Play Produced 'PIAF'

John Shirley discusses his production for Theatre 77

I Paf' by Pam Gems was first produced in 1978 by the Royal Shakesperean Company at The Other Place. It proved to be one of the great successes of that theatre and was subsequently transferred to London and Broadway where its triumph was repeated.

I had wanted to direct the play ever since I saw the original

production. I had been thwarted in my intentions by the unwill­ingness of two companies to stage a play whose language they clearly found unpalatable. I deduce that this is the reason why 'Piaf' is hardly ever per­formed by amateur companies. My third request to stage the play with a third company, Theatre 77, proved successful and the delay fortuitous. The month of our production coin­cided with the twenty-fifth anni­versary of Piaf's death which was given a good deal of promi­nence in television and radio programmes and newspaper articles.

The play deals with Edith

Piaf's life from her early years as a street singer to her death at forty-seven, a victim of drugs and drink. Thirty years are covered in seventy-one pages of script. The play contains nine­teen scenes, the longest of which is five pages long; some are considerably shorter.

It is therefore essential that scene changes are conducted smoothly so that the breaks between scenes are as brief as possible. My designer, Mike Kingston, set the play in a French nightclub. Tables and chairs with wine bottles and glasses were placed at appro­priate points around the stage. Different sections of the stage represented different places: the area stage left was Piaf's apartment and so on. The design, apart from looking effec­tive, had a further advantage which was that in Act One virtually no set changes were required. I have previously seen a production of this play (not the original one) which involved so much scene changing that it could have been re-titled 'Pickfords'.

During Act Two the play presents Piaf's painful slide to an early death. We see her drinking at every opportunity and her increasing dependence on drugs. To emphasise this the tables and

PAGE 14

chairs present in Act One were gradually removed so that by the closing scene of the play when she dies, the stage was completely empty apart from the piano which is present throughout. In this way we tried to underline the increasing isola­tion which her deteriorating health forced upon her.

The lighting by Jack Critchley was sensitive and atmospheric.

Appropriate areas of the stage were lit as the action moved from place to place including the thrust which projected into the front rows of the audience where Piaf sang her songs. In the early part of the play he cleverly conveyed the impression of gas light rather than electric to give a sense of period.

Costumes playa very impor­tant part in this production, and their selection was made with great care by Eileen Halliday. They not only have to convey character of course but also the period of the scene, a vital requirement given the speed with which the play moves from the 1930s to the 1960s.

The music in the play has a crucial role to play, not only the songs which Piaf sings but also the Ilink music which connects one scene with another. My pianist and musical director, Len Morris, also used an accordionist to give the musical flavour of France. They remained on stage throughout, but were in no way obtrusive in the scenes in the play when music did not appear.

'Pia£' is a very difficult play to cast. The process took me a considerable period of time. The first major problem is the central role itself. Piaf has to age thirty years with no costume changes to assist her. The part therefore demands an actress of high quality who can show the wide range of emotions that Piaf

displays. In addition she must able to sing a dozen of Pia' songs in French. The actres_ chose for this part, Janet B ~ gon, did not consider herself singer and had never sung ~ public before. As a result of _ considerable amount of wo with my musical director, sf, was able to sing with the required power and feeling tha­we associate with Piaf's songs.

The part of T oine, Piaf's com­panion, is also crucial. She is the· only other character whc appears throughout the play. Sht too must age, and convey " coarseness but also a warmth a she gets older. Carol Meredith conveyed every nuance of the character, capturing all the humour and the pathos of the role.

A further problem is the cast­ing of Marlene Dietrich. To play such a distinctive legend, who is firmly fixed in everyone's mind is an enormously difficult task. I

was fortuna,te to have an actress of consummate skilL Liz Shirley, who made herself unrecognis­able and her performance ,totally believable.

There are twenty-six male parts in 'Piaf'. I played them with nine actors, a number of whom had to be young, a further problem for amateur companies. As Piaf grew older, her search ,for emotional fulfillment led her to men considerably younger than herself. Only two of m: actors played the same role throughout. The other sever played three or four differen' roles each, and this was a con­siderable challenge to them. made it clear to them that I di not want the same performanc in different costumes but tota ll different and believable perfor~.

Amateur 5taxe M(/rci, l ~ ~ -

T each role. They were '.:l think very carefuUy

_ :ferences in vocal colour 'ement to achieve the

roy variation. ~ood deal of rehearsal time -pent ensuring that these

fences were achieved. I d ask an actor to play one

of his scenes using the voice and gestures of .the character he played in that scene. Then, with­out warning, I would call out the name of one of the other char­acters he was playing and that was the signal for him to say the lines of the first character with the voice and movement of the

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second. Each actor had to present me with a mannerism for every character he played whether the mannerism was subsequently used in the produc­tion or not. In this way every role, however small, was carefully examined and con­sidered by the actors and their presentations of the various roles were individual and different.

The response of Cheltenham to 'Piaf' was gratifying. The play was very warmly received by almost capacity audiences. The strong language was accepted by all as the means by which Piaf would express herself. One drama critic wrote that the pro­duction was worthy of any powerful play. It contains.a great professional company in the deal of humour and, as Piaf's land, and one theatre-goer health cracks from incessant remarked that though he had abuse, scenes of great sadness. never seen Edith Piaf live in The final scene is a marvellous concert he felt that having seen combination of both. It has con-this production he had experi- siderable box-office appeal and. enced the next best thing. most important of all, it will

I would urge amatuer com- present companies with a con­panies not to ignore this - siderable challenge. 0

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