2 - Performance and Practitioners

Summary

Belbel has directed almost forty plays between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s, including many of his own, and works by Catalan, Spanish and European playwrights both contemporary and from previous centuries. He is responsible for the translations of some of the plays, especially by French and Italian authors. In this chapter, having argued for his directing to be labelled author’s theatre, I present an overview of his directing career and the spaces in which he has directed. I explore his team ethos, making extensive use of interviews I have conducted with practitioners who have worked regularly with him. An analysis of the preparation process will help us to understand what Belbel prioritises as a director, and, finally, a detailed scrutiny of the results of the process in selected productions will allow a judgement to be made on how the ethos is translated into practice.

Belbel and author’s theatre

Belbel’s close involvement with texts as either writer or translator strongly suggests a sense of his as author’s theatre. In a 2005 interview, carried out after his appointment as Director of the TNC, he made a statement that suggests that the work of the director and the playwright are inextricably linked, and that the former has a duty of care towards the latter:

The twentieth century has done a lot of harm to playwrights with the appearance of the figure of the director, and with the importance that he has been given. It seems that the director and the author have entered into competition with each other. The time has come to have the author enter the theatre again and for the functions of author and director to be merged. I will try, therefore, to look out for the author figure, with the idea of integrating him into stage practice.

These are clearly the words of a man who considers that directors’ theatre in the twentieth century has not served playwrights well. It is surely significant that Belbel sees himself first and foremost as a writer: ‘I have always thought that I am an author who directs and not a director who writes. The work of an author is a lot more thankless than that of a director. There is no comparison. A director has company and is protected’.