In 2018 I was contracted by one of the larger houses in Germany working under a famous director. We were working with children in the cast, and, as part of the assisting staff for that show, sometimes we had to put on knee pads and walk around on our knees in the rehearsal room, pretending to be children for the lead actor during rehearsals while they were all at school. It's one of those weird, absurd things you only get to do in theatre - those type of surreal sitautions that are why we love the stage.
I was sitting off-stage watching my colleague strap on her kneepads, dwarfed by the bulky frame of the actor, surrounded by about 20 workers of the house: experienced stage designers, composers, and musical directors, of various genders. It was early in the process, and they had all gathered to check out rehearsals, meet each other, and chat about the work of their various departments. As they prepared for the next scene, with my colleague approximately waist-high to the actor, The Director offhandedly said:
"Brett, ready? Ok, let's go. Is Annika down ready to do what she does best? Ok, music, and let's go!"*
At the comment "ready to do what she does best", there was some nervous laughter from the surrounding workers of the show. I watched them closely. Had they just heard what I heard? Had I even heard it correctly? I turned to another colleague: did you just hear that? He nodded, smiling.
I tried to work out what to do. My colleague was 18 years old at this time. I was very much an outsider in this place, and the target of the attack was actually more of an insider of the institution. She had been part of the children's chorus of the theatre 1 year
earlier, and now was working inside its giant mechanism, as an adult
worker. She was German-speaking, and I think did not follow the "joke", which was in English, and spoken quickly, almost breezed over.
Later, we were cycling back, because she lived on the way to my place, a short distance from the theatre. As we were saying goodbye, I said to her,
"Hey, listen. I want to talk to you about something.
"Sure. What's up?
"Today, there was a joke made in rehearsals, when you were on your knees. Did you understand it?
"No.
"Ok. Do you want to know about it?
"Ok.
I explained to her in a dry, factual way that the joke was about her giving blowjobs, and being good at this. I explained to her that I thought this was "not ok", that it was abuse, and that I would support her if she wanted to take it further within the organisation. She seemed uncomfortable. "Ok, thank you. But I don't think I do." "Ok. Well just keep in touch about it if you want to. I support you." I said goodnight and cycled home.
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About a month later during dress rehearsals, I was sitting alone behind The Director and the actor in the audience seating as they prepared a scene with the children's chorus, who were all women between 15 and 17. The children's chorus was hiding behind stage backdrops, and should appear at certain points in the music. But there was a problem: They couldn't see the actor, to know that he was there for their cue. The actor came into the audience seating of the grand house, and started talking to The Director about it in the dimly-lit auditorium. The Director suggested making some kind of verbal cue: a grunt or something. Then The Director said:
"Just grunt at them. That's all they're good for, isn't it? You just grunt and they... you know...".**
The actor, a 50-year old who I had seen during drinks with his arm around a different 19-year old colleague after rehearsals, gave a sort of "grimace-grin", seeming to acknowledge that the joke was "a bit risky". I looked around: was I the only one who had heard it this time? Yes. The actor went back onto the stage and grunted his way through the rest of the scene. I sat behind The Director, shadowing him, thinking about what to do.
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I had 3 exchanges about this that I remember well. One was with a long-standing, but freelance, employee of the theatre. I asked about The Director and his behaviour. "Yes, sometimes it's not good. But he's very famous now, there is not much you can do. He has that... invincibility."
The second was with the Assistant Director, sort of my "boss" inside that production. I explained the situation, and said that I thought some action should be taken, because it's a pattern of abusive behaviour. He shrugged in a resigned way, and said: "It's your funeral".
And the third was with one of the voice actors, who was contracted from a nearby theatre academy. He asked me how my experience had been. I said "There have been problems. Some abuse". "What should we do?" he asked, fear and alarm in his eyes. "Make something better", I replied.
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3 days after the premiere, I wrote a letter to The Director and explained, again in a factual, dry, somewhat bored way, that I had witnessed abuse in his rehearsal room, and that I was available if he wanted to discuss this. About a week after that, I was in the cafe of the theatre waiting for a colleague to join, we had organised to see a play - I think it was Xerxes - but I was a little early. The Director entered the cafe, spied me, and came over. "Richard. Can we have a talk?" "Ok."
He took me into a back room of the cafe, with just a few cafe workers passing by occasionally. We sat down. "I got your letter. I was flabbergasted. No-one, in my 27 years of making theatre, has ever..."
