The Compton Players' NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2002

Contents

Editorial - Another one down the drain
Under Milk Wood - second thoughts
Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood
Photo album
What they thought of it
Dave's cartoon
Swanning about at Christmas
News of members
Onwards and upwards
Molière and comedy
Save a tree in 2003
CP Calendar
Next newsletter

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Another one down the drain

A quote from one of the cast (whose blushes I shall spare) after the curtain closed on Under Milk Wood for the last time. I think (I hope) what he meant to say was "another one under our belt", or similar. Because by any standards this was a remarkable achievement, and a personal triumph for Eric. As well as managing a cast of thousands (well, it seemed like that when we were all in the Welstead Room), he directed it, designed and painted the set and designed and painted the masks. And he had the most lines to learn.

As usual, it never looked like it would be ready in time, and as usual it was. I'm sure we all enjoyed taking part in such an exciting and challenging production.

Keeping the theme going, Eric gives his second thoughts on the production, and Rob offers some background into Dylan Thomas and the play. There's Dave's cartoon, and the Newbury Weekly News review. Rob has a follow-up to his previous article on Molière. And of course we're looking ahead to the next productions...

'I'm calling the shots. There isn't someone cutting, or shooting me from a particular angle, it's me and I can hear when an audience is getting it. It's usually a man with an especially dirty laugh. When you hear that, it's as if they're saying, "Go on, give me more..." That relationship sparks me off: the rapport is so exciting. Of course, by the same token, when the laughs don't come, you know you're dying out there.' 

Alison Steadman explaining why she prefers theatre to TV or film, ES Magazine, 19.1.01

Under Milk Wood - second thoughts

Following his article before the event in the last Newsletter, Eric now offers us his thoughts on how it turned out.

My second thoughts kicked in about three quarters of the way through rehearsals, when I started to wonder whether all the masks and the set would be finished on time, and when it seemed that the hundred and one other things essential for a successful production seemed that they would never come together.

Although everyone was very good about attendance at rehearsals, it wasn't until quite late on that we had a rehearsal where everybody needed was present, which does slow things down. I was impressed by the commitment of the younger members of the cast in particular, some of whom even turned up when they were not actually required, and read in for absentees. Such enthusiasm is promising for the future, and much credit is due to those among the more experienced members who set such a good example.

I am sure that some of the cast thought that this was rather an unusual play (and a bizarre choice) and it took some effort on their part to come to terms with its meaning. Some I'm sure had doubts about my sanity in choosing it, but kept their opinions well under wraps and got on with the job. I am grateful for their loyalty and their faith in my judgement. Some have admitted now that it's all over, that they wondered how on earth I was going to do it. I did have great difficulty in getting some people to understand what was meant by the poetry of the lines, and I am still not convinced that I succeeded with everyone.

It really has been a learning curve for all involved, but far harder than I thought. My original ideas gradually evolved throughout rehearsals, and we ended up with something quite different to what I had originally envisaged. This was a good thing, as it meant that creative boundaries were constantly being tested. Never was there any risk of over rehearsing or 'going stale'.

I am sure everyone has experienced going to a show or a film that has been hyped and eulogised over, only to come away with a sense of anti climax because we did not enjoy it as much as we expected to. I have several times achieved a long-held ambition to play a certain part, only to feel when the last night was over, that I could have done it much better (and that was even before reading the reviews). The feeling is much more common for a director. One always feels that however much of a success a show has been, it would be nice to start again and do it differently.

However, Under Milk Wood has been a success and we have achieved a tremendous amount. The enthusiasm of the large cast and technical staff gave me the confidence to keep going, and by the final performances I knew we had, together, succeeded in creating something rather special.

We have broken new ground in many departments. The use of masks turned out to be justified to the extent that one forgot at times that masks were being worn. The puppets of the drowned dead worked well and were imaginatively lit. Live singing, both by individuals, and in chorus, was beautifully done, whether it was Dave's bawdy pub ballad, Tracey's poignant love song or the children's game. Speaking verse, and poetical prose, so different from the normal dialogue we are used to in most of the plays we present, was handled well. The Welsh accent was valiantly attempted with varying degrees of success, and one has to mention Paul's heroic handling of the pronunciation in his 'morning poem'.

