It was a toss up between here and relationships...
I'm posting here for some advice/bit of a rant, because I'm about to go postal if I don't get it out somewhere. I suppose I'm posting here because I would like some feminist viewpoints on it (it may well be that it's not a feminist issue at all, that the bloke in question would be a knobber no matter what, but it feels like it might be).
Background - I'm directing a play. I've directed before, I'm good at it, I've won awards, people choose to come back and work with me again so I don't think I can be that terrible a person to work with.
I've cast a man in the latest production who's new to our group. He's an ex-public schoolboy who is now a teacher of an obscure subject at a private school (I feel this may be relevant?). He's a very good actor. However, he constantly questions me. Constantly.
He won't take any criticism (by which I mean directorial criticism, not "you're shit, mate"), but does it in such a way (very bumbling, self-deprecating (but in that way that expects you to leap in and say 'no, of course you're wonderful' in response), absent-minded professor type of guy, even though he's in his late 20's) that I'm being made to feel that I'm being unreasonable in asking him to do things a different way. He argues that the fact he gets his lines wrong (he gets the gist, but not the actual cue lines, which is deeply unfair to the rest of the cast) doesn't matter because we're not professional actors, he wanders off when he's supposed to be helping move scenery and then acts surprised and hurt when I shout for him to come and help...
I'm all for group input and the collaborative approach, in fact I love it when my actors come up with new things which I haven't seen in the script, and we spend a fair amount of time in the rehearsal process exploring character/motivations etc. No one else has given me half this amount of aggro.
A further complication is that he's shagging my co-director. She has just come out of a horrible relationship which was v. abusive, and is in no fit state to really be jumping into another relationship. He apparently has said to her that he doesn't want to get involved because it's too soon/he doesn't want to hurt her/whatever but that hasn't stopped him jumping into bed with her 
and she's far too needy to say no. That's her choice, she's a grown woman, and I may be projecting here, but I get the feeling he thinks he's invincible because of this. He doesn't know that I know.
He also likes to make everything about him. When we go to the pub, he will take over the conversation and make it all about him. I lent my co-director a copy of the Lundy Bancroft book (she so needs it) and he saw it and said "Well! I don't think I'M one of those!" (I was kind of... erm... no-one said you were?) No matter what the conversation, it seems to always come back to him. The last few rehearsals, I got quite cross with him because of his constant quibbling - although I remained civil I was rather terse.
Anyway! The next rehearsal, last week, he asked if he could have a lift back to his and while I was driving he started in with 'you don't like me, do you?'
I said I liked him fine on a personal level (he's quite witty, and not too boring when you get past the me me me me thing - leaving aside my innate dislike of his actions in taking advantage of my co-director), but I didn't like the way he was constantly stopping the flow of things to query my direction.
His response was that he's "not a follower... I don't go with the crowd... some people may think that's a character flaw" and then paused meaningfully. I really didn't know what to say. I am terrible at confrontation and being ambushed like that I always tend to think of the right thing to say several hours afterwards (damn it all). I did say that in a theatre situation it was not helpful to be constantly questioned (what I wanted to say was that I found it deeply undermining but that came to me much later!). He responded that where he saw fault, he 'wasnt' about to keep quiet' - I asked him then if that was the case to take it up with me later and not in front of the rest of the cast. He said he would try, in the manner of someone bestowing a great favour.
He really does treat me in a very condescending manner, making out that I'm a nitpicker and somehow silly to be so concerned with 'irrelevancies' like getting his lines right (I said it was v. arrogant of him to think that way and he got VERY cold and haughty with me) and I've tried to ignore it but it's driving me crazy. I know I'm not a silly little woman so why is he intent on making me feel like that?
Having written this down (apologies for the essay), I actually think it's because he's a bit of an arsehole who likes to think of himself as a reasonable person, rather than he's an out and out chauvinist (I haven't seen him be like this with the men in the cast, but I have seen him be like that with the (male) set-designer when he was trying to tell him what angle to nail something), but he does so much mansplaining (funnily enough I was telling some of the female members of the cast what that was wrt another issue and he went straight into pooh-poohing mode) I was wondering if there was more to it than that? I'm so pissed off with him right now I feel like I'm going to explode at the next bit of nitpicking (and that's no good for anyone). I'm >< this close to sending someone else on with a book...
Any ideas? :)
(He's not getting any more lifts home, put it that way!)