The Compton Players' NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2001

Contents

Editorial
Next issue
You breathe in where?!
Boys' toys
News of (ex-) members
Hut clearout
Dave's cartoon
Byways of Theatre History

Our Autumn production, Katherine Howard, takes place later this month and all of our efforts are directed towards that event. Please note that this production will be taking place over four nights instead of the usual three and there will be performances on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th of November. Posters and handbills are now available and members are asked to ensure that there is a wide distribution; both posters and handbills can be obtained from David Smith. If he doesn't get to you first! Tickets for performances can be obtained from Norma Smith. Both David and Norma can be contacted on 01635 578821; their address is Rookery Cottage, Wallingford Road, Compton, Newbury RG20 6PS. Although not in costume at this stage the play in rehearsal is both looking and sounding very good and promises to be an excellent production.

On other pages Paul gives details of planned improvements to the sound system and also an account of the voice training session with Stuart Peterson. Something that I with croaking throat and a heavy cold was compelled to miss, much to my regret. It sounds to have been very worthwhile and the company's thanks are due to Stuart for his expert tuition.

Finally, there is a cartoon by Dave and Paul also gives brief reviews of two productions that he has seen recently, together with a list of what's coming up locally in addition to our own brilliant production. See you there.

'I suppose you could define a pessimist as a man who thinks John Webster's Duchess of Malfi a great play; an optimist as one who believes it actable.'

Ronald Bryden - Blood Soaked Circus

You breathe in where?!

At the AGM, the Chairman told us that Stuart Peterson, a Compton resident and a trained singer, had offered to give us a class on breathing and voice projection. If you saw the Passion Play last year, you'll remember Stuart as Caiaphas. So on the 8th of September, 13 of us turned up at the Coronation Hall, not knowing what to expect but each bearing a copy of the Yellow Pages (some were for Berkshire, some for Oxfordshire - fortunately it didn't matter). 

For two hours, Stuart re-educated us in how to breathe: you breathe in from between your legs. It may sound daft, but it's all to do with filling your whole chest with air, down to your diaphragm, rather than just the upper part of your lungs. It actually made sense when we were doing it, and most of us had some degree of success in achieving what Stuart was teaching us. (In fact, to my embarrassment, I was the only one who didn't get the hang of it. I can report that I have had more success subsequently, in the privacy of my bedroom. Well, partial privacy; Marguerite has tolerated my heavy breathing, but then she goes to yoga classes so she knows something about it already.)

It was an enjoyable session, and Stuart made a good teacher. When we were lying down with our legs apart, he told us it was all right to fart if we needed to, but we were all too polite to let rip. I hope there will be a follow-up session when Stuart can tell us more about how we project our voices through the tops of our heads. And the Yellow Pages? They were to rest our heads on when we were lying down.

Paul Shave

Boys' toys

The committee had earmarked some money to upgrade our sound system, so after a lot of discussion we decided to get a new mixer desk and some new amplifiers and speakers. At the time of writing, we are waiting for the mixer desk to appear, we have bought one amplifier, with two more needed (but Mike may be able to cannibalise the old system) and Ian has produced a pair of speakers. Paul has also donated a PC for which we have bought a second sound card and some wave editing software. The plan (or at any rate Paul's plan) is to have all the sounds for a play held on the PC, where the next sound can be cued by the press of a button.

The reason for having two sound cards is so that one can be producing a continuous wind and rain noise while the other is used for specific thunder crashes (no, not for Katherine Howard). We won't worry at present about the more complicated case with the rain and thunder as above, but also radio sounds coming out of the effects speaker.

Because we don't trust computers, we'll always have all the sounds on a CD as a backup.

Hut clearout

Our Chairman reports a very successful clearout of our accommodation in the Scout Hut. Thanks are due to Mike and Dot, Eric and Liz, Ian, Peter and Brenda - apologies to anyone we've missed - who turned up on September 1st for this perennial task.

The American actress Ethel Barrymore of an actress notorious for her bad language who made a successful transition from the theatre to the early (silent) cinema: 'Now she can be obscene and not heard.'

Notes from our roving reporter

I've been to see two Watermill productions recently. The first was Witch, the current touring production. I saw it at Upper Bucklebury, where it had made the front page of the Newbury Weekly News because Christians from the village were objecting to the witchcraft content. It was by Ade Morris, who also wrote and produced the previous two touring productions: The Dreamer (excellent) and Lone Flyer (not so good). I struggled with Witch; I found it difficult to understand (and, judging from comments in the interval, I wasn't alone) and I felt that Morris's excursion into the metaphysical was less successful that the previous productions which were anchored on the lives of real people.

The second play I saw was The Merchant of Venice - in Japanese, so I didn't understand a word of it. It was, nevertheless, quite engrossing, and with a rough idea of what's going on (thanks to the synopsis they supplied) it's surprisingly easy to get the gist of it (the whole experience is probably similar to watching Madam Butterfly sung in Italian). It does, of course, let you concentrate not on the words but on the delivery, the acting and the overall production, all of which were very impressive. It's not something I would have chosen to see, but Ben's doing MoV in A-level drama, so it seemed the right thing to do. I'm glad I did, and he thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Paul Shave

This reminds me of the Englishman who found himself in a cinema in Spain at a showing of the Charlton Heston film about the 12th century Spanish hero El Cid Unusually for an Englishman our cinemagoer both understood and spoke fluent Spanish. 'Here I was,' he said, 'sitting in a cinema in Spain watching a film in English about Spain's national hero, simultaneously reading the Spanish subtitles and listening to the English dialogue and also hearing the occasional comment in Spanish from those around me. Believe me, after an hour or so of this I was no longer sure of who I was or where I was.' Matters were not helped, he added, when on leaving the cinema he straightaway bumped into three monks rounding the corner - this was 1950s Spain - who were all in full mediaeval habit from cowls to sandals.

Byways of Theatre History

All is True or The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII

We seem to keep coming back to Henry VIII - Dave Hawkins certainly does - what with A Man for all Seasons and now Katherine Howard. The play above is thought by some to be Shakespeare's last work for the stage: he's believed to have part-authored it. Not one of his greatest works and now seldom performed it has nevertheless attracted some star actors in the past: the 18th century actress Sarah Siddons, for example, was said to have been terrifying as Queen Catherine.

It's also notable as an example of things going spectacularly wrong on the technical side, even in the 17th century. At its first performance in 1613 at The Globe a cannon shot announcing the arrival of Henry set fire to the thatched roof and the theatre burned down in less than an hour, fortunately with no loss of life. According to Sir Henry Wootton, 'only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have boiled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with Bottle-Ale.'

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