Mis-Directing the Play

Rating:
Summary: a must
Review: As an actor who has suffered through the idiocy of some directors' "concepts," an audience member who has winced at
the willful misunderstanding of the text in some productions, and a director who tries very hard to direct the text, I loved this book.
McCabe doesn't say it's bad to have a concept for a play--he rails against directors who direct the concept instead of the play; or worse, ignore the page entirely in order to produce 'an effect.'
Sadly, too many grad schools are turning out exactly the kind of director McCabe abhors (despite Scott Miller's comments). I've seen university productions of 'Equus' where the director said he didn't want the audience to be thinking about the horses (!?), of 'Funny Thing/Forum' where new dance music was written for the courtesans and "Love I Hear" was turned into a solo with choral back-up, and 'Dracula' was given a newly written last scene to "add punch."
This book needs to pair with Mamet's "True and False"--not as bibles of what to do, but as reminders of why we're doing it.

Rating:
Summary: a must
Review: As an actor who has suffered through the idiocy of some directors' "concepts," an audience member who has winced at
the willful misunderstanding of the text in some productions, and a director who tries very hard to direct the text, I loved this book.
McCabe doesn't say it's bad to have a concept for a play--he rails against directors who direct the concept instead of the play; or worse, ignore the page entirely in order to produce 'an effect.'
Sadly, too many grad schools are turning out exactly the kind of director McCabe abhors (despite Scott Miller's comments). I've seen university productions of 'Equus' where the director said he didn't want the audience to be thinking about the horses (!?), of 'Funny Thing/Forum' where new dance music was written for the courtesans and "Love I Hear" was turned into a solo with choral back-up, and 'Dracula' was given a newly written last scene to "add punch."
This book needs to pair with Mamet's "True and False"--not as bibles of what to do, but as reminders of why we're doing it.

Rating:
Summary: Examines directors' rights and concerns in play production
Review: Mis-Directing The Play provides an unusual assessment against the growing decadence which plagues modern stage directors, calling for a reorganization of the director's view of his role and examining directors' rights and concerns in play production. Any involved in directing or plays will find Mis-Directing The Play an intriguing approach.

Rating:
Summary: Delightful, funny, and provocative--required reading!
Review: This delightful, funny, thought-provoking book should be required reading for all directors, all directing students, and all lovers of the theatre. McCabe is very persuasive in his debunking of the idea of the theatre director as auteur, and illustrates his case with many first-hand accounts from recent productions. This book is a very enjoyable read, and will, I hope, be very important to theatre artists of the future. It made me re-think my own director/playwright collaborations, and I think I have some apologies to write.

Rating:
Summary: silly, pretentious, and unnecessary
Review: This is one of those books that just didn't need to be written. Its central point is terribly obvious and fairly unnecessary, and if the point HAS to be made (over and over), it could have been made easily in ten pages. After reading the book, I see that when McCabe talks about directors misinterpreting plays, what he REALLY means is directors interpreting plays differently than how HE interprets those plays. And he seems to have virtually no credentials to back up his rants. He hates dramaturgs, readings, workshops, backstory, blah, blah, blah. So who cares? I'm not sure why he's so angry and so bitter, but this horrific pandemic of rebel directors raping good plays, against which he rails, doesn't actually exist. Still, the book was interesting in some unexpected ways (sometimes for unintentional entertainment value) even though it holds no real value in any ongoing discussion of American theatre. This is really not worth the cover price...

Rating:
Summary: A Gutsy Dissent from the Conventional "Wisdom"
Review: Whatever you think of McCabe's thesis, you have to admire his guts. While I know directors who devotedly ascribe to McCabe's theory of directing (interpret the playwright's intentions, don't make the play become about your "boldness"), I don't recall anyone (particularly not a director) having the guts to assert it publicly as a superior method of working. The fact is, there's a lot of competition for directing jobs, and has anyone noticed? the auteurs, particularly skilled ones, get name recognition more quickly than their less-ostentatious peers. Quick--how many non-auteur directors can you name off the top of your head? This book is NOT silly. While McCabe is bold, he's not the least bit pretentious. And if his thesis were obvious, then why does almost everyone who writes publicly about theatre disagree with it? It desperately needed to be written. Its ideas deserve consideration.

Rating:
Summary: A Gutsy Dissent from the Conventional "Wisdom"
Review: Whatever you think of McCabe's thesis, you have to admire his guts. While I know directors who devotedly ascribe to McCabe's theory of directing (interpret the playwright's intentions, don't make the play become about your "boldness"), I don't recall anyone (particularly not a director) having the guts to assert it publicly as a superior method of working. The fact is, there's a lot of competition for directing jobs, and has anyone noticed? the auteurs, particularly skilled ones, get name recognition more quickly than their less-ostentatious peers. Quick--how many non-auteur directors can you name off the top of your head? This book is NOT silly. While McCabe is bold, he's not the least bit pretentious. And if his thesis were obvious, then why does almost everyone who writes publicly about theatre disagree with it? It desperately needed to be written. Its ideas deserve consideration.