THE D NING ROOM by A R Gurney

Sheila Wilson discusses her production for The Shoreham Village Players,

revived for tAlthough popu lar in following spring andthe! nited Sta tes, this d ecided to direct TI-Iplay by American Dl! INC ROOM \\,Itpli1ywright j\ R just six actors, il!'Curney Jm is not often recommended by tperformed in Britain, playwrigh tSet in Boston or Unfortunately, one "Philadelphia, it cOLLld the original six was n(,!<'qua ll y be toking ploCt, able to make the ne\\in an upper middle dates, so 1 invited anclass dining room in actress who hadthis co untry, They worked wi th mplay does not hove! a

continuous s to ry line, before to take pa rt The writer Interestingly, she had

liked the play but hadinterweaves a ser ies of not been able to ma k ...shor t conversations the first plannedfrom fami Iy Iife , not schedu le. Now she necessa rily III

was avai lab le and " ' I'chronologica I ord er, had our cast, but they which are sometimes each had nine or ten funny, touching il!ld characters to play - andrueful. The writer they groaned. suggests that the

audience may imagine There was a lot of

that they are seeing i1 uncertainty abou~dining room in a

museum, and as they view the room, they see and hear the people who have occupied it during 60 or 70 years, The play touches on the decline of traditional family values, and the changes in standards. It is about people and r lationships, using 59 characters. Curney commands the same respect in the United States as Chekhov in Russia and Alcm Ayckbourn here in Britain .

The Shoreham Village audience, without exception, enjoyed it tremendously. On th e first night there was exit applause after each scene. This did not happen on the other three nights and I was somewhat relieved, The scenes interweave and th., app lause did interrupt the overlapping. Also, as there are so many scenes, it could have become too much for the audience and the players!

The playwright says the play works best with a cast of six - three men, three women - but that it could be done with more. We have a policy in the Shoreham Village Players that we always use the actors from the village and, particularly, those who come to the audition. Six ac tors who had worked with me before and one who hadn't ilttcndcd and were

ideal, being different in age and size. Another - an experienced director - wished to take part, although she had not undertaken a major part before. I made the decision to use eight actors and spli t the 59 characters between them. This is not as difficult as it may seem. The play is very we ll written and the scenes worked out so tha teach ch<lfacter has time to turn round, adding an accessory to their costume or a change of shoes. Once or twice it did involve a race backstilge from one side of the

There are no leading performances, each actor having seven choracters to play, with three acto rs taking on an extra character, with fewer lines in a scene. We began rehearsals with two readings.

REHEARSAl!S

It was a great shock to us all when a member of the cast suddenly died. We cancelled the play. As her husband was also a member of the cast, it WilS felt that we could not reca st the play, replacing Sheila. After three months the cast, who

stage to the other for an entrance hild

taking on so many different characters

and the American accents. We used severa l ex tra even ings to discuss these thoroughly. We had our first reading in early December and I suggested that there shou ld not be too much attention given to American accents. The characters were from Bos ton families and upper middle class - purported to sound more English than the English! The mother of one of the actors was from Boston and was able to help w ith some gentle coaching.

Purposefully I left a three week break for actors to learn lines! The majority of the scenes are two­handers and most of the actors usc' a member of their family for line learn ing. A director may hope that li nes will be learned early but this doesn't usually happen. The actors felt that, without a continuous storyline, learning lines was even more difficult. Concentration throughout the play is essential and later on when we had mfl­throughs the actors agreed that because there are no blackout ­between scenes they had to be ready to wa lk on, literally without a cue. They concentrated.

I had sched uled two rehearsals a week, believing that, as there were more two-hander scenes than full cast scenes, the actors would meet

NOVEMBER 16

to work on th~i r scenes outside om schEdu led date~. This did not happen and the acto rs asked for more rehearsals to b,,' scheduled together. We began meeting three times a week. Whil" blocki;1g onc scene, the lIther four actors would move to anothe r part of the hall, or <mother room in an actor's home, and the work ,vent We'll. In all, eac.h scene was rehearsed in my presence e leven times, with one exception. TI1e penu ltimate scenl' was a difficult on" in that it d iscli . ses a funeral in detail. It is pOignant a nd also funny, but a mother and a father of two of thl' a to rs died during our rehearsal period and I avoided plilying this scene until well into the schedule.

ourageous lv, il nd in spit o f their l o~ses, both ac tors cc1 rri ed on reh earsing the play wi thout missing ,I date.

