Line Readings

There is a whole taboo that exists around line readings. Directors feel hackish when resorting to them, and actors sure don’t want them. They want to know what the director wants and be able to deliver the line in their own way. Most of the time, this is perfectly valid. There are directors who lean too heavily on line readings to compensate for limitations in their ability to communicate their wishes. This rightly offends the actor because, in effect, the director is saying, “I am a better actor than you are” (rarely true) and forcing the actor to become a proxy for the performance that the director would give had they chosen a different profession.

However, there are times when a line must be said in a certain way to preserve the narrative integrity of the story. If the actor cannot grasp it on their own - particularly if time has become an emergency - the director’s responsibility to the writer will require that they step in. The skilled and patient director will have enough faith in the actor to hold off as long as possible, exhausting all available alternatives before communicating this technicality. In such cases, the director has no choice; it must be done. This is especially true when the writer is living and present in the rehearsal room. In that case, actors, rest assured that the director is given many more line readings than you are.

All collaborative artists are accountable to the creator of their source material. In the theater, that’s the writer, and we must all occasionally endure the sting of their authority.