I've not seen a production but I assume it means that the stage directions, when in brackets, function as lines... meaning that they take the place of lines, and are meant to be as expressive. For example, when the soldier smiles before telling Ian about breaking the womans spine, the smile is meant to convey his state of mind both at the time and in retrospect, and function as part of the conversation in itself. The unbracketed directions are movement based, not conversation based. On a different subject, does anyone have any opinions on how neccessary it is to portray the violence so explicitly and how much of it do we NEED to see? Cheers, Claire
Archive 25-5-2003
