The director's main task is to find meaning in the text and convey that meaning to the audience. The art of the director is to radically re-interpret the classic text in order to make it relevant for a contemporary audience. Adjudicate between these two different positions with reference to the work of two major theatre directors.

The director has become a very important part of a theatre performance. This has not always been the case. In the early years of theatre the director was seen chiefly as a manager, they were there to organise a performance and overlook the development of the play. The director's job was to focus on `the management' of a production to keep it moving forward. But this was soon to change, on May 1, 1874 the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen displayed a different direction style, which would go a long way to changing the role of...