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ONSTAGE

Cider with RosieBournemouth Little Theatre Club recently presented the play Cider With Rosie. Patricia Richardson and the creative team talk about their experience.INTRODUCTION

Cider with Rosie has a special place in my heart having taken part in a production some twenty-seven years earlier with The Balloon Theatre at Christchurch when we enjoyed a ten week summer season. The memories were clear and heartwarming and although for some years I had thought about revisiting this piece as a director I did know that I would need a very special cast to make this happen in order to bring my vision of the play to the stage so fi nally I took this decision to make it happen.

PLOT AND CASTING This very well known book by Laurie Lee is the story of his growing up in the

Cotswold’s just after the First World War when life was simpler and before the onset of automation. There are several adaptations for the stage, but after some consideration I decided to work on the version by James Roose-Evans which was fi rst staged in 1963.

The cast initially consists of the family – Mother, the young Laurie Lee and his two brothers and three daughters from their father’s previous marriage with the adult Laurie Lee looking back over his life and acting as the narrator. Throughout the play there are twenty-three characters which could have been cast individually – but I chose, as is often done to have a cast of eight to play all the characters. This meant fi nding actors who would be versatile enough to do this in a believable way as fi ve of these initially cast as the three daughters and the two sons would be playing characters with a range from the age of two – ninety-two. There is some guidance as to the division of these characters, but it very quickly became clear when auditioning how this would best work for me as I needed to play to the strengths of each actor. Perhaps the most crucial part to cast and one of the most diffi cult was that of The Narrator, he is hardly ever off the stage and is never part of the action, but moves the play along from scene to scene. It was important that he did not distract from the scene or enter into it but guide us gently along. He also needed a voice that was easy on the ear with great variation in tone and pitch drawing us in and confi ding and sharing all those memories. I was also very lucky to cast a young Loll who looked as if he would have grown up into the actor playing the adult Laurie Lee which was a huge bonus. The great sense of family is uppermost in this play and the casting of the right Mother to bring them altogether. It was always the family that I focused on in the early stages as this is the heart of the play.

REHEARSALSWe have our own ninety-fi ve seat theatre with a raked auditorium, and are allocated

a six week rehearsal period to fi t in with the other fi ve productions that we stage during a season from September – June. Because of the complexities of this production I was given two extra weeks working fi rstly in another local rehearsal space. We work on three evenings a week with the addition of an optional daytime rehearsal on a Sunday as we progressed.

The style of this production is that of Physical Theatre and James Roose-Evans

instigated the use of six chairs which along with a fl at board and base and a green cloth became everything that was needed for the play i.e. Bed, Table, Bar and many other things.

These were all placed by the actors and took a great deal of devising and setting up so made great demands on our creativity - when working with the chairs, a word that the cast heard from me more than any other was ‘precision’ as I believe that it was critical that they all moved as one to get the desired effect.

For the initial two weeks we worked with ‘the chairs’ developing the scenes and getting the feel of the piece. Once we returned to the theatre and ‘our space’ we were able to work in more depth on the scenes and developing the characters.

To begin with having had separate rehearsals with the actor playing The Narrator, I worked mostly with the family until we were ready to integrate the two. By week four I was ready to start to put the play together and bring in the technical team who had been preparing and working alongside.

I had always wanted to have some live music to take us in and out of the scenes but despite trying a number of contacts, non were able to make the commitment until I found Peter, I knew what I wanted and just from a discussion with him he played it on his guitar composing as we went to bring us the right mood and atmosphere. In total there were thirty-fi ve scenes and from the opening picture I wanted the production to fl ow in and out of the scenes with no delay or interruption. I decided to place Peter just below the stage DL where he was a part of the production but did not encroach on it.

SET DESIGN AND BUILDING – VICCI JOHNSON AND GLANVILLE NOYE

When I knew that this was to be the next production that I would be working on I became struck with the idea that the play was supported so much by the descriptive narrative that the entire aesthetic could be based upon it.

My design comprised an aged parchment colour scheme, mimicking broken down foxed books, overlaid with torn paper printed with passages from the script. This was particularly effective on the fl oor which faded to black to complement the side walls. I wanted to give the impression that the cast were walking out of the pages of the book, utilising vintage typewriter script faded to grey.

The backdrop was muslin draped from 8 feet, distressed, with a fi xed piece of scenery with a stylised window fi nished similarly to the fl oor. This gave a fi xed point to mask the piece de resistance, the custom built cart, brilliantly and beautifully constructed by our set builder which provided a grand entrance at the beginning of the play when the family arrive at their new home. This area served as the bedroom and various points of focus during the course of the play.

The cart carried the main elements of the set on stage; a trestle table and six old school chairs. The table became the bed, fi nished in the same style as the rest of the set, while the cart and chairs remained authentically antiqued, complementing the

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ONSTAGEperiod costumes.

