A well-written instruction manual is a pleasure to read. A neat table of contents, a thorough index, and approachable text that commands the precise steps necessary to make or do something, is worth reading. There’s comfort in knowing that not everything is complicated and nuanced.
On Directing is not that kind of book. Clurman, a well-known theater director who died in 1980, is very clear on this point: he’s not telling us how to be directors, he’s merely explaining the theater world as he experienced it via its component parts: script, actors, set, audience. The major theme of On Directing is that there is no instruction manual. A show with an incredible cast, brilliantly-designed set and fantastic script may flop, enraging critics and disappointing audiences. Other times, your actors suck, your set is a pile of cardboard boxes (and not even artistically shabby ones, but actual cardboard boxes), the script was written by a third-grader, and you win a Tony.
I read On Directing in my search to understand what it might be like to be a theater director. My only experience with theater was as an actor and as part of the crew. That was over twenty years ago now, and I never gave much thought to the directing aspect. But through some strange combination of repressed desires and nostalgia, suddenly I feel compelled to write fiction about it.
While On Directing didn’t tell me how to be a director, it is a pleasant jaunt through Harold Clurman’s career, directing Marlon Brando and giving bear hugs to Stanislavsky.
Next up on my reading list: How to Restore Your Camaro, 1967-69.
June 29, 2020