THE PLAY PRODUCED

KEY FOR TWO by John Chapman and David Freeman

Betty Penny (director and scenic artist) and Stephen Penny (designer) discuss their production for Grayshott Stagers.

The society is a small village soci­ety operating on a tight budget. The play is written in two acts, which take place in Harriet's top !loor Regency !lat in Brighton. It is cast for 3 men and 4 women, ages ranging between late 30s and 50s.

THE PLOT Harriet, a divorcee living in an ele­gant flat in Brighton, solves her financial problems by entertaining two married gentleman ca llers on different days of the week. The scheme fa ces collapse when her friend Anne, whose marri3ge is tot­tering, arrives at the £l3t hotly pur­sued by her husband; one of Harrie t' s lovers is confined to Harriet's bed with a sprained ankle, and the second turns up unexpectedly, closely followed by two irate wives in sea rch of itiner­ant husbands' The incredible con­fusion that ensues builds to a rich climax of comic wizardry.

CASTING The long-running production at the Vaudeville Theatre starred Moira Lister, Patrick Cargill, Barbara Murray and Glyn Huston. TIle characters, although finding them­selves in farcical situations, are believable and offer both actor and director good opportunity to flesh out convincingly. Harriet (the lead) required an actress who could carry a large part, remain convinc­ing and keep the audience's sym­pathy throughout the play. She needed to appear attractive and very feminine, sound good and relate well to the other actors. The two male leads, the gentlemen callers, were contrasting characters. Gordon is described as athletic and good looking and running a suc­cessful advertising agency, and should have assurance, a smart appearance and a slick, dapper manner; whereas Alec, a man of substance owning a fleet of trawlers, was described as big, bluff and North Country. Anne, who was the long-Lost school friend, needed to be convincing as a friend. It was desirable that the two actresses should develop an empathy to which the audience could relate. The three other sup­porting roles were Richard the estranged husband of Anne, a vet by profeSSion and an alcoholic by nature; Magda the refined wife of Gordon; and Mildred, Alec's wife, a down to earth, no-nonsense

Yorkshire lass. The play was finally cast with a very experienced member in the lead, two 'old hands' as the two lovers, the leading lady's husband in real life (a natural comedian with a superb sense of timing) as the ine­briated vet, and Anne the old school chum was played by anoth­er experienced member who

rna tic impact! This was important as the character enters during the last few pages of the play and injects further life and momentum into an already explosive situation. After the impact of her entrance and the sequential events, it is she who gives the final reaction to a cracking last line which concludes a very amusing and sa tisfying play.

'gelled' well with the lead. We took a chance and gave the 'prissy' wife's part to a complete novice as far as plays were concerned. It was her first time in a drama tic part, although she had done concert par­ties and musicals. She was a credit to herself and the society. Many auditioned for the final small part, that of the no-nonsense North COlmtry wife, and presented the character weLl, but the choice went to the one who through ability and SIZE would make the most dra-

SCENERY The Stagers are fortunate in that we have a workshop and s tore for scenery, props, costumes and light­ing adjacent to the village hall with easy access to back stage. This enables us to custom-build our own sets. We have also constructed an extension to the apron which can be dismantled and stored. The play required a composite set com­prising approximately one-third bedroom and two-thirds sitting room. Set at righ t angles to the

back wall there was a door leadil' _ from the sitting room into the bee. room and another door up right I from the bedroom into a bathroo There was a window on the ba ' wall upstage of the bed. The b room section was raised on blocks which we borrowed from local school. The size of the block (4'x4'x1') determined the size of thtc bedroom. The downstage \ al . around the bedroom were imas­ined. The rest of the stage bel , the bedroom was part of the sittin­room. Down right was a door in!, the dining room and a.no ther do\\ left into the kitchen. Upstage cep· tre left there was an archway lead· ing to the hallway with front d r right and spare bedroom left (bot!· unseen). The archway was rais to provide a good focal point fo' upstage entrances. To obtain a good contrast in decor, we cover our normal canvas fiats with hard­board to enable us to wallpaper thoO bedroom, the sitting room bein ~ painted in two tone colours with a frieze at dado height.

REHEARSALS These sta.rted in A ugust and wer twice weekly until the production in November. In all, 31 rehearsal took place, eleven on stage and twenty in the rehearsal room. The geometry of our rehearsal roan being long and narrow makes it impOSSible to accurately mark alii

the full set, but nevertheless the acting areas were meticulously observed so that the actors did not get used to having too much space, especially in the bedroom where there was a narrow strip only 2' wide between the bottom of the bed and the edge of the blocks at the imaginary wall. There was also a crucial area around the se ttee where quite a lot of action took place. At the initial plotting it had been noted that any simultaneous action in the bedroom and sitting room had to be carefully plotted and rehearsed so as to be visible but not detract from the dialogue.

