how do you evaluate a director's work?

Adam said "some of the decisions I will make will destroy the suspension of disbelief that I ask an audience to willingly agree to." It's actually pretty difficult to DESTROY suspension of disbelief! Sure, we say that we're "asking" the audience to suspend it...but really, it's something they'll readily agree to and do regardless of whether you ask them or not, and whether you help them or hinder them. As an audience, we all KNOW that what we are seeing is not real. We walk deliberately into a theatre building. We pay for a ticket. We read the programme. We see people that we know are actors, who we've seen in other roles in previous shows. We often know exactly what the actor is going to say next, if we're familiar with the script. The whole time the drama is unfolding, we're aware that we are sitting in a chair with a whole lot of other observers. There is a hell of a lot of evidence constantly before us to prove that what we are seeing is not real life; we KNOW that everyone is pretending. No matter what setting or characters or action you put before us, we're hardly likely to believe that it's actually for real. We are therefore in a natural, logical state of DISBELIEF. So to allow ourselves to enjoy the story, to be transported into the world of the fantasy for an hour or so, we all AGREE to pretend. The actors pretend they are who they say they are, and the audience pretends to go along with it. It's not possible to actually believe, but for the sake of the show we all SUSPEND our disbelief. It's a game we all play, in order to enjoy this form of entertainment. This is why we can accept one actor playing multiple roles, or scenes when one moment it's day and the next moment it's night...we're very prepared to play by the rules as they are established before us. The good thing about this game is that if ever something goes wrong to distract us - if a prop breaks, or a line is missed, or a mobile phone goes off, etc etc - it's NOT THE END OF THE WORLD! It's incredibly easy to notice the distraction one moment and then go straight back to pretending the next moment. After all, we never really believed the fantasy in the first place! The sooner the distraction is dealt with, the sooner we can get back to suspending, but we can do this almost immediately! It's like when, as kids, we're playing out a fantasy in the garden, when Mum calls out to us...we can stop and answer her, and then without missing a beat get right back into the game where we left off. Suspension of disbelief is something we're all extremely good at. And the reason it's so easy is - we WANT to do it. The whole concept of theatre really only works if we all suspend our disbelief, and as we've deliberately paid money to enjoy a theatre experience, we're willing to do whatever we can to make it all worthwhile. We'll give you the benefit of our doubt..! It doesn't even have to be one continuous experience. It's something we are constantly doing, moment to moment, so if any of those moments doesn't quite work it doesn't spoil the overall experience...we simply pick up where we can and enjoy all the moments that DO work. And the other reason Suspension of Disbelief is hard to destroy is: we're NOT VERY GOOD AT IT!! Even when we've agreed to ignore our disbelief, and we try to get lost in the fantasy, it's pretty rare that this will actually happen! We're impressed by those theatre moments when we DO feel ourselves transported by the drama unfolding before us, but the reality is these moments are NOT the norm. Our awareness of the reality around us is too great, so in actual fact we are usually only PRETENDING to suspend our disbelief. Luckily, if we are engaged by this process of pretending, it works just as well. But it means that we are much more tolerant than you might think. We don't expect to truly get lost in the drama, so when things happen to remind us that we're actually an audience watching a play, it's no big shock and we cope with it extremely well. So this means we constantly have a critical faculty that isn't concerned about being absorbed in the fantasy, but can notice things like technique or stylistic choices...and it doesn't diminish the overall experience. So if the example is Brechtian technique, or Meta-Theatre, or anything else which calls attention to the theatricality itself, we can observe it AT THE SAME TIME as continung our process of pretending to suspend our disbelief. That process is never actually destroyed. We simply reallocate a portion of what our hugely multi-tasking brains are concentrating on at that particular moment. As a director or an actor, understanding this phenomenon properly gives you so much more freedom in your relationship with the audience. You can afford to push more boundaries, and not be afraid of taking risks. Once you realise that the audience is automatically pre-disposed to giving you the benefit of the doubt (literally), your job becomes far less about CONVINCING them...and far more about ENGAGING them. Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------