the stage

quick update after the last post about auditions.
i got the part i wanted - yippee!

'wildest dreams' is a very quirky play and i think the person with the most challenging role is whoever gets to play hazel, my wife.
i go by the wonderful name of stan, by the way.

the director is auditioning two more people for the part of hazel tonight, and then hopefully, we'll all be able to get together sometime next week.

it's always exciting to start a new play - it's like a new adventure every time, and the cast for this includes some people i know i'm going to love working with, plus one or two new ones.

so, best get learning some lines, i suppose!

auditions this afternoon for an alan ayckbourn play called 'wildest dreams'.
it's a bit surreal and i really like it.

it's about a teacher and his wife and the misfits who come to their house to enjoy a role playing game (a bit like world of warcraft), and tells the story of how gradually they all end up looking and behaving like the characters they are playing.

i was listening to some of the music from this mozart opera recently and decided it was brilliant (which i am sure will be music to mozart's ears).

then i started reading the story, and was reminded just improbable and at the same time flimsy, opera plots can be.

in a nutshell, i think, the womaniser tries to seduce everyone he meets, kills the father of one of his targets, the father comes back as a stone statue to warn him of the error of his ways, then poor old don (i call him don, no-one else is allowed to) is consumed by fire and the goodies who were fed up with him sing a song to say good riddance and life is quite good now really.

but it takes three hours, some fantastic music and stage sets, to tell this story.

and i love it!

are you an opera fan?
have you got a favourite?

let us know...

i watched the 1971 movie version of the play, directed by grigori kozintsev, and based on an adaptation by boris pasternak, the novelist.
it was a bleak, grey, almost brutal interpretation, using images of extreme poverty and showing the suffering of ordinary people, and an equally thin and painful king lear.
i should imagine eastenders would be a lot more cheerful and happy go lucky than this ,,,

critics regard it as one of the best adaptations of the play, but i felt it was too full of cliches and a bit overdone.

some of the imagery was amazing, and some of the music (by shostakovich) was great.

i can understand the influences and history of russia that made this film the way it was.

i was looking for something a bit more operatic and dramatic, if that makes sense.
this was just highly realistic and very depressing!

but it was certainly an experience, and i would want to watch it again to see what else i could get from it.

(dvd produced by facets video ...  www.facets.org)

i read king lear all the way through at one sitting today,and got so involved i felt upset at the end.
i think it was the bit where lear holds his dead daughter cordelia in his arms that got to me.
none of the sources shakespeare used for the play killed cordelia, so why did he feel the need to? i'd love to be able to ask him that question!

what a FANTASTIC play it is!
tomorrow i will be watching a film version of it, directed by Kosintzev (i think that's how you spell it).

Laura came round yesterday morning.
‘The show was great. You looked really happy, as though you were enjoying yourself!’
‘I was!’ I’m not that good an actress.
It’s a happy show. You have to look as though you’re enjoying yourself, but I can honestly say that I do. It’s not Ibsen, it’s musical comedy, and if you mess up, you keep smiling and carry on. That’s what I like about being in the chorus, the show isn’t riding on you, you don’t have that kind of stress, so you can just relax and have fun. I’m not saying I’d ever be careless or muck about, I always try my best to get it right, it’s a balance of discipline and flexibility. And I’m usually happy when I’m singing – I say ‘usually’, because of course there are songs that are challenging and can be a pain to sing, but as long as you’ve rehearsed and practised seriously – and we have, over the last few months – you can get there with a bit of concentration. Again, that’s an advantage of being in the chorus. If your voice isn’t great – and mine isn’t – you can still bulk out the sound, make up the numbers, fill the stage. There’s always a lot of camaraderie as well, you develop your own bits of business with people you’re comfortable with.
And the audience – well, you want them to enjoy themselves, of course, but mostly we’re there to enjoy OURselves. As was drummed into me years and years ago when I first started going in for shows (during my student days, though after that there was a gap of decades before I started again) – ‘keep smiling, as long as you keep smiling, the audience will forgive you anything’. I remember before a performance of one show, a few years back, there were rumours flying around the dressing room that only fifteen tickets had been sold, and a couple of old biddies were getting in a flap over it and asking around to find out if it was true. One old stager turned to them and said: ‘It doesn’t matter if there are fifteen or fifteen hundred, they’ve paid their money and we’re going out to put on the best show we can for them’. Exactly. If the audience is small or unresponsive, you just carry on anyway. You do what you’ve rehearsed and you sing your heart out and you keep smiling. It sounds selfish, but it’s not, because if you’re relaxed and enjoying yourself, even if things go wrong (and they inevitably do – shit happens), that confidence and enjoyment is infectious, and the audience will warm to it – and if they don’t, quite honestly, that’s their problem.
Before we went on on Tuesday, I said, to no one in particular: ‘Remind me why I do this!’ That didn’t take long. As soon as I was out there, I remembered.

