THE PLAY PRODUCED

THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE

by Jim Cartwright

produced by Pinner Players Theatre Company in Pinner Village Hall

INTRODUCTION, -•.!.!'- \Ll.".-""-"<o~~ • _

Pinner Players was founded in 1936 and hilS been puttmg on three plays a year, in November, March and May, for some years now. We offer a varied selection, from comedy to drama, through classics to modern plays and all areas in between. We have wanted to produce this comedy I drama about the talented but introverted daughter livmg under the thumb of, and in the shadow of her extrovert, sluttish mother for some time but casting the eponymous Little Voice was a problem, need ing as it does d t'llented actress who was also a singer who could mimic 'the Greats' . A tall enough order for the professional stage but seemingly illmost impossible for an amateur group. Also the play was technicall y very difficult; the setting requires a 'fire', a multi­level and complex sound and lighting. The director, Simon Cash had produced the one act pldy '10'

by Jim Cartwright for the Harrow Arts Festival in 1996 and was very keen to mount this more ambitious full length play so, taking a deep brea th and with much crossing of fmgers we placed it as our May production and therefore as the lilst pia y of ou r season before our summer break. We then found out it hild been made into an OSCM

nominilted film . Whether this ildded to our audiences WilS a debatable point and the Cils t itself was divided between those who went to see the film to get some ideas and those who stayed away for the same reason!

THE P Oli

The action of the play takes place in a northern town in present day and concerns the relationship between Mari Hoff, a man-mad drunken widow who's sole purpose in life is to find herself another husband, and her daughter, the shy reclusive Little Voice, 50 called because no one could ever hear her. But Little Voice has a secret talent, she can accurately mimic the voices of the great female singers of populilr music whose records she plays constantly. Mari's current boyfriend, a slimy small time 'impresario' called Ray Say 'discovers' the hidden talent of Little Voice and eventually persuades her to appear at a loca l

night-club. In the meantime Little Voice has found a new friend and kindred spirit m Billy the telephone man's silent assistant who's obsession is lights and lighting effects. Add Sadie, the fat, monosyDabic neighbour who is always on hand to help Milri and Mr Boo, the night-club owner who recognises a gold mine when he sees it ~lnd there is a totally believable cast of characters who interact well and feed oif eilch other. The play's dialogue, with strong language in places, is full of rich northern dialect, much

shouting and screaming and wonderful 'one liners' ilnd requires vocal dexterity from its non Singers as well ilS Litti (! Voice.

_M"I~"'~ ~. Pinner Players' castings all follow the same pattern; the director selects various parts ot the play and those interested in a particular part are asked to read with others until all h,we had their chance at all the parts requested. A final decision is made by the 3 person casting committee which includes

the director. For this play Si lTh had prepared a tape lIsing extra( trom Shirley Bassey, Milri l Monroe and, of course Ju Carland, and the actres auditioning for Little Voice "if"" along with the casse tte continued when the volume '" lowered. Our chosen Little V1 was a newcomer to the compr although known to the chain who taught her drama; she e\ looks like a young Judy Carla, and, although extremely nerv rose to the occasion wonderft well and grew in strength confidence throughout rehearsal period. The other p were cast from our reg members with no problems of etc.

REHEA~ ~.

Rehearsals are he ld on evenings per week and in this Co

we had a 9 week rehearsal pe Pinner Players rehea rse in lounge of the villilge hall whi, sligh\ly narrower ' from fron t back than the stage and \\'h sometimes leads to problems \' perspective. The dialect did pose a problem to our Lon based actors although we de, to play the part of Ray Say Cockney. What they did difficult, especiillly Mari, wa' sheer effort required to deli\' extremely clever lines <It breakneck speed and at the " (' reqUired trom the script. In _ places dialogue is superill1F on music - in at least two f over two different song' played at full volume.

Because othe.r groups lise the ha11, rehearsals on stage are limited and we could only m two prior to play week. Th levels and the alleyway cou accurately be depicted ir lounge, and of course, the could not be set for the fire, ~ first technical rehearsal on st<l~ the Monday before the pIa somewhat fraught, with th finding their way around .. and handling the props for I' time and the techniGll crew ­lighting and backstage ne~ time to set the lighting boar the music and rehearse tho: changes,

In retrospect it was agreed enough time had been allo

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THE PLAY PRODUCED he technica l side of the rehearsal

" rocess. The lighting and sound es were complex and the back

tage action, including slamming Joors and setting off the electrical angs and flashes need ed

:hrnughou t the action to signify the aulty wiring in the house which \'entuillly leads to the fire had not en given enough attention. For

all of these reasons, the technical ~un through on the Monday of the play and the first dress rehearsal on !he Tuesday did not fini sh until ",e ll after midnight. The second dress on the Wednesday went , urprisingly well, although the -cene change still took longer than ! should .

