(Jottings from Jonah (Oscar the owl’s cultured grandson) - Number 18)

Forgive me, dear reader, for presuming to deputise for my owlish friend, Jonah, without first consulting with him about the subject to be covered in his jottings, this week. I have asked Jane to let me know if he files his copy by e-mail from the computer at the Granary Theatre, as he does from time to time, but so far I have heard nothing. This is, of course, that time of the year in which most creatures become notoriously unreliable, in fact I well remember when the sap used to rise in myself, long, long ago.

During the past week or so there has been a train on the Amdram Bulletin Board that really caught my attention. It was (still is, I think) about line-learning. Well, it was after I’d started to pontificate that I realised that I’d really do better to keep quiet on this subject in case anyone who knows me – particularly some unfortunate soul who has appeared in the same cast as me - should read my comments. It would be easy to make fun of the fact that I am The World’s Worst Line-learner, but it really has not been funny.

Having decided to “keep quiet” (see above) I will now chatter, because the topic exercised my mind. I have always been too busy to pause and work out WHY I have been so deficient in this essential aspect of the actor’s craft. Instead, I have accepted it as a fact of life, have admired actors who learn their lines so easily and have avoided acting whenever possible. Yet, as a director and as a teacher of other directors, I have preached that every director should act from time to time in order to know what it feels like to be directed. I also insist that only egotistical and incompetent directors cast themselves in their own productions, so my occasional acting sprees have been under the direction of others, in equality at the mercy of fellow–actors’ verbal assaults.

At that point, for the very first time, I paused for long enough to think my way through the problem. On every occasion that a part has been offered to me, I have advised the director of trouble ahead and have asked for permission to warn the other cast-members of the problem and have promised to make every effort to learn my lines. On every occasion, I have spent countless hours... my deficiency was never caused by lack of effort; in the privacy of our own home and with the help of Cara and/or a recording machine, I have been able to rattle off my lines on cue and without hesitation.

In performance, as soon as the agony of stage-fright has passed, I have wallowed in the joy of earning response from the Audience and approval from my fellow cast-members in all except that they have been through hell on my behalf and now they see me stealing the show... not selfishly... well, not intentionally selfishly, but with a finely tuned instinct for self-preservation and a talent for upstaging. They have been confused by the fact that, when they suddenly ‘dry’ – when they gape back at one with that terminal gasping of a beached halibut and the Prompt bellows louder – guess who it is who ad-libs the dialogue back onto the scripted version and throws them a cue. And on the odd occasion that I dry in performance (as everybody does sometimes) I know how to make the Audience believe that it’s someone else. God help anyone who dares to commit any of these sins in my productions.

Maybe it’s because I am so aware of the conflict and worry I’ve caused in rehearsal that, as a director, I’m strict about my actors’ rigid observance of the Books Down Point. Indeed, having made sure that someone fully briefed in the art of The Prompter is ‘on the book’, I have been known to physically wrestle an actor’s ‘comfort blanket’ (or script) out of his hands and hurl it far out of the acting area.

54 years ago, I assembled a 45-minute variety show in my junior school and, with it, learned one of the most valuable directing lessons I have ever learned. We were due to perform twice on Friday afternoon: after lunch for Mrs. Wallis’s class and again after playtime for Mr. Sidnell’s class. Mrs. Wallis was delighted by our sequence of songs and sketches, mostly stolen from “ITMA” and “Happidrome” on the wireless. Mr, Sidnell, however, was confused by an exhibition of loutish behaviour as a disgraceful rabble of grinning, sweating boys wrestled and bellowed excitedly at each other, while the director and his original cast retired to sit embarrassed at their desks. He was not to know that – such is the price of success - young louts had threatened me violence at playtime unless they were included in the cast. I concluded that the endurance of physical pain would have been preferable to the sacrifice of artistic standards.