For those who like statistics, here are just a few. We had our largest cast ever. 27 people playing 70 parts, using 54 masks. Number of prompts, nil! Seven people were making their debut on stage for Compton Players and a further two had their first speaking role with us plus 3 new to the backstage team. That's nine new faces on stage! We've done many plays with smaller casts than that.

Third thoughts - Phew, it's over.

Dylan Thomas and Under Milk Wood

Rob gives us some background to the author and the play.

Dylan Thomas began his working life in 1930, aged 16, when he went to work as a journalist for the South Wales Evening Post. He had not done well at the school he attended, Swansea Grammar School, where his father was head of English, but he had shown an unusual talent for writing, and poetry in particular. It was, moreover, a talent which he had worked on compulsively to develop still further.

In 1936 he moved to London where he continued to work as a journalist and also to establish himself as a poet. He had already published Eighteen Poems two years previously and he had been taken up by the poet and critic Edith Sitwell who hailed him as a major English poet - not bad for someone who was just 21. In 1937 he married Caitlin Macnamara. Thomas became a well-known figure in literary London and in the pubs and clubs of Soho and Chelsea. He found himself in the peculiar position of being both famous and very poor. Journalism, work for the BBC and film scripts during World War Two brought him some sort of income but not enough and in 1946 he was talking of emigrating. Before the war Thomas and his wife had stayed on holiday in the small town of Laugharne on Carmarthen Bay. They had returned to it more than once and in 1949 they decided to live there permanently at The Boathouse. It was Laugharne, and similar seaside towns and villages which Thomas also knew, which seem to have provided the inspiration and the raw material for Under Milk Wood. Although he appears to have had great affection for the place - he's buried there - he seems to have had mixed feelings about its inhabitants and the feeling seems to have been mutual. 'All the women there's got web feet' he said, on one occasion. 'Mind out for the evil eye! Never go there at the full moon!' They, for their part, found him at times an odd, nervy individual and, on the success of Under Milk Wood, there was not universal approval for 'borrowing our pub gossip and spinning it into a classic translated into 26 languages'.

The famous radio broadcast of Under Milk Wood was not to be until 1954, however, after Thomas's death. The first publication of it in print was in 1952 in the literary and political magazine Botteghe Oscure. This was an Italian magazine - the name means 'dark shops' and, no, I've no idea why. But during the 1950s it had an international reputation. The first public performance of Under Milk Wood was in 1953 in New York City. Thomas had gone to America in the autumn of that year in an attempt to make money on a lecture tour, giving readings from his poetry. Despite assistance from wealthy friends his financial affairs were in a mess and he was being doggedly pursued by the Inland Revenue for unpaid tax in past years. Tragically, the rigours of the lecture tour combined with years of alcohol abuse proved too much for him and he died in hospital in New York from a combination of alcoholism and pneumonia on 9th November, 1953, exactly one month after leaving the boathouse at Laugharne. He was 39 years old.

And more from Rob on some of the trickier bits in the play.

Dylan Thomas was from South Wales and all the places mentioned in Under Milk Wood, with the exception of Llaregyb/Llaregub - try saying it backwards if you haven't already done so - can be found on a good road-map of Wales. Some other words may be more obscure:

donkeyman	as in 'Tom Fred the donkeyman'. In Dylan Thomas's day there were no such things as container ships. On cargo ships everything was lifted in and out of the hold which was below decks by a crane on the dockside. Cargo ships of any size also had one or two small cranes mounted on the deck which were used for lifting small loads in and out of the hold when a dockside crane either wasn't necessary or wasn't available. This crane had its own small auxiliary engine which was known as the donkey engine and often the crane itself was called 'the donkey engine'. So the donkeyman on board ship was the man in charge of the hoist.
S.S. Kidwelly	the S.S. stands for steamship. Some cargo ships ran on regular scheduled routes. Others were known as 'tramp' steamers and sailed from port to port to port around the world wherever there was a cargo to be picked up. It meant that they were often away from their home ports for long periods. It sounds as if the S.S. Kidwelly was one of these.
besom	a besom is a broom of the sort shown in pictures of witches. In Scotland and the far north of England it was also used to describe a woman who's rather bossy, very full of herself and perhaps a bit malicious or unscrupulous. It's not meant as a compliment. Dylan Thomas's use of it to describe Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard suggests that the word was also used in South Wales and with exactly the same meaning.
playing mwchins	opinions seem to vary slightly on just what this phrase means. Translations are 'skiving', 'playing about', 'playing hookey', 'getting up to mischief' and 'just hanging about'. Take your pick.

