The Play Produced

THE COTSWOILID ARCADIANS PRODUCTION OF SHAKESPEARE'S KING LFAIt

The Cotswolds Arcadians, now in their fifteenth year of presenting open-air

Shakespeare, performed King Lear at Hatherop Castle Sc~ool at the end of July this year.

The genesis of my directing King Lear started late one evening after a particularly boozy family dinner party. My father, (David Cahill) who had both acted and directed in previous Arcadian productions, had a strong hankering to play Lear. He had performed the part once previously at the grand old age of 29 and wanted to revisit the role with the benefit of hindsight and

supposed wisdom that his 76 years had given. Being the supportive family that we are, we all scoffed roundly; yet he was quite determined.

Since no one else within the Arcadians was willing to direct, presumably because they knew what he was like, he was seriously considering the possibility of both acting and directing it himself. Rather like attempting to climb Everest and deciding at the outset to give every one else a piggy back up. We informed him cheerfully that it would kill him and he was mad. In a previous life I had been a professional actor, writer and director, but

had put such things behind me when the pressures of mortgages and wife and children became such that a regular income had its own peculiar charm.

Round about the fourth bottle of wine at the dinner party, the topic somehow returned to the play and my father, wi,th a cunning which he is wont to use, first suggested that I take a small part in the production, then gently suggested that I might like to help out with a little of the directing, and, before I really knew where I was , I was suggesting that I single handedly direct the whole

thing . The result was that my father was pleased, my wife was furious that I hadn't consulted her, and the rest of the family were predicting that it would end in tears. It wasn't clear who would do the crying though.

Having been inveigled into the show, I was then exposed to the smoothly oiled machine that is the Arcadians committee, and frankly I was quite impressed. The amount of experience and knowledge that the Committee, (Jennie Thompson, Pamela Kingsford, Sue Lee, Peter Baillie, Malcolm Webb, David Fowles under the excellent leadership of Eric Partington) brought to the proceedings, meant that I felt that I could relax and just focus on the production .

PLOT AND CASTING My first task was to cut the

play down to what was a workable size for the Arcadians and our audience. Four hours of doom, gloom, blood and gore was not what was needed. The target was to get the show down to a quick two and quarter to two and half hours. Not a production for the purists. This was by far my most difficult task in the whole production, having to distil the essence of the play without destroying its integrity. Th is also meant that several of the parts were fairly dramatically shrunk, something I needed to make clear to the actors from the start.

I decided to set the show circa 1913. There were a number of reasons for this. I felt that the political

22 Amateur Stage SEPTEMBER

machinations of the royal families of Europe, prior to the First World War, would resonate with the themes which I was emphasising in the play. Much of the subtext could be shown through costume changes and the uniforms of the male characters, which meant that the play itself would be more readily understandable to the audience. They could "read" the difference between the background to what was taking place with the actors in full dress uniforms and when they changed into Khaki, for the times of war. The theory being that the audience would be able to follow the action in the story despite the cuts.

The auditions were spread over a number of weeks and

took the form of workshops. wasn't sure what the experience of the actors involved was and wanted to give everyone a chance, rather than simply choose those with the best audition piece. I was looking for a number of things: emotional range, ability to take direction and balance within the cast.

Again and again I was surprised by the depth and range of talent that was available, and was in the enviable position of being able to cast the play many times over. Mind you, it wasn't all sweetness and roseS and I became convinced that the role of Edgar was cursed - I think in total we had four different actors first cast and then having to drop out for

EMBER

various reasons; before we ended up with an excellent final choice.

I had also forgotten just how brutal the world of the stage is, but was reminded when I had to phone people up and let them know that they hadn't got the part, despite being very good actors. It was a case of balancing out the look of the cast so that they worked together as families, and also that the age balance within the cast was what I needed for the production. But rejection is still rejection.

REHEARSALS I think I knew at the first

read through that the show was potentially going to be quite good. We spent time at the beginning of the rehearsal process working on who they were as people and their relatio\\s\\i\ls lNit\\ eac.\\ ot\\er, before we started with the text proper. I was extremely pleased with one of the actor's comments that t'his was the first Shakespeare production that he had been involved in where he fully understood what the play was about and his role within it. This basic­level understanding of who they were as characters and what their fUnctions were within the play, meant that they had solid bases on which to build excellent performances.

The initial rehearsals themselves took place in the less than salubrious surroundings of an aircraft hangar. I have never previously spent much time in aircraft hangers but now know that

they are interesting storage places for hundreds of bunks beds, various lorries and motorcycles, birds and howling draughts. They are also cold and echoing, but have the immense advantage of being able to rehearse on an open­air scale. The cast, many of whom had appeared in previous Arcadian productions, took the surrounding in their stride and when they were there, worked hard.

What turned out to be a perennial problem was that not everyone could make all of the rehearsals. These were amateur actors with busy professional and social lives. This meant that each rehearsal took on its own excitement, as I was uncertain as to which of my actors would actually turn up. It got to the point where there were certain scenes, which until the final run \nmugns, nac \\e\ler nac a\\ 0\ the actors in them together at the same time.

All scripts, scores and libretti featured in 'The Play Produced '

arld 'The Musical Produced' can be obtained from

SFRVI N G AHA-fEUR THEATRE SINCE Ian

Music and scripts available ,for all. Discounts for members

Tel: 0870 770 2480 Fax: 0870 770 2490

email: everyone@noda.org.uk website: www.noda.org.uk

Amateur Stage 23