"Yerma" - Unplanned Acting?

Subject:Unplanned Acting?

During the recent production of "Yerma" (I saw the Friday night show) I kept thinking to myself how uncomfortable one of the actors looked on stage. I didn't recognize her, but heard rumors later that suggested it was the director. To be quite honest, for her being the director, I had somewhat higher expectations. Her crosses and mannerisms seemed awkward yet overplanned and were, at certain points, distracting. I spoke with two of the actors about their preparation for this play and I was told that the director had the cast perform a series of excercises in which actors were attempting to "walk around and look down like birds". I didn't know the actors very well so I avoided trying to pursue the issue further as I was clearly confused. Perhaps it's theatre lingo, I'm not sure. But I wondered from the two experiences how frequently such transitions happen. The One Act's are all directed by students, students I presume have acted. But is there not some form of superiority you place on your director to direct you towards the best character you can be for this particular production? And if such is the case, what if your director had to take on a role due to complications with the other actor, and performed below your expectations? This might not be beneficial to the topic at hand but it made me wonder, to what degree, the actor/director relationship inevitably effects the production. Certainly there are disagreements and hurdles to overcome, but even when I did theatre back in high school - I saw a community of people that spent perhaps too much time together one-up'ing eachothers ego boosters. It was a really fun time.