Finding Identity Through Directing

Finding Identity Through Directing

Finding Identity through Directing is a practice-led autoethnographical monograph that provides an in-depth exploration into the field of theatre directing and an individual’s endless creative pursuit for belonging. The book specifically examines how a culturally displaced individual may find a sense of identity through their directing and addresses the internal struggles of belonging, acceptance and Self that are often experienced by those who have confronted cultural unhoming. The first half of the story scrutinises Dr Yekanians’ own identity as an Iranian born Armenian-Australian and how she struggled with belonging growing up in a world that for the most part, was unaccepting of her differences. The second half, looks at how theatre directing, aided her (re)discovery of Self. While evidence shows that within the past decade there has been a growing interest in the vocation of theatre directing, embarking on a career within this field, while exciting, can often be a daunting and experimental vocation. Finding Identity through Directing questions this conundrum and specifically asks, in a competitive artistic profession that is rapidly developing, what attracts an individual to the authoritative role of the director and what are the underlying motivations of this attraction? By uncovering that there is more to the role of the director than the mere finality of a production, we can observe that the theatre is a promising setting for cultural exchanges in dialogue and for personal development. Theatre directing as the vehicle for these expansions and progressions of self can potentially address the internal struggles of identity often experienced by those who, in some form, have encountered cultural displacement.

Find the Director and Other Hitchcock Games

Developing a model of narrative based on game theory, Thomas Leitch offers a compelling new explanation for the distinctiveness and power of Hitchcock's films. Games such as the director's famous cameo appearances, the author says, allow the audience simultaneously to immerse itself in the world created by the narrative and to stand outside that world and appreciate the self-consciously suspenseful or comic techniques that make the movie peculiarly Hitchcockian. A crucial aspect of the director's gameplaying, Leitch contends, emerges in the way he repeatedly redefines the rules. Leitch divides Hitchcock's career into key periods in which one set of games gives way to another, reflecting changes in the director's concerns and the conditions under which he was making movies at the time. For example, the films of his late British period (the original Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes) pivot on witty situational games that continually surprise the viewers; the American films that followed in the next decade (Rebecca, Notorious, The Paradine Case) depend more on drawing the viewer into a close identification with a central character and that character's plight. These films in turn are followed by such works as Rope and Strangers on a Train, in which cat-and-mouse games--between characters, between Hitchcock and the characters, between Hitchcock and the audience--are the driving force. By repeatedly redefining what it means to be a Hitchcock film, Leitch explains, the director fosters a highly ambivalent attitude toward such concerns as the value of domesticity, the loss of identity, and the need for--and fear of--suspenseful apprehension.

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