Mike Nichols on Directing: Come With Me

"I think the good director is virtually absent, a mist of delicate perfume wafting over a party, not the loud guy in the corner exhorting to look toward something or react in a certain way."

Mike Nichols by Ray Fisher,

During a lunch with Lois Smith in 1992 (Popover Cafe, please come back), I asked her about a phrase that I kept finding in theatre criticism: A play was praised for being well-directed, sometimes agonizingly, other times acutely, more often stunningly.

What, I asked Lois, reveals a well-directed play? Lois offered her theorie…