Experts teach actors how to love in stages
When it was time for the big sex scene in the world premiere of Switch, it wasn’t enough to let the actors wing it.
It was time to call in an intimacy consultant. Just as plays have used fight consultants for decades, both for the safety of the actors onstage and to ensure convincing portrayals, now the title of intimacy director, choreographer or consultant is appearing more often in the credits.
“As an actor, I can’t tell you the number of times where I’ve been told by a director, ‘So, kiss there,’ without any further direction or insight on where a person’s hands go, who initiates, who stops, how long does it go?” says Emily Sucher, intimacy consultant for Switch, which has just opened in Washington DC.
“If somebody is involved in a kiss, and an actor slips a tongue in somebody’s mouth when they’re not expecting it, that could really startle somebody,” she says.
The effect on the actor would be to become tense onstage and affect the performance. But it could go deeper.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that a lot of people have experienced some type of trauma. Someone could innocently stumble upon something that could make someone else freeze up. If they don’t have clear, precise choreography, someone could end up being hurt,” Sucher says.
“Just about everybody in the theatre either has a story that they either have experienced, enabled or committed,” says Tonia Sina, a theatre professor in Oklahoma City.
“A lot of people leave the theatre because of trauma, because they don’t ever want to be onstage again. So we’re just hoping that we can make the industry safer and make it a more welcoming place.”
Cliff Williams III, a longtime fight director on DC stages, says there is an increase in the use of intimacy directors because theatres and producers “want to give their actors every opportunity to . . . feel safe and feel comfortable”.
But, he adds, they are also “seeing it as a potential problem in this #MeToo movement, and they want to cover their butts on it”.
Who initiates, who stops, how long does it go?
Emily Sucher, intimacy consultant