8. Reality Is Not Enough: An interview with Alan Schneider Richard Schechner (1965) [P.73-83]

Schneider:

• P. 73 Lee [Strasberg] was very valuable to me in opening up the whole area, of exploring the subtext, of the off-stage life, the life in the other rooms of the house - and the whole idea of working with actors creatively.
• P.74 The two strongest influences have been Stanislavski as interpreted by Lee Strasberg on the one hand, and Brecht and Beckett on the other.
• P.75 At first I used to start purely physically and visually. I made nice geometrical patterns on my floorplan, and I was interested in visual composition and pictorial effect. Lee made me realize that the basic thing the director does is to create the life from which the lines spring. I hope that's what I do now.
• The only reason I cannot consider myself 100% Stanislavski is that any method or any approach or any point of view or any way of achieving the semblance of reality is, to me, legitimate.
• 'Reality' depends on the texture of the pay or the production, and that is selected by somebody and must be worked for.
• I'm not interested in being a teacher of actors while I'm directing - as a matter of fact, I'm bloody annoyed at it.

P.78

• Schechner: [talking about a play] Do you want the audience to believe that this is a basement and he is afraid to go out - do you want to motivation of the actor to get across to the audience?
• Schneider: The playwright provides a text ...... That's not the actor's responsibility. If the text serves the playwright's purpose properly, it may be sufficient for the actor to play 'I'm cold' for the playwright's purpose to be 'this is the end of all human warmth' or 'the fires have gone out'. .......I try to avoid implications, but I don't try to avoid carrying out the author's intention.

P.82

• Schechner: The difference between the challenge of the proscenium and the open stage.
• Schneifer: It is easy enough to say the proscenium is a visual form and the open stage is plastic or 3-dimensional. I think what the open stage allows is more freedom, more opportunities for different relationships, more interesting choreography and more meaningful and less conventional physical relationships. I always think of the proscenium as the shuttle.....all you can do is more left or right. The two forms have advantages and disadvantages, and I see no reason why one should heave to be better than the other.