The title of Di Trevis's Being a Director is revealing: for Trevis, directing is not something one does, it is something one is. This belief in the innate gifts of a true artist – ‘you did not make your talent, you were given it by an accident of fate’ – underpins a curious mixture of useful advice and wilful mystification in A Life in Theatre (p. 34). An awkward combination of egotism and vulnerability permeates the pages as Trevis strives to weave a narrative of what it means to ‘be’ a ‘director’.
It is, therefore, not entirely clear at whom this book is aimed. As an introduction to the basic materials and procedures of theatre-making, the opening sections ‘Directing: The Parameters’ and ‘Directing: The Specifics’ provide a thoughtful overview of the effort and rewards involved in mounting a production. The chapters ‘Rehearsing the Actors’ and ‘Forging a Directing Language’ in particular offer helpful advice to the director still unused to the pressures and demands of a rehearsal room. Whilst there is much in ‘Deciding to Be a Director’ which makes me cringe (‘At base, you are casting yourself as a maverick in society’, p. 33) again, this chapter contains useful, practical suggestions to help the neophyte director focus and build upon her career.
The unacknowledged focus of A Life in the Theatre, however, is not simply the business of directing, or even of ‘being a director’, but of being a successful director. A self-consciously autobiographical book, Trevis's references to her own career at times undermine her pedagogical project. Examples of problem solving, for instance, are taken from her experiences directing at the Olivier, the Cottesloe and the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon: it is difficult to imagine aspiring directors having to deal with these hallowed spaces too early in their career. Similarly, descriptions of rehearsals often assume the availability of fight directors, choreographers, musicians; proscenium arches, orchestra pits, balconies; costume departments and large casts. Bar fleeting references to Pinter and Brecht (which is another story), the book's primary reference points are Shakespeare, Webster, Tourneur, Ibsen and Lorca: who cuts their teeth on Tourneur?
Above all, the central section of A Life in Theatre bears witness to the fixity and resilience of ‘Establishment’ attitudes towards drama and theatre: drama is a literary narrative (‘The text is God’, p. 45) of conflict and purposeful action, enacted in purpose-built theatres by actors who ‘resemble’ their characters. The entire apparatus of production is harnessed in order to enable actors to ‘fully . . . express character and emotion’ as though ‘full expression of character’ were the transhistorical endeavour of theatrical production (p. 14). Trevis's reverential attitude towards institutions, classical texts and theatrical heritage is ultimately presented as something to be emulated: this, she seems to say, is what success looks like.
The third section, ‘Directing: The Kwoth’ (an untranslatable word apparently used by the Nuer tribe in the Nile Delta), presents a series of extended anecdotes describing Trevis's various ‘journeys’ in life: a working-class girl come good, a countercultural free spirit finding the ‘real Morocco’ and an artist in exile returning triumphantly to the stage. Whilst we are invited to read these accounts autobiographically, it is difficult not to speculate upon the performative function of these (bewilderingly clichéd) narratives within the context of this book. ‘Being a director’ is a narrative one weaves about oneself: it is interesting that in the end, A Life in the Theatre collapses into romantic memoir as a means of authenticating the self.
