The Scoop on The Winter’s Tale: Interview with Director Susan Russel

By Xavier Harding

Xavier Harding: So how long have you been with Gettysburg’s theatre department?

Susan Russell: I’ve been here for 12 years

X: What plays have you directed in the past, with Gettysburg or without?

S: Well I’ve directed the merchant of Venice here which was the last Shakespeare that I did and I’ve directed about 30 plays in all. My favorite is to do really contemporary work. I’ve done some musicals. So I’ve done all kinds of things. But this is my second Shakespeare.

X: Do you have a favorite that you’ve directed?

S: Hmm, that’s really hard to say. One of my favorites is I did a play called Ghetto that was about a theatre company in Lithuania actually. And when the Nazis had occupied the territory there was a theatre troupe and I think it’s probably the largest play that anybody’s done on this campus at 46 people. So it was pretty amazing. I had really neat student designers and the design went all out into the auditorium and we had these Nazi guards posted everywhere. It was really cool.

X: So what made you choose the Winters Tale for this semester?

S: Well its funny, I was actually in it when I was in college and there’s one really magical scene that I don’t want to give away but when I was in the play I had a small part and I was able to see the main characters as they were reacting to this magic and to watch the expression on their faces was so amazing. So that was one reason, was because I just remembered that one moment of theatre being such an amazing moment. And the second reason is because it’s just so weird. It has some very strange things about it that are hard to work out like it’s in all these different locations, it has sort of a resurrection kind of theme but it also has gods. It talks about Apollo and it has a huge act of forgiveness that has to happen that bothers me because I wonder whether someone can truly forgive some of the things that happened in the play. And it has amazing strong characters, particularly the women characters. They’re just outstanding roles. And I love the language; it has this weird stage direction: Exit pursued by bear, which is the most famous stage direction in all of Shakespeare. I mean it’s a bear. Where does that come from? Its very strange. So it was one of those things where if I feel like I really understand a play, like its crystal clear to me, I’m not that interested in doing it. If I really don’t understand it, if its just so off the wall or complicated or not me that I cannot understand I’m interested in that. I’m interested in the ones I can’t quite get, you know. They’re so intriguing to me that I got to work on them and I have to puzzle over it. So I’ve been kind of puzzling over this play for about 20 years and so I wanted to take it up and try it.

X: So when did you guys start working on the play?

S: We cast it the first week of December and we actually did a read through then and started talking about it a little bit so that people would have some time over the break to look over the lines and stuff. And then we came back 3 days early from classes and sort of did a little bit of theatre boot camp for a couple of days where we worked, you know, 4,5,6 hours a day for a couple of days. So we’ve been working on it for a while now.

X: Have you guys run into any problems along the way, any challenges you’ve faced in directing it so far?

S: Well, I think one of the main challenges nowadays is to just get everybody in the same room at the same time, you know, because everybody’s schedule including my own, is just so crazy. And there are scenes that have a whole lot of people in them and were trying to do live music and trying to coordinate choreography and all that kind of stuff. They’re supposed to be off book tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes. They’ve been really good; it’s been a lot of fun. Rob Towarnicki is my assistant director but I really call him my co-director because he has just stepped up so much.

X: Yeah, he’s made some great things in the past

S: Yeah, he’s extremely talented and Kristen Egenes and Paul Di Salvoas my stage managers have really stepped up because I’m serving on this committee for the faculty that takes about an extra seven hours a week of my time. I’m not complaining that’s just life, you know. So I’ve never tried to direct a play where I had this other job too and being chair of the department to so I’ve really depended on the students a lot and they have just really come through. I seriously couldn’t do it without them.

X: So I have a side question, have we done live music before in a play? I don’t remember ever having live music like that.

S: Hmm, I don’t think so. Well when we’ve done musicals obviously we’ve had live music and I’ve had a violinist before when I did Merchant of Venice but no, all out live music, no I don’t think so.

X: Yeah I don’t remember ever having that. That’s interesting. So is your version of Winter’s Tale any different than past Winter’s Tales?

S: That’s a good question, actually it is. For one thing when Shakespeare was performed it was daylight, people were throwing things, they were eating and drinking and laughing and they weren’t really paying attention. This whole dynamic of sitting quietly in the dark and listening to every word is very much a 20 th century phenomena. It did not happen before then. And so, most of the time nowadays people cut certain sections of the play just because you don’t have to repeat as much because people are listening the first time. They’re not throwing food and all of that. So I did make some cuts, like most people do. But one thing I did that was quite different and will probably only be in this production is there’s a figure of time that Chennelle Bryant-Harris plays and it just pops up in the center of the play and says, “Hey, 16 years have gone by,” and it has a little hourglass and wings. And she’s gonna be great. And it just comes in the middle of the play, smack in the middle, you’ve never seen time before and here he/she