 

After Thomas's death his notebooks were found to have been continually worked on. Despite a wild and bohemian lifestyle his work had been minutely and continually laboured over and he was an impassioned, even obsessional craftsman. Some scholars have since concluded that the bulk of his work had been completed in embryonic form before the age of 21; the remainder of his life's work was a continual re-fashioning and improvement of what he had originally written. Not only do his poems contain rich subject matter, dealing with themes of sex and death, sin and redemption, the natural processes, creation and decay, but they also show complete technical mastery of form.

Photo album

Thanks to Tony Gartshore for taking the photos. There's an album of over 90 Under Milk Wood pictures here.

'To start with, I used to ask them to leave the room when I changed, but eventually I used to pee, topless, in the basin with the boys.'

Issy van Randwyck on sharing a dressing room while working as the only female at Madame JoJo's transvestite cabaret, The Sunday Times, 17.6.01.

(and you thought the Welstead Room was bad.)

What they thought of it

Here's the review from the Newbury Weekly News.

New 'take' on a classic 'UNDER MILK WOOD', performed by Compton Players, at The Coronation Hall, Compton, from Wednesday, November 6 to Saturday, November 9 "The Compton Players are always seeking to try something new", we were told in the programme, and full credit to them for courage in presenting the stage version of this play. For the first time they were using masks (made by the company, I understand) and presenting musical numbers, and both worked extremely well. Polly Garter's unaccompanied lament was convincingly sung. The masks, most half-faced, enabled the players to change characters effortlessly, and gave credence to the less-than-natural or, rather, more-than-natural, Dylan Thomas poetical prose. The play was originally written for radio and is still a play for the ear. Ideally, that beautiful prose, full of imaginative and exhilarating adjectives, adverbs, similes and metaphors, should be listened to without the distraction of movement on stage. Sometimes I closed my eyes, just to hear the poetry and find my own mind-pictures. It meant that the slightest hesitation or 'fluffing' (though there were very few instances) caused interruption and irritation. Narrator Eric Saxton had a formidable task as he walked through the auditorium, painting word pictures and introducing us to the fishing village and people of Milk Wood at dead of night. 'Dead' was the opening scene, with floating fluorescent skeletons of the drowned in conversation with still-living Captain Cat. We then met more than 50 villagers and a gang of children. To my inexpert ear, all spoke with credible Welsh accents that neither protruded nor jarred. We also heard the voices of the Ilsleys' Primary School choir directed by Helen Pearce (decidedly without Welsh accents!) Great acting was not called for, and of course, there was less facial expression under the masks, but representation of all the characters was excellent, with one or two I specially liked, such as the young girl demanding a kiss or a penny. There was no jostling as they came and went, sometimes at speed, across the small stage, and the pace was maintained, especially I thought in the second half, though it may be that I had adjusted to the concept by that time. The set worked well with its different levels which overran into the auditorium, and a backdrop that looked at the sea through a large porthole. Lighting and costumes were well executed. Their loyal audience, representing many surrounding villages, seemed well-satisfied. IRIS LLOYD

This is a mean-spirited, condescending and grudging review, and we deserved better. Iris Lloyd also gave us a 'faint praise' review of Katherine Howard, complaining that Katherine only had two costumes. Can we have a different reviewer next time please?

Marguerite wrote this letter to the Newbury Weekly News:

Occasionally I read a preview or review of a film, book, play or TV programme and wonder whether it really is referring to the same film, TV programme or book that I have seen or read.

