Prospero's Staff

This is Charles Marowtiz on the work of a director.

Innumerable books are produced by actors on the art of acting, but very few have examined the special chemistry that exists between the actor and director. In Prospero's Staff, Charles Marowitz, internationally known director and playwright, provides a personal, stage-level view of the complicated process that takes place when a director starts to work. He focuses in particular on the interplay between the director and the members of the team responsible for a play - the director himself, the playwright and the actors.

Marowitz includes two dialogues - one with the legendary American director Robert Lewis; the other with British actress Glenda Jackson. Apart from examining the complexities of the rehearsal procedure, he also treats more elusive subjects such as caste and style, classical reinterpretation, actor psychology and the casting process. He has many telling observations about the directing process, some of them idiosyncratic and personal, all of them of interesting. The book concludes with a fascinating scenario of what the production of a play might be like 200 years from now.