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What bugs me most about bad directors? The answer is found in what annoys me as an actor. Actors are taught to focus, concentrate, and reveal the truth of the moment. We strive to improve ourselves in this way, most of the time while being our own bosses.
We actors discover the characters with all their nuances that the writer never imagined; and we, like Dr. Frankenstein, create life where there was none. Next to the writer we actors feel the pain and triumph of the characters and want to share the truth of their story. Suddenly, the producers present us with a road block, themselves… people who are dealing with multiple characters, crews, egos, and many other factors. The rehearsal is agony if the director is ill prepared; actors must wait for the director’s discovery of the characters on a superficial level. If they are over prepared, they want to spoon feed actors; thereby limiting their creativity.
Some of the worst directors are “yellers” who think their higher decibels make them right and seemingly more intelligent, when in actuality the opposite is true. Volume does not make you smarter. In fact, it is hard to focus and concentrate if you think some demonic director is going to appear out of the audience area yelling and screaming at you about a minor infraction on the stage. I find that most actors, scratch that…good actors, respond better to a kind word or idea much better than hearing how untrained they are. Aren’t we, the actors, like children in some way needing guidance from a leader? If you prick us do we not… never mind, you get the point. I have always believed that the director should be an artist who takes his colors (the actors) and paints them on his canvas (the stage), and creates a blending into a great masterpiece . After all, don’t we all want the same thing, to tell a great story?