So frightened was I by this experience that several years passed before I accepted another directing assignment: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” based on the hierarchical structure of the college in whose grounds it was performed. But, in the meantime, I had played several parts including a taxing Shakespearian lead (the shrewish Kate, as a matter of fact, in a traditional production) in which I was gently shepherded by the professional actor who played Petrucio. Bear in mind that I had to do all this in complete secrecy because my parents were reformed performers and born-again bigots for whom the theatre was “the haunt of the devil”. My Petrucio and our gifted director nursed me through and patiently taught me the basics of every aspect of the actor’s craft. They fired me with a passion for Theatre – Theatre worked to the very highest standards possible – that has never left me for the rest of my life and it is with great joy that I pass that passion on to others. I cannot recall line-learning at that period being anything except a joyful chore made light by the fact that it was conducted in a spirit of exploration and discovery.

There came a time, not long after I had completed a full actor’s training in my spare time while making my living as a London policeman that I was precluded from any theatrical activity. It was with operatic buffs in north Yorkshire that I groped my way back into the performing arts and it was then that I discovered this peculiar phobia that freezes my memory banks when trying to work with other actors.

Coincidentally, I was required to pick up my directing career soon afterwards and drive it along, so that – all these years later – I can look back on at least eighty productions of all sorts as Director and quite often as Designer as well. In all these I have been merciless with lazy actors who cannot be bothered to learn their lines, but I have been most compassionate with people who are doing their best, have helped them all I can and have persuaded their fellow cast-members to be patient with them.

An important lesson I have learned is that it is the actors who make me their director, but it is me who chose them to join this particular team, so I love them.

But, oh, how I wish I could fathom out what it is that strikes me dumb in rehearsal. And, if only, in response to the growls and spat insults – the sighs of despair and impatience – that have emanated from my fellow actors, I had been able to produce the softest voice that would surely have turned away their wrath. Instead, some other psychological quirk has overtaken my good sense and I have responded with flippant quips and irritating counter-jibes. They’ve loved me as their director, they’ve forgiven me in performance, but oh they’ve loathed, detested and hated me in rehearsal.

The original discussion was about how strict one should be about enforcing the Books Down Point, clearly stated in the Rehearsal Schedule.

Conclusion? RIGIDLY and without equivocation or apology.

The two most essential elements of good Amateur Theatre are Love and Discipline. The most criminal act in any Theatre is To Waste Time.

I advise my actors against turning up at the first rehearsal with all lines learned because it is impossible, in solitary isolation, to learn words without deciding a meaning and a context – the lone actor imposes a delivery that will almost certainly NOT meld and mesh with the work of the director and the other actors. Before the Books Down Point, rehearsals are voyages of discovery and decision-making, in which the director can be free to change his mind in accordance with the ideas of others. After the Books Down Point, we are on a quest for perfection with all decisions made. In this, actors need to be free to concentrate every fibre of their being on conveying The Author’s Intent to the final arbiter – the last element of the playmaking process – the Audience... and we can love all of them too, and NOT just for paying the bills.

This submission would be incomplete if I did not treat it as an open letter addressed to every Director who has ever suffered me in his or her cast, and every actor – amateur or commercial – with whom I have appeared as an actor. Folks, I’ve apologised to you before and often offered to leave your cast in favour of someone more reliable, but can I say just one more time: I’m sorry...

...and to those of you who wish to appear as actors in my productions: GET YOUR BLOODY LINES LEARNED WHEN I TELL YOU TO, AND NO EXCUSES!!

With any luck, Jonah will be back next week.

I’ll confide in you that I have decided to moor the good ship ‘Esprit de Noel’ at the wharf beside the Granary Theatre and – against British Waterways rules – stay there for some months. I have also decided to change her name, even though this is considered bad luck, except on change of ownership. These days, however, her name in French smells a bit vichy to me – offensively so. I have therefore decided to chance our arm... or wing! Any ideas for a new name will be most welcome.

Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".