In last week’s bog, I mentioned briefly that there is a section of ‘Blackbird’ where the two characters kiss and are about to have sex when one of them breaks it off and that this section was a huge learning curve for me. Today’s blog is about precisely this and what advice I can give to directors and actors who may find themselves in a similar position and not quite know what to expect. To be clear, I am not an intimacy coordinator, nor did we have one. If the budget for your play allows for one, then I would highly recommend hiring an intimacy coordinator in the same way that you should hire a fight director to handle all stage combat if you can afford it. Both these people are highly trained and know what they are doing.
This by the way is a comparison that I will make frequently throughout the blog as there is a certain amount of overlap between and intimate scene and a fight scene. The distinction must be made between what are the feelings of the character and what are the feelings of the performers involved. Both have to be choreographed and performed without deviation from the choreography that all parties have consented to. Only do choreography all performers feel safe and comfortable doing. All parties must feel in control at all times and use eye contact whenever possible. If I were to say these things about a fight scene, you might roll your eyes as what I have said feels obvious, but sometimes if we’re dealing with love/lust rather than hate/anger we forget how similar the two are.
As a director, the first thing that you may want to do is have your actors sign a waiver.This not only makes sure that they understand the health risks involved in kissing another person (for us it was drinking from the same bottle as well) but also lays out all expectations for the actors. ‘These actions are only to be done in rehearsal and performances with the producer/director present’,‘the actor has the right to stop if they feel uncomfortable’, ‘only actions that have been rehearsed and verbally consented to by all involved will be performed’. These may all seem obvious but sometimes obvious things still have to be stated and explained in a way that everyone understands.
The first rule may seem like the least important of the threebut it actually isn’t. In the rehearsal room, everyone has agreed to be there and do the job. That job involves kissing and simulated sex. When you are outside of that rehearsal room, you are no longer at work and so you are no longer obligated to do that job. If one actor starts suggesting to the other that they ‘practice’ the scene outside of rehearsals in the way that the two may run lines then that starts to blur the lines between what is fiction and what is real. In other words, what is the desire of the character and what is the desire of the actor. When these lines blur then it can become a slippery slope towards sexual harassment, which no one wants.
There is always going to be an imbalance of power between a director and an actor – ‘I have hired you to do this job. I am your boss, and you do what I tell you.’ For the record, this is absolutely not how I treat my actors but the thought and (somewhat hidden) power dynamic is still there. As a result, giving actors written and verbal permission to override or stop a situation with which they are uncomfortable is vital. Hopefully all will be comfortable throughout and the ‘stop button’ will never have to be utilised but situations change, or people aren’t in the right headspace some days (similar to real life) so you always have to have the option there just in case.
If you’re performing a fight sequence, you wouldn’t add in a punch because the other actor is unprepared for it. This would be unquestionably irresponsible, dangerous and it’s just common sense not to do it, even if it felt like the natural thing to do at the time. It is the same in an intimate scene. In preparation for this moment in the play, I approached both actors individually and discussed how best the make each of them feel comfortable. During this discussion, boundaries were set and the preference for something choreographed rather than impulsive and natural was raised.To be clear, the scene was always going to be carefully choreographed in the same way that a fight scene is. From this discussion, I went away and planned what would be in the sequence and what would be avoided (hand and body placement etc).Something that I would also do next time would be to have a conversation as a group about their understanding of what would happen, expectations and boundaries so that everyone was completely on the same page at all times. This means that all parties know what is going to happen and, more importantly, what is not going to happen. There may be some people who would argue that this kind of thing should just be natural, and people should just go with the flow. To them I say that if you’re an actor given choreography then it is your job to make it look natural. There is nothing that breaks an intimate scene more than someone who looks uncomfortable with their scene partner because they don’t know what they’re about to do.
This isn’t just to say that all the expectation was on the actors. I had a duty of care to my actors, which was also written into the signed waiver. It was my job to make sure that everyone was safe and comfortable by having regular, private check ins with my actors to make sure that they were still comfortable with what was being asked of them. If they were not, then the choreography would be changed to reflect this shift in comfort (this didn’thappen, but I would have been ready for things to change if it did). Similarly, I would always make myself available if any member of the cast wanted to speak to me about it. Their comfort and safety was always my top priority.
In the same way that a fight scene will often have a first aider, we had a mental health first aider. If you’re doing an intimate scene and can’t hire an intimacy coordinator (and again, I recommend that you do if you can) then I would strongly recommend having a mental health first aider to be on hand to help everyone navigate through what could be a very difficult section of the play (especially a play like ‘Blackbird’ with a large age gap). Whether anyone ever went to talk to him about something, I don’t know as it is not my right to know, but like a regular first aider I would far rather have one and not use him that not have one at all.
At the end of the day, the scene went well, and no one got hurt. Are there things I might do differently if I were to do something like this again? Yes. But all in all, I think we did rather well.
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