On the first rehearsal on stage with

the acting area chalked out accu­

rately on the floor it became appar·

ent that we would need to move

the blocks comprising the bedroom

area some 6" further off stage right

to give more room centre stage and

also to move the bathroom door

12 ,UN MARCH

LIGHTING The lighting requirements were basica lly simple, the action o f the plily taking place e ither in 'n a tura l' d <1)dight or 'arti ficia l' light from practica l fittings in the fo rm of table and s tandard lamps, The one p roblem area was the window in the upstilge wall of the bed room. Due to the restricted d ep th of the stage it had been d ecided no t to p rov ide a full backing but to cover it with ga uze leaving a ga p o f app rox imately 2'6", which was required for access, be tween the set and the back wall of the hall. It was intended to back-l ight the w ind ow w ith a wide-ill1g led fl ood to give the impression o f sun-light for the d ily time scenes and leave it LU1lit fo r the night scenes. In pr,Ktice, however, 'spill ' from the fl oods illu­mina ted Cils t and crew pass ing behind the w indow making them vis ible from the audito rium . Initially extra laye rs of ga uze w ere ilpplied to the window. While this improved the s ituation, distracting shadows could still be di scerned

ups tage, thus g iving a bigger space

dowll!; tage o f the door in w hich we

could position a sm a ll bedroom

cha ir which was causing conges­

tion at the bottom of th ' bed .

PROPERTlES ,ANb, COSTUMESi

The adjustment to the se t meant that the area allowed for the ches t o f drawers up right had dimin­

ished , Fortunately w were able to

find a smaller sized piece of furni­

ture and with the se t ha ving been designed to accommod a te the S' bed, bedside table, chair and writ­ing desk (which, with the hartd

p rops, had been acquired with nO

d ifficu lty) the only outs tanding

p iece o f furniture w as a suita ble ",ttee. Size, with the limited space ,w ailable, was critica I to ensure the

bes t use of the acting spac ' . The

height o f the back also needed to be

.ow enough to allcnv access to the

rinks table directl y behind , 1n ddition , the settee should prefer­

Iy b ' a plain co lour, look good d blend in w ith the p ink and

,, ' n bed room. Until this item of

m iture was fo und the colour

heme of the si tting room could be finalised nor the wilrdrobe

the cas t - particularly the ladic's' es, Finally, afte r much search­

_ , .1 plush gTeen settee ilnd cha irs

.ere loca ted and a re lieved rd robe mistress WilS ~ble to co­

-, m a te the cos tum es. It wa s

portant that cos tumes should rig ht in bot.h rooms, The s ty le

(H

. and the effect was considered uni\C­ceptable , It was d ecided to back the w ind ow with a piece o f blue perspex, This was then covered with a white cloth for the da ytime scenes and front-lit g ivin g an impression o f blue sky. For the night-time scenes the white cloth w as replaced with a black backing and the window left unlit giving a general d ark effect. Altho ugh this solution was not entirely to the director's liking it did a llow a con­trast between the d ay and night scenes to be achieved whilst access behind the set w as mainta ined.

What we tho ught was an amusing, lightweight comedy grew to be a very sat isfying experience; chara c­ters were fully developed , comic s itua tions fu lly exploited ilnd the s tructure o f the play with its mas­terly final deno uement was appre­ciated by all involved - not least the aud ience. FOOTNOTE AND we made a profitl

,W.i

caused no problems ilS it wa~ set in

the early 80s.

MUSIC AND ' SOUND EfFECtS" "

, '

Music did no t plo)' an integral part in the play, being only necess~ ry to set the mood at the ope.ning and the ncts and to cover the time lapse be tween Scenes 2 and 3 of Act I. For the former we chose an o rches­trill ver ion of La Ronda and for the latt r the orig inal vocal version o f "Let's Face the Music and D~nce" .

With this music be ing so w ell known due to the advert on telev i­sion, it was thought it would cause added amusement to s tart it as the lights dimmed on a perplexed Harriet centre s tage at the end o f Scene 2 and continue it until the opening of Scene 3, but in the event, s ince the music was lost in th e applause a t the end of the scene, we d id not nc tually com­mence until the tabs had closed ,

Sound effects were simple, com­prising door bells, telephone, alarm clock and a crash in the kitchen. These w ere all done live.

The sd was asse mbled o n the Saturday prior to the week o f tl1l' production . The cas t familiarised themselves with it on the Saturday ilfternoon; Sunday was spent wall­papering, tOllching up paint, light and sound rigging and se t dress­ing, etc. It was d ecided (as previ­ous ly anticipated) that the arm­chair belong ing to the suite was too solid and hea vy to use downs tage in the s itting room as it obscu red pent of the bedroom area. It was thereflll' e replaced by a peri od , w ood en-framed chair with open back, set as near to the tabs as pos­sible, The other arm chair w as set in front o f the tabs downstage left of the proscenium a rch. This is w here the ex tension to the front of th e s tage is useful.

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