14 Oct A Sense of Direction: Anthony Clark

When it comes to staging plays, there are four different types of director, says Anthony Clark: the deferential director, the daring director, the deviant director, and the director’s director. Each has their particular passion, and each has their particular professional approach.

“Deferential directors will try and direct exactly as the author intended,” he explains. “The daring director will do something bold like change the location or style, but still respect the intentions of the writer. The deviant director doesn’t give a damn about the words on the page: everything is there to be deconstructed. And the director’s director is interested in exploring the craft of directing, and in using the text to do that.”

Clark’s new book, Writing For The Stage, is full of such nuggets of insight, distilled over a four-decade career as a writer, director and teacher. Commissioned and published by The Crowood Press as part of their Theatre Companions series, it is aimed at aspiring playwrights, and contains advice on everything from scene-setting to rewriting.

“I was wary of writing about playwriting at first, because plays can take many different forms and as soon as you start to talk about the process of creating one, you start to straitjacket it and limit its potential,” Clark says. “So instead, I thought about it more in terms of providing some provocations about playwriting, and some practical tips about the production process, including how to deal with different directors.”

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Clark started writing plays as a child – first for his siblings, then for his school friends, then for his peers at Manchester University. While still a student, he wrote and directed two award-winning plays at student drama festivals, providing him with a platform on which to start working professionally.

“I was definitely a deviant director at first,” Clark says. “The first play of someone else’s I directed was John Mortimer’s The Dock Brief, which is written to be set in an office. For some reason I decided to set it in a birdcage, and to cover the actors with feathers. I must have had some bizarre theory at the time, but I can’t remember it now.

“Back then, though, in the early eighties, there was no formal training to be a director,” he continues. “There were no courses or anything, really. You learned by doing. You learned on the job. Nowadays, things are far more structured. There is far more training you can do. There are far more methodologies to explore.”

Clark’s career took him from Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre, to Manchester’s Contact Theatre, to the Birmingham Rep, where he worked as artistic associate director, to London, where he spent seven years as artistic director of Hampstead Theatre, departing in 2009. Today, he splits his time between London and Somerset, and between teaching, writing, and leading his own company Theatre Accord, whose second production, She, was postponed by the pandemic last year.

He’s no longer a deviant director either, intent on covering characters with feathers. Nowadays, he values the ability to switch between different directorial modes as the playwright or the producer demands. If he is required to be deferential, he can be. If he is required to be daring, he can be.

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Building a career in modern theatre, Clark says, requires directors to be able to adapt to different situations successfully – and being able to adapt requires learning certain skills, and when to use them appropriately.

“There are certain senses that directors need to develop,” he explains. “They need to understand how pictures work, the art of composition. They need to be sensitive aurally, and understand what can be achieved with sound. They need to be sensitive to pacing, when to speed up and when to slow down.”

Crucially, he adds, directors need to understand the other creative roles being played in a production – and recognise the limits of directorial jurisdiction. “Theatre is a collaborative artform, ultimately,” he says. “And as a director, you need to know what is your responsibility, and what other people can bring to the table.”

“Take actors,” he continues. “I believe it is an actor’s job to know and understand character. Often you’ll hear actors saying that a production flopped because the director didn’t do enough work on character. I always think: ‘What the f*** are you talking about? You trained for three years to develop character. That’s your job. A director’s job is to take that character and fit it with all the other elements of a show.’”

Above all, though, according to Clark, the most important question for a director to ask is a simple one: “What are you doing this for? Are you making it for a particular audience, and, if so, what does that audience look like? Are you making it for someone else? Are you making it for the critics? Are you making it to earn money? Are you making it for yourself?”

The answer, says Clark, will always be a combination of several factors – and that combination will inform the directorial approach taken and the skills employed. Every approach can be entirely legitimate, and every director will have their own personal preferences, Clark says. Always asking the question and always answering it honestly, though, is the only way to find a fulfilling creative practice.

“When I was young, I just made theatre for me and my mates, and maybe to get a review in the Manchester Evening News,” he reflects. “When I’ve worked in the West End, I was never sure who I was making work for. The greatest pleasure I have had over the years, though, is when I’ve known my audience intimately, I’ve made work especially for them, and they have liked it. That, for me, is what it is all about.”

Writing For The Stage is out now, published by The Crowood Press.

Anthony Clark was talking to Fergus Morgan for SDUK.