MAN OF LA MANCHA Gill Etter discusses her production of Mall of Ln Malleila for Field Place Music at the Barn Theatre, Field Place, Worthing, with the assistance from set designer Peter Barnes, lighting technician Mark Shepherd and director's assistant /s tage manager Rachel Booker.

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PLOT AND C~ST1~G_

Set in iI dungeon in Seville at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the show tells the story of an impossible dreamer, Don Quixote who, together with his faithful friend and squire, Sancho Panza, sets out to restore the ideals of chivalry to an unheeding world . Quixote's vision of himself as a dauntless knight-e rrant leads to his famous fight with a windmill, his combat with the deadly Knight of the Mirrors and his love for a kitchen slut, Aldonza, whom he sees as the chastely beautiful Lady Dulcinea - much to the woman's bewilderment and d eris ion. As the play progresses, however, she is gradually drawn into Quixote's fantasy and because no-one has ever treated her with such adoration, begins to see herself as he sees her.

The plot works on two levels - the reality of the dungeon scenes and the fantasy world of the writer and actor Cer~antes, newly arrived in the prison and hauled into iI mock­trial for his life bv other inmates. To defend himsel( he tells il story ­the tale of a country squire, Alonso Quijana who, through too much study of books, "lays down the melancholy burden of sanity" and decides to become a knight-errant who will right all wrongs. The pathos and absurdity of his madness is well balanced by a constant shifting between fantasy and reality.

Our company. Field Place Music, has a small regular membership, but part of our ethos is to cast from a wider community. To this end, open auditions were held and publicised widely in the local press. We received many inquires from ex-pros and Equity card holders, all of whom expressed an interest in singing 'The Impossible Dream", but none of whom actually showed up'

Before the auditions, detailed character notes were issued, so that no-one could be in any doubt that this was going to be hard work. Casting proved ex tremely difficult. Other shows were being auditioned at the same time in

BY DALE WASSERMAN

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\' performed at larger with more generous budas a relatively small co were not everyone's Eventually, I asked m ,­and set designer experienced actor and .11'

play the part of the certainly kept him busy'

r did at last manage to a enthusiastic, well-committ many of whom wer inexperienced but keen go". However, due to ill

difficulties and nume rou..problems, I was forc(:'d great many cast changes d rehearsa l period. necessary, at very short n replace the actress playin and, as we were stre! ca'pacily at this point, I playing the part myself . • not an ideal situation. unavoidable and I supported by the rest of thl!

REHEAii'SA'i5 ~

Our schedule consisted acting rehearsals and

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onl.' rehearsal per week for L with a break for Ch.ristmas aim wa s to hold a ca_l through and complete the hi before the festive break. bu proved unworkable, due to epidemic. Basic blocking to ta ke much longer anticipated, partly due absences, but also, I fear, d ue : unaccountable absence of pel'" on the part of the cast who were there' Fortunat

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!'} . very able assistant kept a log of all the moves positioning, enabling us quickly with any discrepanciJ

The original libretto runs w i an interval. I felt this was tOl' to sustain, so inserted an about two-thirds of th through the piece, at where the Men of the Inquisi

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arrive in the dungeon Cervantes halts his story in t les t they be coming for him. It­very gripping moment and played it as a "freeze frame" dth.. side of the interval, so that action remained continuous. ·tal· people told us tha t this was m effective.

Also, for greater manageability the text, I divided the play up i six sections labelled A to F an issued a call-sheet, so that everve knew which sections were bcl,,_ covered at each rehearsal and I

which sections they appeare-

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Tricky scenes, like the rape and ght scenes, were choreographed t special rehearsals.

Due to the Musical Director's other .:ommitments and a low budget for ~hearsa l accommodation, we held many music rehearsals in people's

a mes, but were mostly able to use ;he thea tre for acting rehearsals.

SCOREAND '~ ,\:-; our critic pointed out, this is s _how where the 50ngb are very ca refully integrated into the plot, laking it difficult for many of

them to have become popular hits. Everyone knows 'The Impossible Dream", but there are many other n umbers of great musica l and dramatic worth, which we enjoyed performing. Musically, this is a d ifficult score, with relentless and u nforgiving Spanish rhythms, involving some tricky counting. Fortunately, our Musical Director is \'cry experienced and coped excellently with the score, although so me of the less experienced singers may have felt a t times that they were running a race'

:\'ot having music at many rehearsals did not prove to be quite ~,} much of a handicap as we had feared. The cas t were able to (oncen tra te on their acting ,1I1d on the smooth flow of the pieces in gen~ral, which was very useful. At many rehearsals the cast spoke through their song lyrics, which helped to se t the songs well within tht, scenes, and was also 11 good way of monitoring the learning p mc '

\IIle used a small band - the Musica l Director on keyboard, together with a drummer and flautist . All \\'ere exce llent and greatly enhanced the show.

