How a play is produced/Casting the Play

by Karel Čapek

Layout 2

Casting the Play

 

OF course, before the actual rehearsals begin there is the business of casting the play. The author now makes the valuable discovery that this is anything but easy. There are in the play, let us say, three ladies and five gentlemen. For the eight rôles, therefore, the author chooses eight or nine of the best players in the theatre ensemble, and declares that he has written the parts specially for them, and for them alone. It is a wonder that he does not call up Moshna, the famous Czech comedian, out of the grave to play a part—“It’s only a small one, but very important.” So far so good. He now hands his list to the producer, and the matter wanders, as they say, “higher up.”

Now, however, it turns out that:

1. Miss A. cannot take the principal rôle because she is just now playing another principal rôle.

2. Miss B. returns the rôle the dramatist has chosen for her, protesting in a hurt manner that it is not a suitable part for her.

3. Miss C. cannot be given the rôle which the author has chosen for her because she had a rôle last week, and Miss D. must have one now.

4. Mr. E. cannot have the principal male rôle. Mr. F. must get it instead, because the rôle of Hamlet was taken from him after he had wanted it, and given to Mr. G.

5. On the other hand Mr. E. might take the fifth rôle as a substitute, but he is dead certain to return it angrily because the dramatist has not chosen the fourth rôle for him, which is his own line.

6. Mr. H. must take care of himself because he has a cold owing to a conflict with the dramatic director.

7. Mr. K. cannot play the rôle No. 7 because there is no one else suitable for rôle No. 5. Although it is not his line, he says that he “will manage it all right.”

8. The eighth rôle, that of a telegraph messenger, will be assigned, by special request, to the player chosen by the dramatist himself.

Thus it comes to pass that the whole affair turns out quite differently from what the inexperienced dramatist imagined. Not only that, but a general bitterness is prevalent among the players, who cannot forgive the dramatist for not having assigned the rôles direct to them. From the moment that the parts have been handed out, two quite different opinions develop in the theatre. One group says that there are good parts in the play, but that they have been badly assigned. The other group declares, however, that the play has nothing but bad rôles in it, out of which nothing can be made—even if one were an acrobat, and could wrap one’s legs around one’s neck!