Compton Players' recent production of 'Under Milk Wood' was well received by its audiences. I expect that this was not so much because the audiences were loyal (as Iris Lloyd seems to think) but was rather due to the audiences' ability to enjoy an excellent production.

What a pity that Iris Lloyd's review is so grudging in its praise. Never mind, the rest of us know a good thing when we see it. Well done, Compton Players!

We got a very nice good luck card from Chris Horton of Boundary Players and BANTA, and she followed it up with this note:

I'm writing to send congratulations to The Compton Players on their recent success of Under Milk Wood - which my friend Liz and I very much enjoyed last Thursday.

The peace, beautiful prose and darkness of the opening narrative was particularly appreciated by us as we had experienced a last minute rush caused by horrendous traffic on the A33/M4.

It's not always easy to find a way to stage something that is far from straightforward. We both felt that CP were particularly successful on this occasion and we wondered whether this was CP's own idea or poached?

Again, well done. We're looking forward with eager anticipation to your next production.

Thanks Chris. We had some very pleasing comments from the audiences, but it's always especially good to get something in writing.

Dave's cartoon

To the cast and crew (both of them!) of Under Milk Wood... May your elastic never snap!

Onwards and upwards

Under Milk Wood will be a hard act to follow, but for a change we've got directors queuing up for the next productions. Our spring production is Shaw's Arms and the Man, which we read and liked last summer, and which Dave will direct. H has agreed to produce his new play at Wallingford (if we like it, he says - we will, H) in June, and Tracey will do the autumn production which, rumour has it, may be a pantomime.

Molière and comedy

This is Rob's follow-up to his articles about Molière in the last Newsletter.

The French regard the playwright Molière as particularly their own, in much the same way as the English regard Shakespeare as their native genius. Shakespeare represents many attitudes that seem to be particularly English and the French believe that Molière portrays many types of situation and character which are particularly French. These French characteristics include amongst other things a love of philosophical debate combined with what the French believe is a hard-headed realism and sharp-eyed deflation of pomposity or hypocrisy. Like Shakespeare, however, Molière is much more than one country's national playwright and his chief claim to fame is as a writer of comedies. This was not the road upon which he first embarked in the theatre. His original ambition was to be a writer and actor of tragedy but fate seemed to work against him. His one attempt at a tragedy, Dom Garcia, ou le prince jaloux (The Jealous Prince), was a failure and he never attempted the genre again. Moreover, he seems to have had the appearance of a comic actor or a clown rather than a tragedian: contemporary accounts describe him as having a very mobile, expressive face and a light and athletic build. The fashion of the day demanded tragic actors who could rant and roar and strut upon the stage and none of this sounds like Molière. He was also said to be an accurate and amusing mimic.

All of Molière's successful plays were comedies. Thirty-five of the ninety or so plays performed by his company during its fifteen years in Paris from 1658 to 1673 were written by Molière himself. Much of the dialogue sounds surprisingly modern, as for instance in Le médecin malgré lui (The doctor in spite of himself) where the central character, a bogus doctor, mistakenly locates a patient's heart on the right-hand side of the body. When one of the onlookers asks if it shouldn't be on the left the doctor replies grandly 'Oh, we've changed all that.' - try saying it in a Dad's Army Captain Mainwaring voice.

Like all good comedy there is much incidental social commentary and observation of human nature in Molière's plays. In his case it was to bring him enemies. L'école des femmes (The School for Wives) in 1662 cast a sidelong look at the conventions of marriage as they were at the time. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Middleclass Nobleman) in 1670 explored a social phenomenon of the time, an increasingly large and wealthy merchant middleclass which aspired to join the ranks of the nobility. Tartuffe, 1669, inspired by a real-life episode, made great fun of religious hypocrisy. All of this was against a background of 17th century France where the greatest authorities were the Church and Louis XIV, most powerful of French monarchs. Leading courtiers and members of the nobility also had great influence. Any playwright or philosopher needed to have the patronage of one or more of the great ones.

Louis gave Molière the protection of his patronage but royal patronage could be fickle, depending upon who had the King's ear at court, and even a monarch like Louis XIV could not prevail too far against the power of the Church. Despite the authority of the king the Archbishop of Paris successfully prevented any performance of Tartuffe for five years by the twin strategies of using influence at court and by threatening the excommunication of anyone who went to see a performance.

