We’re on a research trip to prepare for working together on Jamaica Inn next spring. On the train journey up we worked through the play scene by scene, exploring the visual and dynamic options open to us. Now we are at Jamaica Inn. ‘Who wants the most haunted room?’ asked the receptionist. ‘Theresa’ll have that’, volunteered Lis. So now she’s keeping me company in it, reading through the play whilst the wind batters the building. Later, we’ll go down to the bar and share a bottle of warming red wine in front of the bar’s blazing fire.
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We holed up in a tiny soundproofed room, piled high with speakers and amps, a piano in the corner and water pipes gushing in the roof overhead, so that every time a loo was flushed or a tap turned on upstairs it sounded like we would be drowned.
We read through the text together, and Mary played and sang each song as we came to it. As she began playing each intro an inkling of a memory stirred in me, though most of the titles on the list were unfamiliar. And as soon as she launched into the chorus I found I could sing along. Que Sera Sera, Down by the Riverside, Come Back to Sorrento, Funiculi Funicula – music that has stood the test of time because it’s terrific, and also because it carries so many memories. I’m really looking forward to rehearsal, when for the first time I’ll hear Mary’s arrangements sung by six male voices.
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Today was our third performance of Oliver!, and the first in the morning. I wandered through Front of House to soak up the atmosphere. Christmas trees sparkling, garlands festooning every ceiling, baubles on every surface. And five hundred schoolchildren, baying for entertainment.
Later, in the auditorium: a tremendous sense of anticipation. As the show began there were loud shushes; when Noah and Charlotte kissed there were groans of revulsion (“yuk!”); when Oliver escaped from the Sowerberrys revolution threatened (“Go, Oliver, go!” yelled the crowd), on their feet to cheer him on.
To find myself in the middle of Christmas before November is out is disconcerting enough. More alarmingly, the other big theme of the day was: what play will we produce next Christmas?
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The performers move out of the rehearsal room into the auditorium, where they meet for the first time the set, the lights, the sound. For the first time they wear their costumes and have the band playing.
And this is where the magic starts to happen. Moody lights slant low through smoke. Stairwells descend into the cellar and stretch up to the balcony. Sausages sizzle in a pan. Last week Bill Sykes was being played by a rather charming man in tracksuit bottoms; now, a sinister figure in black skulks around the stage. Crinolines, corsets and hairpieces remind the women what hard work it was to be female in the Victorian age.
Around the auditorium, faces glowing in the light from their torches and desk lights, are the members of the production departments. Company manager; sound designer and operator; lighting designer and operator; choreographer and choreographer’s assistant; wardrobe head; production manager; designer; director; fight director. They watch like hawks, checking everything from the big picture to the tiniest detail.
Back stage buzzes too: the dressing rooms overflowing with children being dressed, hairdressed, and fitted with radio microphones; stage managers juggling props, people, pencils and lists. And high up in the box the deputy stage manager sits with The Book: the master list of what happens when and who does it.
Again and again and again each song is sung, each scene change run, till every aspect slots into place and is perfect.
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It’s the final scene, and the game’s up in the thieves’ kitchen. The Bow Street Runners are hammering at the door, Fagin’s looking for a hiding place and Bill Sikes is making his escape. He comes up the stairs from the basement, the police in hot pursuit; rushes up another set of stairs, onto the roof, then clambers down a ladder. It will be a spectacular ending.
The problem in rehearsing this busy and complicated scene is that the set is still being built, so the actors have a tiny scale model to look at and some pieces of furniture but no basement, no stairwell, no roof and no ladder. The actors must imagine them all. Another show is performing on stage, so all this activity is crammed into the rehearsal room, which is a lot smaller than the performance space, so there are none of the entrances or exits – the actors must imagine them all. Nor are there any children, as they’re all at school studying, so the actors must imagine them too. Just as well that actors have such lively imaginations.
Next week the set will be fitted up on stage and the actors will be able to rehearse on it for the first time.
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