“Nearly,” Peggy answered, “if you can call what we’ve been doing a reading. I don’t think any of us benefited much by it, though.”
“All right,” Mal answered. “Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you start it again from the top? I think we have time to go through it at least one time, just to get the feel of it. Then you can all go off by yourselves to learn your own sides.”
This time, with no worrying about character, the scene went smoothly. Almost mechanically, Peggy thought. At first she could not understand the point of having them all just sit around and read the words of the scene to each other without any attempt at acting, but gradually she began to appreciate the value of the method. As each one read in turn, she discovered that every actor had his own personal style or rhythm of reading, a rhythm which, by the end of the scene, she was beginning to catch and anticipate. By the time they were done, she thought that she could tell fairly accurately in advance how each would read his next line. Now that they weren’t trying to make themselves fit the parts, they fell easily into their own natural patterns of speech.
Things went much more quickly in this fashion, and they were able to run through the scene twice before it was time to call a halt. The second time around was much smoother, Peggy noticed, and as they worked, the pattern of the scene and the interplay of the characters began to emerge. When it was done, all the actors agreed that they now had a much clearer idea of what they were doing, and would be better able to go home and study their lines.
As they were on their way out, Peggy fell into step alongside Mal. “I noticed that you didn’t say a word about how we should read,” she said, “and I also noticed that the individual reading styles of the people were pretty clear this time. Is that what you were after?”
“Exactly,” Mal said. “You’re catching on to the tricks pretty quickly, Peggy. You see, a director has to work with actors, as well as with a play. I can’t force anyone to fit precisely into my own preconceived notions of a character, because if I tried, the performance would be stiff and unnatural. What I have to do first is get to understand the actors as they are, and then start building from there. That’s why a Broadway play has a much better chance than an off-Broadway venture. When you’re working with stars, you have known quantities—and qualities—and you cast people who already correspond to your own vision of the part. But when you have to work with unknown actors, you must remember that they’re unknown to the director as well as to the audience. Because of this, my first job is to get to know them as they are, and to get the feel of each one’s natural way of reading a line. Then I can build on that.”
“My, there sure are a lot of hidden problems in directing a play,” Amy said. “I used to think of a director as a kind of wild-animal tamer, standing in the middle of a ring of snarling actors with a whip and a chair, and making them jump through hoops, but it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?”
Mal laughed. “The wild-animal trainer’s life isn’t so simple, either,” he said with a mischievous grin. “After all, they have to understand the psychology of lions and tigers, and that must be nearly as difficult as understanding actors!”
IV
A Shy Angel
Rehearsals had been going on for over a week now, and Peggy was feeling strangely depressed.