As for the second question — it doesn’t get boring because the show is never the same. The audience is a different creature each night. It doesn’t react in the same way so neither do we, and the infinitesimal changes make each performance an exciting new page of the same book. I could tell you that Monday night audiences tend to be intelligent, cultured but careful. Saturday nights are full of people who think they should go to the theatre on a Saturday night. Matinée audiences may be hard of hearing but their concentration is deeper than the voice of Ivan Rebroff, the legendary Russian bass. Friday’s houses are slow to laugh. The best shows are after a matinée on Wednesdays or Thursdays, when the cast are running on adrenalin and still have to make it through the week.
There’s an increasing discrepancy between the commercial and subsidised theatres. The National and RSC get at least ten weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of previews to try out a show. In the commercial theatre, where money must be raised for each production, a new play gets three weeks of rehearsal, a week of previews and is judged by the same critics to the same exacting standards. I’ve seen plays that have garnered more stars than an American flag — and two stall seats and £120 later, my partner and I are staring at each other in total incomprehension.
As my late husband Jack Rosenthal used to say, “Hardly anyone knows the difference between a good play, good actors or good direction.” A cast can pull together a show from the confused ideas of a director, and a great director can coax a charismatic performance from a miscast star. A perfect play can be dismantled by a showy adaptation and a bad design can ruin three weeks of rehearsal bliss.
And as painful as it is to read one’s reviews, the harshest criticism comes from ourselves. The dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once ordered her colleague Agnes de Mille to stop judging her own work. “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique . . . It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”
I try to remember this as I’m tapping my temples in the wings, and pass it on to any drama graduate I meet. Fledgling or veteran, it never gets easier, and the easier it looks, the better we’re doing it. Acting is 84 per cent sincerity, and the sooner you’ve learned to fake that, the better your chances of success.
There’s an increasing discrepancy between the commercial and subsidised theatres. The National and RSC get at least ten weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of previews to try out a show. In the commercial theatre, where money must be raised for each production, a new play gets three weeks of rehearsal, a week of previews and is judged by the same critics to the same exacting standards. I’ve seen plays that have garnered more stars than an American flag — and two stall seats and £120 later, my partner and I are staring at each other in total incomprehension.
As my late husband Jack Rosenthal used to say, “Hardly anyone knows the difference between a good play, good actors or good direction.” A cast can pull together a show from the confused ideas of a director, and a great director can coax a charismatic performance from a miscast star. A perfect play can be dismantled by a showy adaptation and a bad design can ruin three weeks of rehearsal bliss.
And as painful as it is to read one’s reviews, the harshest criticism comes from ourselves. The dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once ordered her colleague Agnes de Mille to stop judging her own work. “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique . . . It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”
I try to remember this as I’m tapping my temples in the wings, and pass it on to any drama graduate I meet. Fledgling or veteran, it never gets easier, and the easier it looks, the better we’re doing it. Acting is 84 per cent sincerity, and the sooner you’ve learned to fake that, the better your chances of success.
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