Lawrence Kornfeld: Subtext as a Visual and Emotional Road Map

The following notes are reflections on the use of sub text as a visual and emotional road map for the "non-linear" nature of the plays of Stein I have directed. Over the past 30+ years as a director (of Stein and other writers) the use and technique of subtext has been very important to me. It seems upon reflection that all directors (and theater artists to that matter, have their own way of using the hidden, the unconscious - to tell their stories. These notes are a few of the ways I have utilized sub text as a tool and some of the experiences I have had.

In all my productions of Stein plays [except THE MAKING OF AMERICANS] I placed a subtext under the written text. That is, I use the text of stein as what is spoken, I then follow another text, the sub-text, that, in some productions, the actors knew and used. In other productions, the actors did not know tthe subtext, but I always used it to guide me in choices of actions.

I have made these decisions under the premise that:

• Text is what is written to be said. It is the surface, the grammatical action of the ideas expressed in words: it is what our ears hear; it is the outside.
• Subtext is what is underneath what is written. It is below the surface, it is what the textual words/ideas imply/suggest/evoke/symbolize. It is what our senses feel/intuit/overhear; it is the inside.
• An action is what a character wants/needs and what s/he will DO to achieve that need.

The subtext I would use was always one that I felt was "right" for the particular text being done. Of course this was subjective, but the choice was made only after careful reading of the text and a "voyage" in my imagination, a voyage of discovery to find the right story, myth or event that could serve as the narrative/action-backbone of the "landscape" of the play.

This process allowed me to give full freedom to the verbal splendor of Stein's text while organizing, as it were, the dramatic events the actors were performing. In that sense, there were always two simultaneous parallel productions going on:

1. the stein text
2. the events evoked by stein's text.

I generally do not explain my own inner landscape/subtext to actors I am working with on a Stein play. I tell the suggested story/myth/sequence, and then in rehearsal I lead/give/find/exhort/demand specific actions from them; a specific action involving:

1. a person and at least another person
2. want and need
3. MOVEMENT
4. movement from one place to another
5. a disturbance in space cased by the above

I try to leave the actors' inner life to them; I only want to use the RESULT of their inner activities. I do not like to intrude on their creative inner process; of course, when working with students I will stop and help them find these things, but that is teaching and not directing.

These are a few examples of when I have/have not told actors the sub text of the play:

1]. I did not tell the actors of IN CIRCLES because I wanted them to discover their own personal territory; I actually went to the point of not allowing them to tell each other their personal subtexts and motivations: I wanted them to have their inner reasons but only respond to each other by their overt actions; this was, for me, an excercise in absolute realism, since I believe that this kind of private action is how real life is.

2]. I told the LISTEN TO ME actors everything, because I wanted a communal input into the realization of a MYTH: I felt that their collective conscious would help create an unconscious sub text; this was an exercise in linking minds to create an artifact of wholeness and mystery.

In addition, the visual elements of the production are evolved with the designers to include their own personal connection to the text; I do, however, always inform them of my subtext so that they will be consistent with my vision. Actors, designers and composers are all contributors to the text AND to the sub text. I try to weave all of these strands of interpretation, intuition, intention, design and music into the overall ACTION of the staged text: the EVENT: the Play.