This morning the fight director came in to work on Great Expectations. The style of the piece relies on lots of imagination being brought to a very simple kit of props and costumes. Not just the acting company’s imagination, but also that of the audience. An empty bridle becomes a horse; a tablecloth becomes a table; bits of paper apparently fly through the air, thanks to the dexterity of the actors; a whip and a chair become a gig and a stagecoach; a pair of oars become a rowing boat. It’s tremendous fun to put something like this together, experimenting all the time – what’s the least we need to do to create a London street scene? What’s the least we need to make a country cottage? If an actor puts two hands up in the air can they become a hatstand? A table? A gatepost?
The fights are similarly stripped down. Usually we’d be looking at close combat, which a fight director choreographs extremely carefully so that the fight looks brutal and real but is also very safe for the actors to perform. But in Great Expectations, as in last year’s Jamaica Inn and in Precious Bane, which I directed in my previous post at Pentabus, the fights all happen from a distance. A blow comes from eight metres away and it’s up to the actor receiving it to make it look like it’s hit the mark and done some damage – which, after all, is what stage fighting is all about anyway, though we usually try to conceal that from the audience. My policy is one of honesty, of openness – I want the audience to see the costume changes, the movement of props and set around the stage, the instantaneous transformation an actor undergoes as he moves from one character to another with nothing more than his own skill at his disposal. That’s what excites me about being in the rehearsal room, and that’s the theatrical magic I want the audience to see. I’m fortunate that the New Vic’s in-the-round stage, which does not easily accommodate extravagant scenic effects, loves the performer to be its focal point.
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Laurel & Hardy is back on track, though the actor is still rather off colour.
It’s a big, tough show to do when you’re feeling under the weather. Sometimes Doctor Theatre will get a poorly actor on stage, give them the adrenaline rush to overcome sniffles or a queasy stomach to do a scene or two, and no one will be any the wiser.
But in Laurel & Hardy, with only two actors and a musician on stage, there’s nowhere to hide. A huge amount of energy is needed to push through the evening, there are big song and dance numbers as well as lively comedy, the performers have to be really alert to each other and to the audience throughout, and the whole event has to have to sparkle.
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A difficult week for us this one, as, after a pair of riotous opening performances, with a standing ovation on both nights and an audience who really didn’t want to let the performers leave the stage, we’ve had to cancel two Laurel & Hardy performances.
One of the actors was struck down with a chest infection over the weekend.
Despite battling gamely through Monday night’s show he was wiped out the following day. With no voice, and no understudy, there was nothing we could do but call audience members and apologise.
Most people accepted tickets for another night, so I hope there won’t be too many disappointed people out there, although it must be hard to have made plans and booked babysitters and so on only to find the night is cancelled.
We’re looking forward to the show going ahead again tonight, though, after those rip-roaring opening shows
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He was an actor in the New Vic company at the beginning of his career, and kindly agreed to be one of the patrons of our Building Futures Appeal, which will allow us to improve the service we offer through Education and Borderlines by creating a new space and support for the work. He was a consummate professional: articulate, interested, and patient as he was photographed again and again, met our main sponsors, did a television interview and spoke to some of the Borderlines participants. In the evening he went off to talk at the University.
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A furiously busy day for the theatre today. Laurel & Hardy is in its final week of rehearsal, so yesterday the company came in ready for the difficult business of pulling all the loose ends together. Great Expectations started its first day of rehearsal, so there was a new acting company arriving, being shown round the building, and getting started with a read through of the script. And, as if that were not enough, Hull Truck were arriving with Our House, teching in the auditorium – although they’ve been touring the show for some weeks, this was their first time turning it from an end-on to an in-the-round show, so writer and director John Godber was here with the company to effect that change. In the evening I left the building through a throng of audience members, packed elbow-to-elbow in the bar and restaurant, ready to see what’s proving to be a popular show. Tickets were hard to come by before it had even opened – as ever I forgot to book myself in, so I was lucky to get hold of one for Friday.
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