The Play Produced

MR WONDERFUL by James Robson

Charles Cook discusses the Wilmslow Green Room Societys production James Robsons play

The Wilmslow Green Room Society was founded in 1924 In the beginning we were strolling players performing wherever a venue could be found but in 1989 after a superb fund raising effort a Victorian cottage and an old shirt factory were converted into a modern theatre The theatre has capacity for approximately 80 and is designed with moveable seating presenting shows in a variety formats - in the round bookends L-Shaped and in this case multi-level proscenium Our programme of productions is chosen to provide a varied and challenging season of plays using innovative and adventurous stage designs and is well supported by local people

PLOT Mr Wonderful by James

Robson is a very amusing play set in Manchester presented in 14 scenes covering a number of weeks The play was written in 1997 but was performed in the modern day with some contemporary textual changes Phoebe is bed-ridden with three loves in her life - her daughter Norma Liquorice Allsorts and her toy bearMr Wonderful Phoebe was a bit of a raver in her day and is determined that Norma a 40-something virgin will meet

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her Mr Wonderful To this end she scans the Lonely Hearts columns of the local newspapers and sends her off on dates at the local pUb In the first scene of each act we meet two of the lonely saddoes who inhabit the dating scene In the first act it is Eric Box the screw-fixated owner of a local DIY emporium In the second act we have Lop Wink a keep-fit enthusiast resplendent in his tight Iycra cycle outfit The remaining scenes alternate between Phoebe s bedroomSitting room and Normas dates with Geoff Lazenby In the bedroom we eavesdrop on touching duologues between Phoebe and Norma in which we learn of Phoebes colourful past and Normas resignation to living the rest of her life alone always getting off the bus before the terminus In the pub we meet Geoff Lazenby a mild-mannered divorced retired school teacher who is looking for and walks in the country All goes well with the dating and Norma goes off for a night with Geoff to a local hotel and finally reaches the terminus Meanwhile Phoebe discovers Geoffs mobile phone and his dark secret He is currently dating over 20 women from the agency Unfortunately Phoebe dies that night before passing on her discovery but when Norma

returns she finds Mr Wonderful sat on the mobile In a very exciting and entertaining final scene Norma gets her revenge and Geoff Lazenby his just deserts involving a pair of handcuffs dog biscuits and climaxing in a visit from the other women in his life

CASTING The casting is usually by

audition but this play was produced at short notice when we failed to get the licence for another play The cast from that play were given first refusal on its replacement Clare Lewis found herself promoted from nurse to the lead as Norma The play suggests that Eric Box Lop Wink and two incidental characters a drunk and a waiter are all played by the same actor David Midgley played these parts offering us four distinctly different people As the other lead declined the opportunity to be in this play AI Fowkes was asked to play Geoff Lazenby and superbly pulled off the double character of gentle schoolmaster and modern-day Casanova The ensemble was completed by Sheila Hine a lady of mature years who masterfully offered lurid and entertaining descriptions of her past and yet showed her total love for and commitment to her daughter

REHEARSALS The play easily breaks down

into discreet units so that only Norma had to be at every rehearsal We rehearsed for six weeks with a break for Easter For the first three weeks we broke the play into sections - Eric BoxLop Wink with Norma Phoebe and

Norma Lazenby and Norma and finally the two Lazenby Norma and Phoebe scenes This allowed us to work on the development of each relationship throughout the play in isolation and offered the cast the chance to play each scene several times on the same night trying out different nuances In the last two weeks we ran the play with all the sound links to give us a final polished and slick production

SCENERY As described above the

theatre allows the seating to be moved around at the directors discretion We mostly play football-ends with audience on either side of the cast but on this occasion we decided to go for proscenium Simon Webber the set designer presented me with a very eyeshycatching multi-level set Back stage right and six feet above the floor was the pub and hote

NOVEMBEReUr Stage

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OR PROBLEMS

The play script suggests that Lop Wink appears cycling between the scenes in Act 1 This is to cover the costume changes but I felt that this weakens the effect of Lops entrance at the start of Act I We decided to dispense with th is and to cover the changes as described above with music and by starting the scenes early The handcuffing of Lazenby scene had to be rehearsed a great deal until it was slick AI had a very bruised wrist for the first week or so During the run we had no problems with getting them on but AI had difficulty getting out of them for the curtain call on one evening Many of the audience thought that this was part of the show We played for seven nights to full capacity every night and the productions were enjoyed by both the audiences and all those involved

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Amateur Stage 23

bar Back stage left at 4 6 was Phoebes bedroom with stairs leading down to a floorshylevel sitting room complete with an imposing sofa centre stage for the all-important final scene

LIGHTING The lighting plot by Robin

Watkinson was relativeiy simple in design but complicated in operation Each area was individually lit allowing the action to be moved by raising and lowering the lighting in the relevant areas On several occasions we had lighting on two areas with subtle changes of brightness drawing the audiences attention from one area to the other Two spots were set up One on the bed for the end of Phoebes discovery scene and one for isolating Geoff Lazenby sat on the sofa and about to meet all his conquests at the very end of the play The show had 54 lighting cues

COSTUMES The play was modern dress

with only two areas of concern Lop Winks second act

NOVEMBER

entrance in his Iycra cycling outfit always had a wonderful reaction from the audience We were very fortunate in being able to borrow this from the son of one of the members although it must be said that her son was a trifle smaller than David The other problem was logistical - the number of changes that Clare had to make Most of the scenes are set a few days later and as Norma is on most of the time she started the show wearing three costumes and gradually stri pped off as the play progressed On other occasions Rhiannon Lewis as Stage Manager stood by with the next costume at the end of a scene Clare went off changed in the wings and went straight back on for the next scene

MUSIC The music was used to link

the scenes and to cover the costume changes We also faded the scene music across to a television in the bedroom and had Phoebe reacting to the (unseen) screen to allow us a few extra seconds for the

costume changes Paul Lewis (yes it was a family affair) ran these sounds for the last two weeks of rehearsal so we could get the scene and costume changes polished from the first performance The script suggests specific songs for the scenes but I decided to change some of them In fact we identified 16 songs with the word Wonderful in them and incorporated them all into the play

SPECIAL EFFECTS AND PROPS

There were several specialist props required 31b and 51b boxes of Liquorice Allsorts are specifically referenced in the script Whilst these may be plentiful before Christmas they are not so easy to find in May Fortunately we were able to borrow some boxes from a theatre that had done the production earlier in the year Geoff Lazenby IS handcuffed to the sofa in the last scene These handcuffs are also used in the first act Given the close proximity of the audience and no curtains the handcuffs on the sofa have to be set before the play started so we required two identical and authentic looking pairs I understand that they were ordered from the Internet but I did not ask the props people for further details Mr Wonderful has to be straw filled 50 years old (and look it) and be big enough to be seen but not too big as to fill the bed We auditioned a number of bears in rehearsal before giving the part to Floscoe Chalk - a bear bought from a local Antique shop A raffle to win the bear was run during the week - this was well subscribed to and paid for the bear with a little extra for the theatre fund