Theater or Film? A Playwright Neil Labute Explains.

Playwright and film-maker Neil Labute has written such films as The Wicker Man, The Shape of Things, Nurse Betty, Your Friends & Neighbors, In the Company of Men and his plays include Some Girl(s), Fat Pig, The Shape of Things, Bash: Latter-Day and In the Company of Men. While interviewed on NPR, Labute discussed, among other things, his West Coast premiere of Some Girl(s) at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, CA. Here are Labute's 10 reasons why he'd rather direct cheap plays than Hollywood blockbusters

1.) No one ever says: "We're losing the light!"
Now, this isn't always true, of course - you might have someone from the electric company burst into the theatre and scream this out, but very rarely. What I mean is that in the theatre, you rarely do battle with the elements while you're trying to work, and that is a very good thing. No wind, no rain, no sunset - unless, of course, you ask your designers for them. And I've never had to shut down a theatre rehearsal because we spent too much time at the catering truck and now a cloud is hanging over our heads.

2.) The word is still king, or queen, or whatever
I watch and make films because they are delightful and transporting and lovely, but it is still most often in a theatrical space where I am flooded with the beauty of language and ideas. It is here where I am most often challenged as an audience member and as a person. Go see a David Hare or a Wallace Shawn or a Caryl Churchill or a Rebecca Gilman play and let yourself drown in the sweet, sweet language of it all.

3.) Plays deal in numbers I understand
Movies cost too damn much, for the most part - so much so that I can't really comprehend it all. Mickey Rooney used to say to Judy Garland, "Hey, my dad's got a barn, let's put on a show!" Today, if you want to make a film, you need to say: "Hey, my dad's got a barn - can we ask your dad for a million dollars?" I still talk with friends like Paul Rudd and Aaron Eckhart and plan out theatrical productions that we can pay for with the money in our collective pockets, rather than with the Gross National Product of Haiti. I made my first film for $25,000 and shot it in 11 days - and the reason it worked? Because I approached it as if it were a play: lots of rehearsal, shot in long takes, very static camera.

(Wait! There's more...)

4.) Rehearsal carries the day
In film, one often gets a few days' rehearsal and that's it. Figure it out on the run and, above all else, make that day's schedule. In the theatre, we still put emphasis on the elements that mean the most to me: actors and script. There is nothing more pleasurable than being in an empty rehearsal room with a group of actors and working on a scene. No technicians waiting around for lunch, no hair and makeup wanting to get done and go home. Just you and your actors, digging in and hunting for the truth. Spend a few hours watching Liev Schreiber work his way through a monologue or Rachel Weisz as she wrestles with a scene and you've found yourself at the gates of artistic heaven.

5.) The human factor
There is nothing that can replace the excitement of opening up the house and watching an audience take their places. The audience isn't there to sit back and be entertained. They play a part as important as anyone else involved in the production - they complete the triangle, as it were. To meet them head-on in that magic space between the stage and their seats is a bloody, beautiful contest (if you're doing it right). It can never be the same at the cinema. An audience may enjoy what they see, but the outcome on screen is inevitably the same.

6.) Process v. product
In the theatre, the definition between process and product is clear. We rehearse the work, we tech it, we bring the people in. In film, the process and product are symbiotic creatures - what you shoot on the first day must be as good as what you shoot on your last day, even though you've only begun to work together as a team. I find this method maddening and very often counter-productive. So much of how a film is shot is based on convenience rather than emotional truth. It rarely matters if an actor has to cry his or her eyes out, or make love with a co-star on the first day on set, as long as it works out on paper. In film, the schedule is everything.

7.) Computers do not rule
I dislike using computer effects in my film work, opting to do everything by hand whenever possible - the "old-fashioned" way, as they used to say. One of the beautiful realities of working in the theatre is that one rarely encounters mechanical or computer effects, at least in the kind of work I like to do. One of my favourite days shooting the film Possession was an elaborate scene that was shot very simply. Two couples (one Victorian, one present-day) pass each other in the same room, 150 years apart. I did it all in a single shot (without cuts) but had the walls of the room move about so that all the furnishings changed at a moment's notice. It was fun and theatrical and a great day for all of us.

8.) The limitations of the box are enchanting
I love the simple confines of a theatre - a black box, a proscenium, a found space. Even in my film work I prefer to move people within the frame rather than to move the frame itself. As a student, I used to hunt down new spaces to work in, trying to adapt shows to the places I would find. Pinter's One for the Road under the stairs of a Natural History Museum; Bond's Passion in the open air of a city park; my own work in a local bar with people sitting around, drinking and interacting with the actors. Movies require a technology, a screen, a bucket of popcorn. Theatre only needs someone to stand up and say: "Listen to this."

9.) Elitism is not necessarily a bad thing
I love the fact that theatre has to be sought out, hunted down, found. Once a movie opens you can find it anywhere - down the street, at the mall, in your neighbour's family room. But a play is usually at one place only in a given city. If you're rich or poor, young or old, hip or square, you still need to do the same as anybody else who wants to see it - sit yourself down in that space, in the dark and surrounded by people you don't know, and invest your time in it. I can try to describe to you what it's like to watch Gretchen Mol smile or Sigourney Weaver cry on stage, but if you haven't seen them do it ... well, you haven't really lived.

10.) It feels like home
I've really enjoyed the time I've spent working in film thus far in my career, but nothing feels like home as much as a theatre does. It doesn't matter where I am - LA, Chicago, New York, London - the gorgeous hush of a playing space can move me to tears (or as close as I get, anyway.) The possibilities that exist each night. The simple elegance of actors facing their audience with a handful of words. I've been lucky enough to work off-Broadway, at the Almeida Theatre and at the beautiful little jewellery box of a theatre that is the Gate in Dublin, as well as many other places. But they all feel the same to me in one way: I'm happy there and I feel that I'm meant to be there. This is what makes the difference. This is what makes me come back again and again. Film is a business - theatre is a religion.