You probably know the rest, and I anyway don't remember word-for-word. I remember him looking at me over his glasses. I remember how difficult it was to find relief in that situation: this guy had been built up as an aspirational figure as a theatre director for almost my whole adult life. There were moments of comedy, such as when I pulled out my notebook to read him the exact words he had said, and he replied with "I never said that! I would never say that". At least, it would be comedy, if we were not discussing abuse.
"I create safe spaces!"
I shrugged.
"I would never do that. I am a gay man".
As though gay men cannot hate women.
And so on. What struck me was how weak he was: how small, and how flimsy his power. He had been working in culture his whole life. He had nothing to show for it: only bullshit. I made it clear to him: this is not a takedown. I am here to support your process. I am asking for reflection, and change, and that is all. Even this relatively humble claim - limited by my not wanting to expose my colleague to punishment, balancing this with the risk of The Director continuing his pattern of abuse - was met with his brittle, fragile, grotesque denial.
I stood firm. But as those who have been in this situation, which is I guess most women in some way, know: it cost me.
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Various research on sex proposed it: the key difference between pleasure and abuse is establishing consent. When positions of power get involved, establishing consent can become difficult. There might be some who read the above story and go: "what is wrong with that?" (or as I have been told before, Aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen (you are making an elephant out of a mosquito)). I encourage you: look closer at the context. 20 contemporaries of the director around, an 18-year old on stage... what possibility does she have to consent? None. There is no chance of her being a contemporary with The Director, there is almost no prior relationship. What tools does she have to protect herself, on-stage, on her knees, not even understanding the joke? 0. You might say: but how can it be abuse if she doesn't understand the joke? People might not understand the joke, or even hear it, but they sense when they have been abused. It goes right through an institution, right through a culture. It is a green light for further abuse.
It also effects their other relationships and their own power inside the institution. For example, Annika and I fell out of touch following the show, even if we were quite close during the run. I am not surprised. But I am sad. Trust can take lifetimes to build, and be destroyed in a heartbeat.
What did The Director do wrong, here? He not only fails his duty of care, but importantly, when faced with the reality of the situation, including a direct quote of exactly what he fucking said, all he can do is outright deny it. This will always be the same person. Understanding consent is a key responsibility of a director, indeed anyone working in a position of power with people who cross any categories of vulnerability (which is, in the end, absolutely everyone, but to varying degrees). Without that understanding, abuse can occur, and it's something people and communities live with forever.
One statement that I read as a younger director has always provoked me, and I am interacting with it to this day. It comes from US-American Charles Marowitz, who states in his 1986 book Directing the Action: "every director is in pursuit of power". It's the kind of statement that can send chills up your spine, and leave you paralysed with hesitation in the rehearsal room. After many years, I've decided that it's almost certainly true. But. There are different types of power, and the way we exercise that power affects things and people differently. There is a lazy type of entitled power, which excercises dominance over human beings, for example, and seeks to manipulate and control them. And there is a type of power that seeks intervention not to expand itself, but for a different cause, which can be many and varied. Not all types of power are abusive. In fact, many aren't. A director is deeply interested in the question: what is my power? The way a director answers that question determines her value. Just as it determines the value of us, inside our individual spheres of influence.
We live in cultures that are steeped in naturalised abuse, and which confuse and conflate abuse with power - they can seem like the same thing. The behaviour of the abuser is protected by certain myths: that their behaviour is part of a 'natural order', that consent is inefficient and unneccessary, that categories do not exist and everyone is just equal and therefore an equal target. Go onto Instagram, and within minutes you can scroll through images of exploitation and aggression, that position the viewer as what Laura Mulvey calls a scopophilic gaze, the camera as apparatus being loaded with power to dominate and control, often pointed at the user themselves. Many questions are raised by the exploitation and abuse of social media platforms, ones that #metoo can only scratch the surface of. We are trained into abuse. The Stage, as a metaphor of the elevated platform of power, is the perfect place to explore and try to answer these questions, questions that I have been engaging and grappling with most of my life. It's transgressive, open, fluid, and trusting nature, part of the beauty of performance and what seperates it from other practices, cannot be twisted and brutalised in this way.
People are simple, situations can be complicated. Consent can be hard to establish and sometimes deeply ambiguous. But there are concrete truths we can hold onto. My colleague cannot be abused as she was that day, by that pathetic, spineless failure, still celebrated publicly as a success. The children's choir cannot be used as a tool for a director and actor to have their 'locker-room talk'. And I, as someone pushing against this with the strength and resources that I have, cannot be told by a trusted friend and colleage that it is "my funeral".
There are many questions about consent. Try to answer them well.
Not like "The Director".
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*Names are changed here, to protect the target. This quote is also not verbatim, but the joke is the same.
**This quote is verbatim.
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