Because five companies rehearsed The Rubber Room completely independently, I thought it would be interesting to pose a few questions to the five directors about their processes and how they approached the play. Rubber Room continues at the 54th Street Theatre through Sunday. Here's a Q&A with four out of the five directors: Michael Rock, Kathleen Brant (Workshop Theatre), Matt Shepard (Midtown Direct), and Dan Dinero (Emerging Artists Theatre):
Question #1 from RT:
To block or not to block? So, given the unusual task of directing an ensemble of actors who will never actually end up performing together, how did you handle the question of stage movement in your reahearsal process?
Answers...
KB:
I started with basic blocking to delineate the beats and get the actors used to the floorplan.
Then, I spent a great deal of time, urging them to focus on their needs, actions, who they were, who they were talking to, what they needed etc. I tried very hard to get them comfortable with making strong choices, committing to crossing to the character they were needing something from, pursuing that other character if need be. Once their choices and actions were pretty clear, I toned the movement down a bit, as some of it felt a bit stagy (and not as simple and realistic, as it needed to be). Then, the last week, I asked them to always choose different locations to sit in, to see how it affected the other actors.
DD:
I've found that actors often flounder when there is nothing given in terms of movement, so I knew I would need to give them something to work with. In this play, the setting is a rubber room, a place where people will be fiercely protective of their personal space. Certainly Sinclair and Daytona, who have been in the rubber room for a long time, will enter the room and immediately mark out their own territory. Larissa and Patti will be less protective of their space, but will still center themselves in one area of the room. Even Alan the security guard will treat the room in a certain way. So in rehearsal, I focused on these relationships with the space, rather than on movements to a specific point in that space. Larissa had the simplest direction: since she enters the room first, she would get her choice of seats. But we also decided that she would be less tied to her initial seat than the other characters. With Sinclair and Daytona, I had them find their own seat as soon as they enter the room. We discussed how, if the specifics of an available seat (the down left table, the up center desk, etc.) might change from one performance to the next, their behavior in and around this seat would not.
I went through some likely scenarios with each actor- if Sinclair enters and finds location 1 already taken, he would quickly move to location 2, etc. Daytona, who enters third, but is also possessive of her space, had the most challenging role in terms of blocking, since she would be much choosier over her seat, yet would have fewer options than those who came before her. Patti enters the room last, but is comparatively less choosy about where she sits, so it would make sense that she sits in whatever seat is remaining - most likely, she sits in whatever seat will seem (to her) the most inconspicuous. (In the performances, I saw several different takes on all of the characters, including Patti, but this is how we conceived of these characters).
So the main idea here is that each actor would quickly find their own "area", and then once there, would move around the room as little (Daytona and Sinclair) or as much (Larissa and Patti) as they needed to. While Alan doesn't stay in the room, he is still grounded in one area - the door. So this is where we based all of his movement.
MR:
I started by treating it as an acting challenge. In life, if you like something someone says or does, you will have a tendency to move towards them. If you don't like what they say or do, you will tend to move away. Also, if you really need something from someone or want to make sure you make your point, you're going to move towards them. That's what I rehearsed with my actors - if you like them at that moment or really want to make your point, go to them. If someone is bugging you or making you
uncomfortable, go away from them. That worked pretty well.
After rehearsing that, I also told them that, like improv where you have to be the actor and the writer and the director all at once, in this, a tiny part of your brain must occasionally play director - a little bit of you should be aware of the stage picture and whether the scene has become too static or too busy and adjust accordingly. This was less successful, I think, because I really wanted them to be 99% the character and it was hard to keep them in-the-moment AND aware of the stage picture. They have had
some success with it, though, and it was an interesting thing to try.
MS:
I simulated as best I could the actual working space. Therefore, they were able to move about with a working knowledge of the set and its various pieces. But not too much was set in stone. There are very specific actions in the script, of course, that needed to be addressed and/or set (e.g. entrances and exits, the newspaper moment between Patti and Sinclair, the gum, the map, etc.). But all the actors were free to move about the space however they pleased, just as long as it made sense to their character and their intentions.
Question #2 from RT:
Were there surprises for you in working on this type of project? Any unexpected challenges or happy accidents?
Answers...
DD:
One challenge was gauging how much rehearsal was needed. Normally, you can estimate x number of hours, based on the length and complexity of the script and the movement. And more importantly, once in rehearsal, you have a very good sense of how much more work is needed. But here, all of my normal barometers were gone. In rehearsal, I work a lot with the rhythm of the overall piece, and in terms of the visuals, with stage pictures. But both of these are irrelevant here, or at least, they are not things any one director can control. So other than making sure my actors had their lines down, it was sometimes difficult to know just when they were ready. I also didn't want to overrehearse, and get the actors so fixated in one interpretation and rhythm that any change from this became difficult. Because while it is possible to rehearse variations on blocking (which we did), it is much harder to rehearse variations of rhythm.
