When an actor starts directing, many say he is probably dissatisfied with his roles and wants to show himself in a different light. I have the feeling that in your case it is a different situation.
I think many actors have the skills to create and direct a scene or action and feel the effect-mechanisms, pace and rhythm. Already at university, my friends would often invite me to watch their acts and give my opinion. This is a general skill which I'm not saying that everyone possesses, but the majority of actors do.
Yet, not everyone starts directing.
Because the majority are probably anxious about it. I was definitely that way. I was afraid that I probably would not have a complex enough approach. Also, I felt it would be pompous to have director written under my name. Other possible factors are laziness, the wish to avoid responsibility, and even some smaller things that can be used to explain why one never got into it.
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Roland Rába |
What brought the breakthrough in your case?
Róbert Alföldi gave me George Tábori's play Mein Kampf and said if I liked it, I could direct it in the Studio next year. Perhaps my attitude changed once I had a concrete play recommended to me. If he had only said, why don't you do something, I would probably still be hesitating.
In other words, your director noticed that there was something in you that would make you suitable. Did that make you feel good?
At first, I started panicking. I kept telling myself: "Here you go, you can work now. It's a good text, so you can't say anymore that you might as well direct something if only there was something suitable. Stop blabbering and go ahead with it!" I didn't know the play. What I liked about it is that it is funny, yet the subject is something that we usually don't joke about. There is something edgy about joking about death and its horrors, and I liked that. The author had to escape to London and America because of his origin and 50 year later, he wrote a play about Hitler as a teenager. Yet, this play is not accusative, rather it is full of irony and even self-irony. And this gives humour a real meaning.
Compared to the fact that you were so afraid at first, you are already past your directorial debut, of Panic. How did that come about?
There were two empty months at the beginning of the season, resulting from an arrangement error. Last year, we presented Panic at a series that featured the readings of Finnish plays and everybody liked it. Alföldi called me saying that there were two empty months when the guys were free so this could be my first experience with directing. He said this in such an easygoing way that I felt there was no responsibility weighing me down, so I agreed to do it. I had a great fear of it, but then it turned out to be a great experience. And it also helped me believe that what I create will work. It increased my self-confidence.
Do you direct with an actor's mind or have you been able to immediately switch over to "external perspective mode"?
Since I am an actor, I direct like an actor and I always try to understand the play, imagine the scenes and help the actors from the outside. It is an interesting experience that for instance in order to sit down on a chair, as an actor, I must understand the reason. As a director, I can just give an instruction to someone to sit down, because it looks better, the scene will work better.
Did you get a free hand at casting, other than having to coordinate with the casting of The Gentleman's Way of Having Fun?
Yes. I basically planned to start work with young actors, because of my fear, thinking that I have no right to instruct older colleagues. But there are two roles that are very different from the rest in terms of age, maturity and experience, so they would not seem authentic if played by young actors. The names that came up were Mari Törőcsik and László Sinkó and I felt rather strange asking them to play in my directorial debut. We have been rehearsing for three weeks and it has gone fine so far. Perhaps I was a little over-anxious... Now that we are sitting here, it's ridiculous to think that I tell Törőcsik and Sinkó what to do, but at the rehearsals, this does not concern me and I don't think of it. Because it is in the mutual interest of everybody that they should be in the right place up there. And they can immediately feel that what I think about it is good and we are making good progress. Because that's what's important.
Interviewer: Zsófi Rick / Source: fidelio