These were serious considerations for Molière. This was a society where those who went too far against the authorities could find themselves facing either execution or indefinite imprisonment. More immediately, no performances meant no livelihood, neither for Molière himself nor the members of his company. Molière therefore set out to defend himself and his plays. He did this by publishing his ideas and explanations in writing. The writing either took the form of further plays - opponents of L'école des femmes were answered by La Critique de L'école des femmes six months later - or of prefaces to plays or of petitions to the King. Molière wrote two such petitions in order to get Tartuffe performed. Fortunately he wrote quickly and well - 'fortunately' because he was writing for survival.

Having to justify himself in this way meant that Molière had to think about comedy and how it was achieved. It's also important to remember in all of this that he himself was an accomplished actor and producer and so knew as well as anyone what worked upon the stage. And for us, more than three centuries later, it's very interesting to see what Molière believed. Until then most comedy seems to have consisted of mediaeval buffoonery of one kind or another as with Bottom the Weaver and the rest of 'the rude mechanicals' in A Midsummer Night's Dream. As for much of Shakespeare's comic dialogue most of us at one time or another will have seen talented actors working desperately hard to get laughs out of lines that seem to us to be unfunny, incomprehensible or downright odd.

With Molière, however, we are upon more familiar ground which we can recognise and his analysis of what makes good comedy is as valid now as it was on the day that he wrote it. 'Incongruity,' he declared, 'is the heart of the comic.' Think again of Dad's Army and in particular Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson and the relationship between them - Sergeant Wilson with the lower rank but quite clearly Mainwaring's social superior and with the better accent. He also believed that comedy, however zany or fantastic it became, needed to be firmly rooted in reality if it was to be successful - 'You haven't achieved anything in comedy unless your portraits can be seen to be living types.' Think of Frazier on TV where all the types are recognisable but in the case of Frazier and Nils Crane greatly exaggerated.

Frazier, in fact is typical of a situation frequently found in Molière's plays where it's the minor characters, usually servants or wives, who bring the pretensions or the hypocrisies of the chief characters down to earth. In Frazier this role, of course, is filled by Dad, and, to a certain extent, by Daphne. Absolutely Fabulous is another example with the role this time being filled by the mum (June Whitfield).

Running throughout Molière's plays, in fact, is a sort of double vision of humanity with the wise next to the foolish, right next to wrong, the pretentious faced with reality. At the same time he was wary about laying down hard and fast rules about what created good comedy. As he wrote on one occasion, 'Making decent people laugh is a strange business.' He also wondered, and with this we can all agree, 'if the golden rule is not simply to give pleasure and that a play which can do that is on the right track.'

Save a tree in 2003

Most of our members have now got an email address and Internet access, so we have the opportunity to save some money and some trees by reducing the number of paper copies of the Newsletter that we send out. Each paper copy costs about 40p to print and distribute by mail, and there are five issues a year - you can work out for yourselves how many bottles of wine the Chairman could buy with the savings.

All issues of the Newsletter are kept on our website, and for this edition I've also produced a PDF version of it which you can view and print if you want to, although it's pretty big.

For the future, I'm proposing an opt-in system: if you're on the Compton Players email list, you'll get an email notification that the newsletter is on the web site, but no paper copy unless you let me know () that you want to continue receiving them.

The advantages of the web-based Newsletter are:

• You get it up to a week earlier than the paper version.

• It's in colour.

• You get access to other things, like the photo albums.

• Er... that's it.

Looking back at his stint as a theatre critic in Bristol, Tom Stoppard said: 'I never had the moral courage to pan a friend.' He then added: 'I had the moral courage never to pan a friend.'

CP Calendar

Next newsletter

All offerings to me, by email to , or by post to Paul Shave, Windrush, The Ridge, Cold Ash, Thatcham, RG18 9HX, 01635 866800. By 2nd January - get scribing in the post-Christmas lull.

'Acting provides the fulfilment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.'

Glenda Jackson

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