Interview: 'Harold Pinter was Incredibly Supportive' Director Nancy Meckler on Writing NOTES FROM THE REHEARSAL ROOM

Nancy Meckler is an award-winning theatre director. The first ever woman to direct at The National Theatre, she was also the Artistic Director of Shared Experience for 22 years. She has directed on Broadway and at most of London's most eminent producing theatres, including the Hampstead Theatre, the Royal Court, and in the West End, and at Shakespeare's Globe.

Putting pen to paper for curious theatre minds, Nancy has reflected on her extensive experience in Notes From the Rehearsal Room: A Director's Process, published by Methuen Drama in February this year. The book is a delightful meander through the director's career, is anecdotal and informative, and truly captures the heart of her rehearsal rooms. For aspirant directors, there's a wealth of wisdom in its pages. Nancy doesn't heavy-handedly instruct us on her tried-and-tested directorial approaches, rather enfolding them in tales that reveal a flavour of the atmosphere she cultivated in the spaces she worked in.

BroadwayWorld grabbed an hour with Nancy to get a sense of what it was like to reflect on her career.

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Why did you decide to write Notes from the Rehearsal Room?

It came from an impulse to pass on various tools and techniques that I have gathered over the years. I wanted to pass on, sharing ways of working that I've gleaned or developed, or invented. I hadn't written before, and I hadn't particularly enjoyed writing, but during [during a COVID-19] lockdown I began to think I should have a go, particularly as so many people had asked me about how I work.

The way that I direct is really cobbled together because there wasn't "real" training available [at the start of my career]. At university, I majored in theatre and had done one or two directing courses. But in those days it wasn't thought that a woman could think of directing as a career. Because I wanted to be part of the theatre scene I did a lot of assistant directing, but I never thought I would get an opportunity to be a theatre director because there were so few women doing it.

Did you have to revisit notebooks and other documentation of your work to piece this together? What was the process for writing the book?

I don't have many notebooks. I have given quite a bit to the V&A archive [which holds the Nancy Meckler and Shared Experience archives]. [I don't make] copious notes. So, as I said, it was a much more "cobbled together" thing.

I wanted it to be a toolkit. To say: "here are some tools that have worked for me, see if they work for you". The book isn't full of exercises because, in the past, when I've found books of exercises and tried them out they would often fail. The best way to learn an exercise is by actually doing it... to see if it works for you and go on to develop your own version.

I found there to be a lot of exercises in there, but what is lovely about the way they are presented is that they are anecdotal, so you get a sense of what it was like to be in the room with you rather than it being a set of instructions or suchlike.

I felt I was writing the book for emerging, or aspiring theatre directors, rather than to entertain the public. But, once I had written it, various people fed back to me that they thought it would be interesting for anybody who loves theatre and would appreciate some insight into what happens behind the scenes.

Something that I took from these documentations was a recurring interest in power dynamics: how the work can be affected by the actors in the room and their attitudes.

I don't think I was that aware of that - it's what you're gleaning from it. But that is partly to do with [thinking about] leadership and how to lead, and people do this in different ways.

If you're trying to get the best out of people in the rehearsal room, my approach is perhaps quite nurturing (and I sometimes wonder if that's because I'm a woman?). I mention in the book that some might lead by saying: "This is the way I work, and this is the ethos and I need you to come on board and follow it." Instead, I would try to figure out what might work for each individual actor that I am working with, which is much more time-consuming!

I find it fascinating. You feel gratified when you feel you have brought an actor further along than even they knew they could get with a part.

What was it like having access to - and support from - famous figures like Harold Pinter throughout your career?

Whenever I would be introduced to a famous person, I would be incredibly nervous. I desperately wanted to be myself and to relate to them as a colleague. Fortunately, someone like Harold Pinter - who had a reputation for having quite a temper at times - could also be incredibly supportive. Very personable. And personal.

I didn't work with him often, but when I discovered that he was attending lots of fringe work and had seen my company Freehold perform, I got in touch with him. Years later, he was working at a theatre that my husband was running [David Aukin, then Artistic Director of the Hampstead Theatre] and they were doing a Pinter play that had never been staged called The Hothouse. So, it was then I began to see him and his wife - Lady Antonia Fraser - in a more social context.

He would often see my work at Hampstead, and because he was extremely - or could be - very loyal and warm, I would receive a handwritten note whenever he'd seen [the work] and liked it. Eventually, I asked if we could have the rights to do The Birthday Party for Shared Experience [in 1990, touring and at The Place theatre].

He came to see a preview and had very few notes, which was very generous. Then he and his wife came to the opening night. Because I was a friend he had no problem that I was bringing a Pinter play to London without a star, and not to a major theatre. He was an extremely loyal person who made real friendships, and I was lucky to get into that slipstream.

As I say in the book when I worked with Ian Holm (who was a God to me!), I was incredibly nervous for an entire week. But, when you are working, what kicks in is remembering that you have goals that are not to do with you and your relationships. The goal is the play; trying to make it live; trying to get it off the page and onto the stage.

Having a task or a goal frees you.

I loved what you said about self-consciousness and acting in the book, and it got me thinking about how self-consciousness holds people back on the day-to-day... and imposter syndrome, within that.

Especially as women at the beginning of your career, it's difficult to overcome. It seems you've embedded collaboration in your practice, especially with women, to dispel this.

At Shared Experience, I was able to open a door and look for female talent. When I worked at Shakespeare's Globe, I made a commitment "I am going to have a woman lighting designer". It was curious because it wasn't that easy to find one, so I went on to interview and discover some young, inexperienced lighting designers. I was actively wanting to work with women... but I have to say it's because I find them more collaborative. I have never been a very "active" feminist, but my actions have been feminist. From early on I wanted to do things that women weren't perhaps "expected to do".

Finally - what are some of the reasons you would like people to pick up the book?

I wanted to offer a box of tools, with the hope that they will be tried, developed, and may be passed on. I love the idea that some of these techniques might live on into the future. That would give me so much pleasure, quite honestly.

Notes from the Rehearsal Room-A Director's Process by Nancy Meckler is available from Methuen, Bloomsbury Publishing