EVAN CABNET, YOUNG STAGE DIRECTOR:
Perpetually Optimistic and New

Tyler James Greene, Assistant to the Director and Directing Resident at Long Wharf, interviews the director of Shipwrecked, Evan Cabnet.

TG: Let's start at the beginning: why directing?

EC: What first attracted me to directing was its role in the creation of a narrative. As an actor, I was playing only one small part of the whole and I didn't necessarily have the urge to write.

Directing felt like the best way to act as a vessel between a script, a story and a production. That occurred to me as a teenager and I began directing childrens' theatre, one-acts and small projects around my little town outside of Philadelphia. Then, I went to school in New York at NYU with the intention of pursuing directing.

TG: After you finished school in New York, you worked with and assisted some incredibly well-respected directors - Scott Ellis, Mark Lamos, Richard Foreman, among others. On top of your assistantships and associate director position, you have quite a broad range of "styles" within your own projects. Would you say that you have a specific style?

EC: That's a tricky question. Scott Ellis told me very early on in my career that everyone else is going to try and put you into a category. You know, "This director does musicals, he does classics, he does contemporary American, he does 20th-Century European." He said it's up to you, as a director, to work against that trend.

I try to choose diverse opportunities. I'm most interested in finding projects that have, first and foremost, a great story. Second, it must have something in it that feels timely; culturally, artistically, or personally, it feels like something that should be done now.

It should also be a play which, in some way, can be done differently than ever before. And I don't mean conceptually. I'm talking about finding what it is about love in As You Like It that feels very current and new and using that as your guide into the material.

TG: Can you tell us about the day you were asked to direct Shipwrecked! at Long Wharf?

EC: Gordon called me up and offered me the job. He said, "This is the part of my job that I love." I accepted right then and there and I hung up the phone. It was a beautiful, romantic, dream-come-true moment for about five minutes, and then I had to get to work. I haven't stopped.

TG: Eric Ting, Associate Artistic Director at Long Wharf, has been an artistic peer of yours for some time. What do you think attracts Eric to your work?

EC: Eric and I came up through the ranks together at Williamstown and we've spent a number of summers there together. We're both pretty familiar with each other's work; not only the finished product, but also in how we go about achieving it. It is, I think, both of those things that made Eric think of me for this project.

I'm interested in an aesthetic that cannot be recreated on film. It's been my observation that we all, whether you're a creative mind or not, look at story through the lens of film or television. Especially for the younger, MTV generation, we're used to receiving visual information at a faster pace than the generation before us.

With that in mind, I'm interested in finding out how does that way of seeing translate to the stage without it being just the staging of a film?

As theatre technology gets more advanced and lighting in particular gets more complex, a director can create the equivalent of jump-cuts and montages and cross-fades. All of those conventions don't interest me at all. I think those are wonderful tools for film.

Theatre has a different way of storytelling, a different way of creating a narrative and a visual experience for an audience. I am always in search of what the theatre can do that is separate from any other art form.

TG: With that in mind, do you find that it's scary or exciting to be a young artist?

EC: It's exciting. It's always exciting. If I ever felt that I wasn't enthusiastic about the challenges, I would have to reconsider what I was doing with my life. I should be clear that I don't see theatre, or at least my goals in working on plays, as a reaction to film but, instead, in finding something new.

If I'm looking at a play and I feel like I've seen it before or it feels like a regurgitation of tried and true methods, it doesn't really interest me. When I'm in the rehearsal room, I'm trying to find new ways of doing things.

And they don't need to be huge innovations. They say, "there's nothing new under the sun." To a certain extent, that's true but, on the other hand, that's a cynical way of looking at it. There may be "nothing new under the sun," but there are certainly new ways of doing those "things" under that "sun."

As a young artist, I'm perpetually optimistic and I think you have to be. There are all of these clichŽs of "having an open heart," "staying positive," and there's truth in that. As a young creative person, especially in the theatre, the cards are stacked against you all the time so greatly that it's up to you to generate your own faith. Everyone is always going to tell you no. It's up to you to supply the yeses.

TG: So, on the flip-side, you're working with a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and writer who is not of the younger generation. How has it been working with Donald Margulies?

EC: As a young director, I couldn't be luckier in terms of his faith and trust in me and in this production. For him to entrust his new play with a young director . . . it's an extraordinary opportunity.

He's brilliant, which obviously goes without saying, but he's also very patient and very gracious. There's this duality: I'm directing his new play, but he's also teaching me so much at the same time. I'll be forever indebted to him for that.

TG: What have you found to be most challenging about directing his play?

EC: The biggest challenge of the piece is in its tone. Donald once referred to the play as "children's theatre for adults," which is a delicate balance. It's an amazing way to look at it and, as a director, a helpful framing device for entering the room.

The story is so clear, but the question of how to realize it is so vast, so open, every single thing must cohere to this story in the same aesthetic way. That's where our work is.

TG: What is your hope for an audience member who comes to the Long Wharf to see this production?

EC: There's never a second in my process, from the minute I read a play until opening, that I'm not thinking of the audience. As an audience member, I greatly resent any director who does otherwise.

Theatre is expensive. It doesn't work like movies where you can see it anywhere, whenever. It requires planning. It requires funds. It's not small. I resent when it's treated as an opportunity for creative narcissism.

And, so, I'm asking myself "if I were in the audience watching this for the first time, I would think blank," or "I would want to see blank." It's crucial, it's the most important thing.

If someone else were directing this and I came in off the street, I would want to know that the production is thinking of me. Or else, what or who are we doing it for? It's just a selfish exercise and should be kept in the rehearsal room. And, so, what do I want audiences to experience or get from this piece?

It says it all in the title. I want an audience to have a wonderful time. Donald is very clear that it's an entertainment and that's what we're going for. This gentleman Louis tells us a story and spins this yarn for us.

If we can take the audience on this fantastic journey and show them some new things along the way, whether it's their first or 300th time going to the theatre, then I think we're doing our job.

Evan Cabnet has directed new work for Naked Angels, The Culture Project, Rattlestick, NY Stage and Film, NY Musical Theater Festival, and many others. He also spent five summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, including the 2003 Boris Sagal and 2002 Bill Foeller Fellowships. His Associate/Assistant Director credits include Edward Albee's Seascape, Chris Shinn's Dying City and The Rivals (Lincoln Center Theater), As You Like It (Shakespeare in the Park/NYSF), and Arthur Miller's The Man Who Had All the Luck (Roundabout). Mr. Cabnet is a member of the Ars Nova Writers' Group, former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and Artist-in-Residence at Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysteric Theater.