Additionally, since every ensemble develops their own rhythm, each actual performance becomes an attempt to meld 5 different rhythms. Once performances started, we as directors kept telling our actors to keep up the tempo/pace. but ultimately, the pace of a play is a result of ensemble work, and in this kind of experiment, the ensemble that appears on stage never gets a chance to rehearse as an ensemble. So the biggest thing to watch out for is that the actual performances don't drag. I think we've done a good job with this, but I think this challenge - of pace and rhythm - is one of the biggest challenges in doing this kind of event.
MS:
There really weren't too many surprises. Lots of discovery, but not a lot of surprises. It was rather refreshing when, in the rehearsal process, there weren't staged expectations. Every run-through was a new revelation, a new insight into each character. I think the true surprises will be during performance. I really look forward to that.
MR:
The biggest surprise was how much the play changed from run-through to run-through. Since we were constantly aware that each person was going to be playing with and reacting to people they did not know, it gave them license and indeed, we made it part of the process, to let the characters be what they are "this time". That was fascinating and made for some really brilliant moments even though there was much less consistency than a typical production. Memorization was a challenge. Many people actually connect what they say with what they do and since we were trying to change what we did with each rehearsal, memorizing the lines was much more difficult.
KB:
I am normally a director who relies a great deal on my stage pictures to help tell the story. I didn't have that luxury this time. I asked my actors to really work moment to moment and trust the other actors. (a scary request going into this situation) Most original blocking went completely out the window, but they managed to rise to the occasion, take what the other actors gave them and consequently find even better choices.
Question #3 from RT:
There are already rumors of other cities organizing to mount their own Rubber Room (Without a Net) events. Any words of wisdom for directors considering this wild directorial challenge?
Answers..
MS:
I wish I had more time with my cast, for selfish reasons. It was such a liberating creative experience that I wish it had lasted a bit longer. Now that's the self-indulgent actor in me speaking.
MR:
Make sure the playwrights do another re-write (my cast, btw, was unanimous in preferring the previous version of the script to the one we ended up with). There is some awkward dialogue moments and WAY too many long monologues for the characters to really connect and make a truly compelling story. The character of Patti is currently written to lie like an 8-year-old and most of the characters have some over- the-top maudlin and/or melodramatic lines and we had to try our best not to make it sound like
soup opera organ music should start playing.
And probably the best thing other directors could do would be to ask the playwrights to write a second act. The play as it stands, really feels like the first act of a full length (minus the last two pages where they try to give a sense of closure). When you have characters who are all strangers, you have to spend some time getting their back- story out and then some time having them start to really care about each other. In this play, just as the characters are really starting to care about each other - when the really juicy stuff could start happening between them - the play is over.
Another production company might want to consider having the various casts rehearse for several days and make note of what lines feel like they are not working, might need to be cut or changed and then have a meeting of all the directors and the playwrights where you see if several of the different casts all found the same moments not working for them. You could then do a re-write based on that feedback and go into the rest of the rehearsal process with that revised script.
DD:
Words of wisdom? Cast good actors. A mentor of mine once told me that casting was 90% of a director's work, and that is certainly the case here. Not only do you need to cast actors who are flexible and up for the challenge, but you need to cast actors with good instincts on stage. Some actors are amazing, as long as you tell them exactly where to move. If they have to improvise for even a little bit, they wander aimlessly. Or else they lose sight of the fact that they are standing directly in front of someone, or are upstaging themselves. My actors all had a great sense of where they were on stage in relation to everyone else, so I knew that they would be able to change their blocking to fit whatever came at them. They also have incredible acting instincts; I was often amazed at what they came up with in rehearsal without any input from me. And I'm not just referring to an ability to improvise, although there is that too. It is more precisely the ability to truly listen on stage, and be present in the moment, without losing one's unique character interpretation, or without doing something that, if funny or novel for the moment, is actually at odds with the character. I worked with my actors to develop a very strong sense of character, so that in a performance, there would be no question about how one might react to a certain line-reading or unexpected movement.
KB:
The rehearsal process is going to be more intense, than the simple, yet lovely 1 act play, seems.
Give yourself plenty of time to explore, plenty of time to solidify the actors confidence, so they are ready to take on the challenge that opening night will present. Steer your actors away from safe nonactive choices. If they don't reach out to the other actors, the fun is stifled. It will be worth it, as you see your actors flying with amazing confidence, without a net!
