Ok, so ordinarily I try REALLY hard not to rant about thing that are out of my control, but this time, I've got to, so here goes.
I want to say something about playwrights: what they do, the risk they take and how dumb it is when their work is not presented exactly as written. Because that's what happens sometimes, which sucks. I also want to say something about directors, and the risks they take and why it is important to have as close a relationship with a playwright if possible. More on that later.
It is my personal belief that when a playwright writes something, it is written in that specific way for a Specific Reason. The classics are classics for a reason. Each character is written in a specific gender with a specific purpose and all of these characters lend themselves to the plot in a way that the playwright chooses to convey it. I am a playwright, and I know this. When a playwright sends his play out into the ravenous world of wolves aka theatres, directors and competitions, they are basically laying naked in from of them and saying "here, take me now and have your wicked way with me". It's scary. And it's so hard when the message you put on paper isn't necessarily what you put on the page. Granted, there are times that what goes on in the playwright's head doesn't read on stage. Then, the problem is to trust the director to make the best of what he has been given. Sometimes you got no other choice.
However, directors have some of the same problems sometimes. I know this, because I am a director too. There are times when they lose actors, or get more actors than they want(been there, both times). When a director gets a script, he is also taking a risk because all he's got is the words on the page and he somehow has to take those words and paint a picture for his audience. However, what directors need to be careful of, is spoiling the picture already created by the playwright. Not to say that playwrights have to write every single teen tiny action for the director(Shakespeare only wrote dialogue), but directors do need to pay attention to things like character relationships, motivations, written blocking, if any, and set design. That set description, if it's there, and the entrances and exits are particularly helpful to the tech crew. If the director tells the tech crew to screw and directs it the way he wants, there are bound to be problems run into by the time Tech Hell Week comes around(not to mention the headache the poor PSM has to go through--and I've been there too, at least once).
The other thing that both playwrights and directors will run into and have to be careful of is meshing and communicating with each other as much as is possible. See, playwrights have reasons for making the characters male or female; they have reasons for setting their story in a specific place and time; they have reasons that the character relationships are the way they are(see above). You know what the biggest and simplest reason for this is? It doesn't work any other way.
I did a production of ROMEO AND JULIET a couple of years ago. The director wanted to try and make Mercutio a girl. It was an interesting concept because in the beginning it created a little love triangle between Benvolio, Mercutio and Tybalt. The downside was that half of Mercutio's lines--and one entire scene--looked and sounded terrible. Mercutio has a scene with Juliet's Nurse in the beginning of the play. In the original text, it is clear that he is trying to A)flirt with her B) seduce her and/ or C)bed her. And the Nurse is charmed and attracted to him. That's clear. When it was tried with a female Mercutio, it crashed and burned. Now, I am not saying that this girl was not a good actress, nor am I saying that our director was bad. The problem was that what the playwright wrote and what the director wanted didn't mesh. It felt weird and awkward and sometimes just plain wrong. Mercutio is male and should be played by a male in order for his character to work.
Now, there are exceptions to this rule. In that same show, Romeo's messenger was made into a female. This character is relatively minor so it shouldn't matter. But on my goodness, it did! The scene where the messenger brings Romeo news of Juliet's "death" is sad enough, but seeing a woman deliver that message was heartbreaking.
There are also times when a director has very little choice in the matter. Currently, I am directing MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. This is a children's production, so naturally I have more kids than parts. What did I do? I took every guy that was not already romantically attached(except the members of the Watch and the Friar.) and gave him a female counterpart. I did not invent lines for these new characters. Instead, I split the bigger lines between the two of them. There are a couple of times when it feels weird, but there is something rather satisfying in making Don John and Conrade more human by giving them a little more of a home life. And for some reason, seeing Hero's mother go ballistic after Hero's "death" has more of an emotional impact than when her uncle does.
Now, Shakespeare is not around to let us know what he is and isn't ok with when directors do his stuff. But it is the role of a director to research that playwright as much as possible to convey the message he wants to give. It's defiantly easier when the playwright is alive, or in both the role as playwright and director. One of my favorite playwrights--Sidney Kingsley--wrote and directed nearly all of his works so that he didn't have to worry about what the director would do to his precious baby when it was put on the stage.
I guess my whole point is this: being director is HARD. And being a playwright is HARD. And when the possible communication channels between these two are broken down, or ignored, or non-existent, that's HARD. So directors, if possible, keep an open communication channel between you that the playwright who's work you're doing.
And playwrights, cut the directors some slack, but don't let them chop up your baby.
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