My first opportunity to take part in a 'proper' play; previous appearances have been in musicals where I have tried my best to lurk at the back.

It's proving to be terrific fun. If you don't know it, the story involves reversing the usual conditions of light and dark on stage - it is set during a black-out. Carol and Brindsley, an engaged couple, have invited a millionaire to see Brindsley's sculpture, and to impress him and Carol's father, have 'borrowed' antiques and furniture from a neighbour. The lights fuse and the arrival of several unexpected visitors wrecks the evening.

So, for most of the play we are having to grope around and not look at each other as if the stage is dark. The director is proving remarkably patient - if you discount comments about windmills and daleks. We've been instructed to practise walking around in darkness at home. It is a shame we can't sell tickets to the rehearsals, because they are - as Carol (that's me!) would say - 'screamingly amusing'.

How I wish I got involved in am dram years ago!

my next part is a little gem - not many lines but lots of hamming up and wailing and moaning ....

no it's not in eastenders.

i'm playing jacob marley in the musical, scrooge, in the run up to christmas.

i'll have to rattle me chains and sing mournfully, and try to frighten lots of little children.

(pause for diabolical laughter)

No I'm not posting this on the wrong blog - all is not as it might seem.

As I've mention before I have written a play called "For Better or Worse" which is being performed on Saturday 26th September by a small local Amateur Theatre Group.

As well as writing the piece I have taken on the roles of Director, Producer and Wardrobe Mistress. I also designed the flyer and souvenir programme. It's been a lot of hard work but it's been fun. On Sunday it should all come together at our dress rehearsal.

I've begged and borrowed things like a wedding dress, dinner suit, bow ties, fancy hats and even a surplice and cassock which is no mean feat in rural France. As the bride is pregnant (sh! don't tell anyone) I've had to make a convincing bump for her to wear. I've made the bridal bouquet, bridesmaid's posy and numerous buttonholes. Yesterday I pressed the wedding dress (which is over 30 years old) and was terrified that I might scorch it. It's been hanging up in my lounge for a few weeks now and I was rather hoping that the folds might simply drop out ... but they haven't!

Getting hold of gents suits or jackets over here is nigh on impossible. Most of the expats have cast aside all but casual wear. My biggest task (which I've just started) is to turn a size 18 ladies jacket into a gents dinner jacket to fit a very young best man. Not only do I have to make sure that the jacket fastens the right way but I have to make it double breasted to fit his small frame. The bottom has to be turned up by about 4 inches and the sleeves by about 5 inches. So you see it's not all glitz and glamour.

The event is going to be videoed and we have an official photographer to give an authentic touch to the proceedings. I'll post some photos as soon as I can.

Right back to the sewing

Perhaps a quick cup of coffee first?

theatre set-up (www.ts-u.co.uk) delivered a magical performance of cymbeline in the exotic surroundings of a botanic garden on the isle of wight last night.
it was the perfect setting for their attempt to bring out what they call the celtic traditions behind this play.
they certainly brought out the humour - the soothsayer was almost a caricature of frankie howerd, for example.

i wasn't convinced by the detailed case they laid down in the programme about all the celtic meanings in the play.  there are plenty of other interpretations of equal value, but it just goes to show how, even now, we're still finding something new in shakespeare's plays.

the acting was exceptional, with one or two exceptions (does that make sense? probably not...) and the play was performed in the way it would have been done in shakespeare's time (the play was first performed around 1609) - with an actress playing about four parts, two of which were men - adding to the usual questions about gender which shakespeare always poses.

but the magic really came out as the light faded and the audience wrapped themselves in blankets to keep warm.
it had the feel of proper story telling and i  loved it.

cymbeline is a weird play by any standards, but theatre set-up performed it so well that it was relatively easy to follow and understand.

they perform all over the country, so check their website if you want to try and catch them.
croydon tonight, then glastonbury abbey on august 6, trevarno, in cornwall on the 7th, for example....