SET AND FURNITURii;l

The stage at the Village Hnll is not \'ery large, 24' x 15', the wings are virtually non existent and the play demands a variety of se ttings including Muri's flilt, littLe Voice's upper bedroom, an outside alLeyway ,1nd the night-club. Our :,et designer devised a hilli box set including an upper platiorm, in reality only five feet higher than the ;; tage floor, for the bedroom. The , itchen area was down stage left and upstage right was a gauze ,creen, behind which was the alleyway. This is the arPil where Billy conducts most of hi s courtship with Little Voice through her bedroom wi ndow and where he uitimutely rescues her from the ii re. For the night-club scene we attached shimmer curtains to the black half tubs which are normally mounted across the back of the stuge and whi ch were brought iorward to the front third of the stage for this play. They were then simply dosed to form a small but 5uiiicient working area illuminated by spotligh t to form the night-club.

TIle l11 ujor challenge for set design and backstage staff was the cene dfter the fire when Mari's house is

iscovered to be gutted and all the furniture des troyed. This was .Ic hieved by obtaining two of t' \'erything and pre-burning one * t. There were two sofas and two ~ rm chairs, ob tained from a jumble

Ie, two toasters, two bread bins, two ironing boards ... These were all ;to red in the w Lngs or on the set . self behind false panels und t,ds ti[y changed durin g the prev ious night-club scene, the fal se

nels being reversed to revea l fire J ilmaged wa ll paper. Some burnt , ,(lod and barbecue charcoal WitS

Iso sca ttered about ilnd black ~a u 2.e thrown over the si nk

Impleted the transformation. The 'ght club seem! las ts a maximum i 3 minutes (defined by the music , hich has to be played) and the hange-over has to be cond ucted in

- lence and with only dLm working ~ts in that time. When it was J'St tried, at the teclmical rehenrsal, . 1,1sted eight minutes but the

tJ6tJST

wonderful stage manager and his crew eventually managed to complete it in time, even if there was never exactly any time to spare.

COSTUMES AND PROPS

Costumes were relatively simple, being all present day but needing many changes and they were all found by the company's cos tume manager with the help of members of the cas t and the local charity shops. Ma ri was tar ty, Little Voice and l3illy were drab and dowdy, Ray and Mr Boo sleazy and naff and the actress playing Sadie had to be padded.

The large quantity of props required, which incl ud ed the aforementioned toas ters, kettles and irons, were a ll found from local jumble sa les and second hand shops but there were also records and record covers to be found and lots of bottles and the two props ladies were run off their feet during the performances just keeping up with the action.

Billy, the lighting-mad friend o f Little Voice, is supposed to use a 'cherry picker' (0 mobile pl.atform used to repair street lights etc) to reach Little Voice's bedroom window. Quite apart irom the fact that we didn't have such a platform, even on its lowest setting, it would have put him through the s tage roof, and we simply could not gel such a machine into the very confined space of the village hall s tage. We used a ladder and what it lacked in dramatic content it made up for in convenience.

Much music was needed and the backing track for Little Voice was provided on CD-R by a friend of the company who produced a seamless medley of Bassey; Monroe and ("arland music an a lso provided the background music for the night-club, fea turing 'Manolito' and his organ. All other music and spot ef.fects were played in using mini d is k, a recent acquisition, apart from when two 'records' had to be p layed together, when the trusty cassette was also brough t back into service. The music from the records was played through speak ". loca ted on stilge but for the night-club, the backing music and Little Voice's voice was ilInplified using a practica l micropho ne thro ugh the larger front-of-house speakers.

The village ha ll does not have a true fron t-of-house lighting bar ­the six FOH spots beLng mounted on the auditorium walls - which means that all of the li ght ing, apart from some 'warmers', has to come from behind the proscenium arch,

As usual, the Sirius 24 ligh ting board was hired together with 4 six way Beta packs. Coloured revolving discs courtesy of the effects section of the lighting board, iI locked off follow spot and additionul rope lights created the effect of the night-club well enough but the lilst sce.ne in pa rticular depends on lighhng effects when Billy is supposed to have lit the night-clu b in a special way. We did our bes t although probably falling a little short of what the author actually intend ed . Lighting the alleyway was very successful with the ga uze becoming satisfactorily transparent when lit.

SPECIAL~

The kettle and other electrical appliances 'sparki ng out' when swi tched on, an effect which occurs th roughout the play, was ach.ieved quite sin1ply by se tting off a camera flash hidden near the appliance. The 'fire' was of course created entire>ly by the use of lighting and sound, with the help of a smoke

gun and some detonator caps to s imulate the noise of the fuses blowing. A seemingly fatal setback occ urred on the eveni ng of the technical rehearsal, when the fire inspector from the local council prohibited the use of the pyro effect we were going to use to signify the explosive start of the fire but additional sound and lighting concentra ted in one corner covered the loss quite well , if not so dramatically!

Was it the most technically challenging play we have ever put on? Probably. Was it successfuJ? Judging by the reaction of the near capacity audiences on all three evenings, definitely. The standing ovation given to Little Voice after the night-club scene and her wonderful rendition of the medlcy of songs and the thundero us applause at the end of every evening more than justified the weeks of rehearsa l and the late nights .

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