and fretting yourself you let others strut and fret while you sit in the stalls with your feet up, making occasional notes and encouraging noises. Easy and relaxing. That, anyway, is how it seems to the poor fretting actor.

I last directed a proper play about seven years ago. And just as you forget your lines after a performance so you forget just what a horror directing really is. It is like trying to organise a battle and finding half your troops have better things to do.

So you rush around in desperate Red Hen mode running yourself ragged to find people to cast and do all the other jobs - lights, sound, stage management, props, prompt, costumes, design, front of house, bar. There are tickets to sell and publicity to organise and the theatre to clean and theatre suppers to arrange and all this away and beyond the direction of the actors and the choreography of the play.

Of course lots of people are involved in a production but the director is very much in the position of Owain Glyndwr who boasts in one of the Henry IVths that he can summon spirits from the 'vasty' deep. 'Of course you can', says Hotspur - 'and so can any man - but when you call them do they come?'

And that is the problem - as a director you have all the levers of power in your hand but frequently the levers are not connected to anything. People are on holiday, or won't respond to emails, or can't be fitted on the stage, or things just collapse, or actors don't know their lines, or change their minds or simply give you nightmares.

Then there is the problem of ideas. When people have ideas they assume they are good ideas by virtue of the fact that they have had them at all. It is the supreme example of 'all my geese are swans.' But, quite apart from the fact that it is not ideas that are in short supply but people to do the routine and boring jobs, most ideas that people present you with are not very good. The ratio of good ideas to bad ideas is about 1 to 20 in my opinion. Nevertheless you have to allow people to have ideas.

I don't exclude myself from the above criticism. I have more bad ideas than anyone. But in most cases conventional and boring wisdom will get you further and faster than some clever 'idea.'

So I worry and fret late into the night, wondering whether we shall sell any tickets at all. We have sold six so far out of a possible 280. Whatever possessed me to want to direct again, I say to myself, and I long for the responsibility free domain of the actor. The wheel will turn full-circle again.

Ah well it was ever thus. If you have been, thanks for reading.

Should you be wondering the play is 'Temporary Shelter,' an intelligent and imaginative comedy by the novelist Rose Tremain. Originally written as a radio play (in which format it won the Giles Cooper prize for best radio play of 1984) We have adapted it for the stage and shall be presenting it between 13 and 16 July at the Market Theatre, Cowbridge. Tickets £6. Come if you can - an evening of sparkling comedy awaits you.