Samuel French

Samuel French is one treacherous little guy. I know he looks innocent, in his striped stockings, sitting on his pile of manuscripts, but he is devious, out to get you, beware!

The plays he publishes may seem innocent too, they are small volumes bound in solid paper covers with muted tones, their titles and authors stamped to the cover in the official Samuel French font.

And the plays are fine, an assortment of genres and titles are available, the character names, dialogue and stage directions crammed in so as to take up as little space as possible, available for purchase in bulk for theaters to distribute among the cast and crew of their production. I happen to own a few Samuel French plays, they have have lines highlighted, and blocking notes scribbled in corners, then crossed out and re-scribbled from when the blocking was changed. He's a fine little helper in the theater, a useful tool.

Here's the problem: In the beginning of the book, there is a cast and crew list for the premier production of the play. In the back of the book is a set diagram, and a costume and properties list. The missing piece of information is that the set, costumes, and props, reflect what was designed for the original production. The one credited at the beginning of the book. They are not written by the playwright, they are not set in stone, and they may be informative to designers, but unless the goal is to do a carbon copy remount of the original production, they are not to be followed to the letter.

I once had a costume designer give me a series of really ugly coats to try on, because the costume plot described my character as wearing a "pea coat and school scarf". Never mind the rack of beautiful fake fur's  that hung directly beside her, and the fact that the rest of the characters in the scene I was entering in to were in evening wear. I finally brought in an appropriate period evening dress from home, got the director to approve it, and received a fake fur coat to match.

Thankfully, attempting to literally match the costumes listed at the back of a Samuel French script is a relatively rare problem, if only because most small theaters can't afford it. A more common problem is attempting to literally match the stage directions.

Stage directions can be an important part of a script. Playwrights can be very particular about their staging, and if you try to do a production of say, a Becket play, and get a little too creative, you may find your production closed down courtesy of his estate. Other playwrights follow Shakespeare's lead, and give little direction other than noting when a character enters and exits the stage, and other minor directives (they kiss. they fight.)

And it is in the realm of stage directions that Samuel Frenches devious nature really comes out. Because you never know, if the lines printed in italics are actual stage directions form the playwright, or merely blocking notes taken by the stage manager at that all consuming original production.

I have had directors trip over themselves, trying to fit in every cross and wave and bit of business, that, for all we know was cut between the publication and final curtain. Worse still, I've had directors who relied on Samuel French to do their blocking for them. In high school, I was a in a production of Pride and Prejudice, where I showed up, very excited to the first blocking rehearsal, only to have the director say "So, we're just going to follow the stage directions." And we did. Samuel French was actual rather reserved in that particular version of Pride and Prejudice, so the blocking was really dull. People sat, stood, bowed, curtseid, entered and exited. Every so often, my character, Mrs. Bennet, would get particularly excited and be directed by Mr. French to kiss people. When my parents came to see the show they said the the blocking created some pretty extreme sight-line problems, problems neither the director not Samuel French had seen fit to address.

Of course, that was High School. I have never had a director give over a show that entirely to the striped stockinged fiend since then, but I have had quite a few give him a lot more say then I think he rightly deserves. I think those of us in the theater would do well, when we receive our pastel paper volumes, to judge each italicized line on whether or not it is necessary to tell the story. If the answer is no, we would be wise to take a large black marker, and cross it out.