How a play is produced/The Production

by Karel Čapek

Layout 2

The Production

 

THE producer of the play works on the sound basis that the piece must be given a helping hand, as they say. In practice that means that it must be produced quite differently from the way the author has arranged things.

“You know,” says the author, “I had always imagined it quite a quiet drawing-room piece. . .”

“Oh! That wouldn’t do at all,” replies the producer, “the play must be given in quite a grotesque manner.”

“Clara is a shy, passive creature,” explains the author further.

“What are you thinking of!” cries the producer. “Clara is decidedly a Sadist by nature; a cruel creature. Look here, on page 37 Danesh says to her: ‘Do not torment me, Clara!’ When he says this line Danesh will writhe on the ground, while Clara will stand by in hysterics. You understand, of course?”

“But that was not my idea a bit,” protests the author.

“But, my dear fellow, that is just the best scene of all,” says the producer dryly. “Otherwise the second act has no proper curtain.”

“The scene takes place in an ordinary middle-class room,” the author goes on to explain.

“Oh, but we must certainly have some steps or at least a platform in it,” says the producer.

“But why a platform?”

“So that Clara can stand on it when she cries out the word: ‘Never!’ This moment must be pushed into prominence, do you understand? The platform must be at least nine feet high. And then, in the third scene, Vchelak jumps down from it.”

“But why should he jump down from it?”

“Because you distinctly state in the stage direction that ‘he jumps into the room.’ That is one of the strongest moments. You know, your play wants a little more life in it. You surely didn’t intend a common-or-garden scene that any Tom, Dick or Harry might write? Did you now?”

“Oh no, of course not!” replies the author hurriedly.

“Good. I knew you’d see my point.”

 

I will now betray certain deep secrets of the dramatic art. A creative author is one who will not allow himself to be hampered by the theatre; and a creative producer is one who will not allow himself to be hampered by the text. As far as the creative actor is concerned, the poor devil has no other choice than that of following his own judgment (in this case one lays the blame of the bad interpretation on the producer), or of following the producer’s instructions (in which case the bad interpretation is imputed to the actor).

If by pure chance no one should stumble in the dialogue on the first night, no badly fixed scenery should suddenly fall down, no reflector should burn itself out, and no other similar misfortune should take place, the producer is then praised in the local press as “having produced very carefully”: but it is really pure chance, whether any of these things should occur. Before the first night is reached, however, the martyrdom of rehearsals must be endured.