Re: Intention verses Interpretation

[henrik@eddie.MIT.EDU (Larry DeLuca @ The Bandykin Server)]

I guess I've been luckier than most, as I haven't really encountered the
*this* is the interpretation attitude.

Another thing that I'd found helped a lot of time spent 
directing (which I used to do a fair amount).  The approach to
plays from the literary standpoint is (at least the way I have been
trained and my own personal philosophy has developed around) a much
more subjective thing.  While one acknowledges that the author probably
had an intent, and that it is the director's job to ferret that intent
out (like a good detective), a specific interpretation is not so important
as a consistent, well-thought-out one.  Much of this is also most likely
because theater is such a collaborative art (between the author, the
director, the designers, the actors, etc.), and the script is really
the skeleton that is fleshed out by the rest of the company.

It is indeed a rare and special treat to actually have the author
present and accounted-for - from what I know of professional theater
they generally sit in the back tearing their hair out quietly over
what's been done to their play, but working in an amateur setting I
have found their interpretations, intentions, and interpretations of
my interpretations to be quite revealing and useful indeed.

I am often what I consider to be somewhat conservative in my intepretation
of the director's role in the theater - regarding |>oug's and IED's
discussion - I think the author's intent carries a *LOT* of weight,
and do wish I could find out more often what it *really* was ("Hey,
Bill, like, why did you name him Coriolanus and not Fred?").  You
do have the advantage, though, that their work is just a starting
point, unlike listening to another artist's finished album, which is
much more of an end in itself (unless you decide to cover a few tunes
from it).

					larry...