SCENERY We were criticized by the press for us ing a "bleak set", but as the :;how is set in a dungeon, we felt that bleakness gave an approprie1te t.!nollgh atmosphere. The Barn Theatre has a fairly small stage wi.th little or no wing space. Our ethos is towards minimalism r erhap5 just as well, on a low _udget!) so we used black drilpes oJp~tage and black legs mid-s tage at <:iIch :;ide to mask entrances and

its. The action took plilce on ~ee levels - an upper level fronted

ith prison bars and chains, the o-n ain stage level and a forestage,

here we set il glowing brazier and - me dungeon pillars, complete

Ith hanging manacles. These liars, joi.ned by two horizontal ' r.; with clips at the back, served '" to stable our hobby horses in a

t effective manner.

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Beciluse the play's acti.on is cont.i.nuous, [ tried to turn OLlr stag ing difficulties to advilntage, with a somewhat Brechtian use of floor space and scene changes. The cast set ilnd struck their own furniture and props which, since this was effectively a "play within a play", worked very well.

LIGH~ We are very fortunate in our lighting ,lnd sound technician who is one of the bes t in the area and has been a top quality p("rformer himse lf, 50 1:; well able to empathize with actors and understand what they require. A.- I myself am not technicJlly very knowledgeable, I relied a great deal on his expertise, giving him just a basic id ea of the effects I wanted, which he was well able to t1esh out. We used two distinct types of lighting for the show' - one for the prison scenes (cold, dismal, grim and unwelcoming) and one for the "fantasy" scenes of the "play within a play" (warmer, but with som variation within this, as so me scenes took place at night). These effects were achieved using blue gels for the former ,lnd peachy­yellow ge ls for the latter. We also used a "prison bars" gobo to good effect, and i\ stark, red spot for the rape scene.

Again, we were very fortunate to be able to hire most of what we wanted from a local wardrobe ex pert. Preliminary notes had been distributed to the cast, giving them plenty of time to provide themselves with basic items of cos tume, such as knee breeches and tights (men) and long skirts ilnd petticoats (women). This meant thilt everyone was effectively dressed from the waist down before their initi il l consultation with wMdrobe'

Don Qu.ixote and the so ldiers needed to wear armour. We hired this from Harvey's of Hove, a theatrical costumier specialising in armour, who knew the show and were able to ad v i~e us on the correct s tyle of helme ts and breastpliltes of the period. Our only real difficulty was the Golden Helmet of Mambrino, an awkward piece of headgear, which is actually it barber's shaving basin and is only mistaken for a heroic helmet by mad Quixote.

We discussed various ways of making this , including plastic pudding basins, metal cake tins etc., but the most comfortable solution (the helmet does actually have to worn by two characters) proved to be an old trilby hat, with the crown rounded out, then

stiffened with fabric stiffener and sprayed go ld. We were able to cut an authentic chin-shaped chunk alIt of the brim, so that it well matched the illust ra tion we had.

'~"t~'i,SPECIAL EFFECTS'fAND : PROPs~

Warning: this can be an extremely "proppy" show ! We tried to simplify matte rs and kept our prop - to the bare minimllm.

To bring out the deep absurdity of Quixote's combat with the Knight of the Mirrors, this scene was played as a puppet show, a dark version of a children's entertainment, using cast members to portray a child audience and masked actors holding mirrors at each side of the puppet stage, with Quixo te fighting his own reflection. The actor playing the Kn.ight of the Mirrors designed his own, extremely effec tive puppet, and he was given a body mike on which the sound was dis torted , to make him sound more sinis ter. We used s trobe lighting for part of this scene, and the resulting atmosphere was harrowing.

The problems inherent in the transformation scene, where Cervantes applies make-up on s tage to become Don Quixote, were solved by the actor himself, who wore his own goatee-style beard (no messing about with cr 'pe hair and spirit gum') and added bold, "ageing" strokes wi th a stic.k of white greasepaint.

Quixote and Sancho rode hobby horses, which were especially made for us by a professional soft toy maker. When clipped in place on the stable bar, these could be manipulated like rod-puppets, espec ially in the scene where they are fed by Aldonza. Some prod uctions use actors as horses, but we felt the hobbv horses pmvided a welcome sOource of humour in il show which would otherwise be very dark.

SUMMAR

Despite good advance coverage in the press, our houses were rather disap pointing, especially near the beginning of the run. Audience numbers picked up as the week went on, and those who did see the show were highly apprecia tive. Unfortunately, the local critic, who had previously written some very kind things about our productions, did not share the audience's enthusiasm, but our feedback was­and continues to be - positive.

We do feel that the main reason for the existence of a theatre group is to entertain the public - after a l.l , they do pay for their tickets!

ALL SCRIPTS, SCORES AND LIBRETTI FEATURED IN

"THE PLAY PRODUCED" AND "THE MU~ICAL PRODUCED"

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