Max Stafford-Clark

Max Stafford-Clark

1. Biography

   • Born March 14th 1941
   • Went to school in New York, then moved to dublin and studied at Trinity College
   • His directing career began as associate director of the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1966.
   • In 1974 Max founded the influential theatre company Joint Stock with Bill Gaskill. Joint Stock pioneered a new way of creating theatre working with writers and actors in a workshop environment.
   • In 1994 Max founded Out of Joint Theatre Company. Out of Joint is a national and international touring theatre company dedicated to the development and production of new writing

2. Workshops

   • “A workshop isn’t exactly rehearsal, nor is it journalistic investigation, nor is it academic research and yet it contains elements of all three of these
   • Rather than there being a hierarchy of director and writer, producer, then actors, the whole company was considered equal and a play was developed by the group.
   • “The starting point was a three- or four-week workshop with the actors and the writer, in which the themes of the book were researched and explored by the whole group. But although we intruded dangerously into the writer’s creative process, Joint Stock’s success was in knowing when to stop. The four-week workshop was followed by a nine- or ten-week gap during which the writer wrote the play, free to draw on whatever aspect of the research they chose. Towards the end of this period the first draft would emerge, and the dialogue with the rest of the company would begin again.
   • During the more conventional rehearsal period that followed, the play would often go through several drafts before emerging in its final form. It’s a hazardous and demanding way of working. Hazardous for the writers because they have to surrender a certain degree of autonomy and because their work is constantly open to question and examination. For the actors, it’s alarming because they commit to the workshop and endure the unpaid gap without ever knowing what part they will play, how large it will be and how rewarding. And for the director it is nerve-racking because there is no script; no map of the journey he is making. But it is also thrilling. The commitment of the whole group is powerful, and there is a heady excitement as the actors discover previously untapped researching and interviewing skills.”

3. Rehersals

   • Unit:“A unit is determined by what the character that runs the scene wants''Each scene is divided into units. A unit changes when a different character takes the lead in a scene. The unit is what the character wants to achieve. It is a full sentence.
   • Action:An action is the tactic the protagonist takes to achieve that objective, and it has to be described with a transitive verb'' Once a scene is divided into units it is actioned i.e. each line is described using a transitive verb.
   • Presentations The Company are expected to read around the subject of the play and give presentations to the group about what they have learnt. They use books, films, museums and any other relevant research material. Jessica Swale, Assistant Director on The Overwhelming, says,
   • Interviews Max sends the actors out in pairs or groups to interview relevant people. Instead of taping the interviews the actors return and are interviewed by the rest of the cast as if they were that person. Questions include: What was the room like? How did the person sit? What was their story? This helps to build characters for the play.