Stage left were three tall fl ats, one of which revolved giving variety and providing areas to store props. The intention of the set was to provide an almost invisible yet appropriate backdrop to the narrative and also the aesthetic of the characters themselves, allowing them to literally come to life from the pages of the book, and I believe that this objective was achieved.

SET DRESSING AND PROPS - MARGARET EATONAs the basis for the production was with ‘the chairs’ it was important to fi nd the right

shape, size and style for their ease of use and to change their look from various scenes. Some old school chairs appeared ideal and after some discussion and searching a set was found on E-Bay from an old school in Devon and delivered to the theatre for the cast to begin working with. The choice of the right weight of green material was also crucial so that it worked well for the various scenes and uses throughout the play. A coffi n that was made by our set builder – looking all too real – became a cause for concern when it had to be stored and then manoeuvered through a very small backstage entrance, an ongoing problem with no wing space in our tiny theatre. For the set dressing we used genuine rustic props throughout the production which gave an overall period look.

LIGHTING DESIGN - ALASTAIR GRIFFITHThe lighting must provide the glue that brings together the discreet scenes, smaller fast moving vignettes and the linking Laurie Lee narration. A simple basic set placed considerable emphasis on the lighting to help convey the breadth of locations, moods and time of day. Early discussions on the staging of the play defi ned the lighting needs to be translated to a design to be rigged and focused (for the technical around 60 lamps on 30 dimmer channels). As befi ts the piece the design required sought to convey a warm lyrical feeling based on a full stage cover in a straw/cool (159/203) on which specials, colour/gobo washes could be overlaid. An example of this was a carol singing scene at night in the snow achieved with a white sheet over the stage, a dark blue wash (119) and break up moon gobo, twinkling stars behind the rear gauze, a warm shaft of light from the house in the wings and hand held nightlights (battery!) in jam jars - only a handful of lamps but the look was just right. Whilst Q timing is important on any show for this production it was crucial to maintain the pace and fl ow required, the lighting operation was as much an integral part of each performance as the on stage actors. An example of this was the sequence of vignettes that comprised the annual choir outing comprising states that fl owed from the charabanc ride, Weston Super Mare sea front, fairground ride and the journey home all in the space of 1-2 minutes. The fi nal week of on-stage rehearsals became vital to fi ne tune each Q both in terms of look, fade times and the linkage with the on stage action.

SOUND DESIGN – GARY HAYTONThe overall sound design needed to be rural, to evoke the feel of post World War 1

village life in Gloucestershire as recollected from an adult perspective. The decision was taken to do this primarily with birdsong, which gives a very rural and safe feeling to the memories being portrayed on the stage. It also acts as a good counterpoint to the moments in the play that contrast with this happy mood, such as the fl ooding of the kitchen in a heavy thunderstorm. Jones goat, which is represented entirely through sound, needed some care. It had to have some ambiguity about it, needing to be scary without being a lampoon. To this end, no goat bleats were used for this sound, but chains hoof falls and processed snorts were used to indicate his presence. The music for the show was provided with a live acoustic guitar, which further supported the rural, homespun feeling.

COSTUMES – CAROLE LOWTHER I had always felt that the many ‘pictures’ that we managed to create should have the

look of an ‘old masters’ painting, so having a good wardrobe of costumes at the theatre proved a very good base for all the costumes that were needed for this production – in the main the look needed was very much the ‘make do and mend’ for the family and by using a basic costume with the addition of hats shawls aprons etc. to cope with all the quick changes. A collection of boots in the cupboard amazingly in the cast’s sizes gave them the right footwear and a base for their costume. With some very careful and clever colour choices we were able to end up with a beautiful blend which worked well on the eye, looked authentic and enhanced the overall look.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTSBeing set in the Cotswold’s all the characters are required to have a Gloucestershire

accent and convincing enough to believe that they had all grown up in the same village. We used a CD to help us and all the cast worked hard to achieve the required dialect. For Miss Wardsley the schoolmistress – a Birmingham accent and for Vincent a New Zealand accent presented an additional challenge.For the entertainments scene in the second half – the need and opportunity for the

characters to sing and if possible for the young Loll to play a musical instrument can be developed or adapted to suit your cast and was a fi rm favorite with our audiences. I am sure that this production can be achieved and will work well on various levels

but for me I wanted to create a tightly choreographed piece without losing the basic simplicity and feeling of the play. If you have a talented cast with versatile actors, and a dedicated technical team then this play is well worth considering and one that I would fully recommend. The rewards are huge both for the whole team and for our audiences who saw it.

James Roose-Evans adaptation of Cider With Rosie is licensed in the United Kingdom by Samuel French Ltd

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