Every rehea rsal schedule has to be m,1noeuv rcd b~ca use of actors' prior engagements, but I hild the usual director's nerves when, added to the thre ' deaths connected with this play, one of the actresses was in line for a knee operat ion which I had hoped would come aft e.r the performance::). Her ni.llne \va s ci1lled and the operiltion took place. The actress duly arrived for rl'hearsill with a crutch. We had two weeks before the performance dates!

This actress is the one that has to crawl about under a table l She endeavoured to reassure me that her knee would be alright. She was right and all was well at the two dress rehearsa ls and "on the nights"l

The uncertainty about changing character was also to do with not ha vi ng make-up and cos tum e changes. For instance, an actress would be a mother o f a ten-year­old, then wou ld play a fourteen­yeM-old, walk off and immediately return as an old servant; exit and return as an adulte ress discovered by her teenilge son. Her other scene would be playing a girl of six at a birthday party. Because of the limited time available between scenes, it is impossible to change clothes and make-up. The strength of the characters is written for the actor. The words Me there to help. The actresses in the play wore classic styled dresses, almost ankle length. They wore different jewellery, bows in their hair and aprons. They changed scarves. The men wore dark trousers, white shi rts and changed ties, wa istcoa ts

and jackets. The girls wore minimum rnakE'-up and the men \vore none at oIl.

At first the set design, in the round, appeared as a Stage 'Manager's dream. A table, six chairs, a s ideboilfd, a ca rpet and a chandeli<,r. We had our fi rs t dre~~ rehea rsa l on the Sunday und the second on the Tuesd< y. We played for four nights from Wednesday and struck the set on Sunday morning. The probl m with our Villag Ha ll , for the Villacre Pia rers, is that it is let d lIring the d a and so audience seating , ca rpet and furnLturt' had to be cleared each night. I he other proble.m is that the h<lll is not ruked so viewing of the stage from the s ixth row back is limited. With so much business se<\ted at the table and under it, I reali sed th ,1t the best way to S t the play wus in the round. The committee agreed that we could play the four nights with just two rows of seats (58). Having fewer seats meilnt we paid less for the Samuel French licence. Sight lines <lnd viewing were perfect. The Stage Manager, ever patient, set each night ilnd the <1ntique wble, sideboard ,md rep1'lldllction chairs were cherished . The table has to allow two people to crawl over each other and lie, down underne<lth it. This presents a difficulty with gatelegs. We were fortunate to borrow a table w ith stra ight legs wh ich did not ge t in the W<1y of the i1ction!

The properties are numerous. For each scene the table is laid wi th different glass and different crockery. Our Properties Mistress paid a great deal of attention to detail and achieved the demanding list. It is imperative thilt sc ripts a re dropped as soon as possible to practise using the props. Because we did the play in the round, the scene with the o ld man and his son was played alone, without the table being laid for the dinner party. The Properties Mistress and her assistant practised laying the table ­got it down to three minutes - and, in dipped lighting it worked. The lights came up on a splendidly lit table, with two silver candelabra, gl ittering glass, immaculate table napkins, and polished cutlery.

In the final scene the hostess lights the candles and the other five' actors arrive, the men in black ties and dinner jackets, the girls in sparkling jewellel'y and they have their dinner party. The convlo'rsation at the end of the play may be adapted. We kept it short,

enab ling them to leave the table after the host's final toast "to aU of us" to the sound of the Shostakovitch Jazz Suite which had opened and closed Act 1. The actors returned to the sOW1d of an American sw ing band playing Opus One, giving them their fina l bows to a loud and rhythmic upbeat to match the applause.

The only other music used was by Jimi Hendrix to ope.n Act 2, which we estima ted was taking place in the early] 970s.

The play op<'lled on Broadway in 1982 to critica l acclaim. It was premiered in Britain at Greenwich Theatre in 1983 with equa l ilppreci<1tion, but didn 't go anywhere. The play is a cJassic with pathos, comedy and farce. [ recommend that the reviews from the Greenwich production (June 1983) be obtained from the Theatre Museum. I found these most helpful. Watching old American films like "the Philadelphia Story" places the context of the play exac tl y.

CONCLUSION

If you do this play, preferably in the

rOW1d, treat it as a serious drama,

not as a comedy. Several of the

audience said they felt very

involved with the action which,

after all, is what live theatre is a ll

about. TI1e actors coped well with

being in touching distance of the

audience; they enjoyed doing the

play very much. If it cannot be done in the round, do it simply in

blacks on stage - but do it l It is

tremendously wor thwhile.

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