Norman Ayrton: A Professional Director in an Amateur Theater

It's not often that a director of Norman Ayrton's caliber comes to direct a play at Harvard. There is no real drawing card, because drama at Harvard is a pastime, not a pursuit. Technically, the Loeb provides a magnificent facility, but otherwise Harvard does not have a professional atmosphere for drama. So, it's unusual for a professional to show an interest in Harvard. But, nevertheless, Norman Ayrton is here directing "The Rivals," which opens tomorrow night at the Loeb. And Ayrton is very definitely a professional.

Waiting in the Loeb's lounge for a Rivals rehearsal, he talked candidly about Harvard's dilettantish attitude toward theater.

"That attitude irritates me intensely. It annoys me because I'm not a dilettante. Theater has been my life for the last 20, oh, 28 years. It makes me suddenly realize how very old I am. It was so funny the other evening with some of the freshmen. They were watching Casablanca on television and Ingrid Bergman came on. And most of them didn't seem to have ever heard of her and one of them said 'Oh, Ingrid Bergman. Oh, my father was in love with her.' And I said 'oh my God.' That makes me feel very old indeed.

"My theater going days began in about 1933. The first play I can remember seeing was Richard of Bordeaux. That was 1935. I remember seeing George Rody as Falstaff too. I remember that production very well. I can even remember the smell of that production--sitting in the back row of the theater; we went from school. That did a lot for me I think."

After World War II, Ayrton began his professional training at the Old Vic School. From there he joined the Old Vic Company, and subsequently moved to London, to open his own studio. He also began teaching at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.

"For 18 years I was based in London directing the Academy. I resigned two years ago; I though 18 years was quite long enough to be in any one place and remain even remotely creative. So I though that, before I became part of the brick work, I'd better get out. So to everybody's surprise, I did. Now I'm just sort of free-wheeling around the world.

"I certainly didn't come to Harvard for professional reasons. I came because I've had connections with Harvard for about 20 years. I've known people here connected with drama, and I've trained a number of ex-Harvard students for the professional theater in England. Some of them are now quite distinguished.

"In a way it's very good for me to come here. It's a completely different challenge. The students here are perhaps the most unprofessional I've worked with. It's a awful word to use.

"This terrible thing people say--'the only difference between professional and amateur is that one is paid and one is not.' This is quite untrue; the word has a much more significant meaning. A 'professional' in my sense of the word is someone who has a total commitment to the point of its being a vocation and therefore takes reponsibility for the highest development of his technical abilities and of those things which are required to set some sort of standard--and this is a life's work.

"And that is what really bothers me about Harvard. I think ultimately Harvard has to make up its mind whether it wants to take drama seriously or whether it just wants to maintain a kind of dilettantish attitude and just allow people to amuse themselves, which appears to be what is happening at the moment. But it has the Loeb, which is a considerable building. If it didn't have this building, it would probably be much easier. Because this building demands a certain amount of standard, Harvard is being forced to take a slightly professional attitude when it doesn't really want to, it seems to me. And I sense that within the University there is probably quite a lot of feeling that it shouldn't. But I can't really see Harvard losing anything by taking drama more seriously."

But Ayrton is taking the production of "The Rivals" with due seriousness. For instance he has completely changed the locale of "The Rivals" in order to help his actors. "We're setting it in Boston, rather than in Bath, for one very simple reason--the language. I don't believe that accent matters at all, but students seem to worry about it a lot. So I said let's remove the problem from them for a start, so they don't have to worry about how to sound like smart London or Devonshire aristocrats because the social life in Boston around about 1763 must have been quite similar. So we're setting it there.

"Harvard wanted me to do a classical play. And a play involving style of some kind. But at the same time, knowing that I was going to have an entirely young cast, I wanted a play which didn't impose too major a problem of style because of the limited time available for rehearsal.

"And that brings in all sorts of problems.

"The biggest is that the actors have no way of working. By which I mean they have no way of structuring rehearsal so that they arrive at a certain point of development at a certain stage of rehearsal and then build on it. So they give their performance every rehearsal and they get rather disappointed if one takes it away from them. So they're always looking for an end product, and so I was getting end products even in the first week of rehearsal. One has to very gently try to explain that there is a long way to go and the end product isn't always what you think it's going to be. In fact it may turn out to be quite different."

For Ayrton, that is partially what makes comedy in a play like "The Rivals" so fascinating. It demands terrific skill.

"Tragedy often has a more powerful effect, but tragedy and comedy are very close of course. True tragedy and true comedy are almost indivisible--tears and laughter are terribly close to one another. I think one arrives at comedy later than tragedy. For instance, young actors always find tragedy much easier. It's always easier to immerse oneself emotionally in something; it's much more difficult to have a view. And comedy requires a kind of view of life, I think. The most important plays are the comic rather than the tragic ones. From Aristophanes onward the great commentators of life have been the satirists.

"The real trouble we have doing this play is that we just don't have enough time. People are in classes all day, and rehearsal can't even get started until the evening. And then of course we're all very tired. We just don't have enough time. We don't even get a chance to meet enough socially. I think that is important; it's a great help.

"The most important thing that actors have to learn to do is trust one another, and that sometimes takes a bit of time. You have to work at it. But if actors don't trust one another, they don't give anything to one another--you cannot act alone. So, anything you can do to help is valuable, but we just don't have time. We might stop and have a drink on the way home, but usually by then we're so tired, there's not much time for social communications, which is a pity."

Ayrton regrets the lack of time, and also the lack of professional polish. But for him, that's a perennial problem.

"I usually hate performances of things I've done. I see so many things that could be better. I'm always kind of watching the audience, though, as much as the actors, to see how they're responding. There's a great deal of tension, of course. But first nights are always exciting. This first night? That is something I would never commit myself to. There's nothing more fatal than saying you feel good about a first night. It probably means the whole cast will come down with flu, and the scenery will get burned. We're working hard, shall we say. Let's just leave it at that."