Life in England

“The good seaman weathers the storm he cannot avoid, and avoids the storm he cannot weather.”

Proverb

Dress rehearsal night for our production of Parzival finds us one cast-member short (as captain of the under fifteen cricket side that has won through to the semi-finals of a national competition he is three hours journey from here and won’t be back until after the run-through) – several of the musicians are playing the score for the first time – some of the cast will be hearing music cues live for the first time (if they happen at all!) and most of the costume changes and property settings are as yet untested.

These anxieties are not – however – our main preoccupation. That – you may not be surprised to hear – is the weather!

The English summer is playing its usual tricks. As the summer solstice nears during what we used to call ‘Flaming June’ we would hope for – nay expect – the weather to be fine, sunny and warm. It has been cold, wet and grey!

Today – to the contrary – is oppressively muggy and close, but the threat of rain is ever present. I have been studying the forecasts nervously for the past two weeks now. The predictions seem to change almost by the hour. It will be rainy – it will be overcast – the rain will clear in time for the performances – the precipitation is set in for the day. One thing only is certain – there will be weather!

That this matters is down to the decision to stage the production as a promenade – incorporating external spaces. There is – of course – a wet-weather plan – but that represents the sort of compromise that we would rather avoid.

Oh well – fingers crossed!

If you are a regular follower of these ramblings you may well have noticed that there has been something of a falling off in the frequency of posts over this last period. The reasons for this will be only too evident to any of you who have been engaged at any point in the pursuit of thespism. The first night of the School’s production of ‘Parzival’ takes place exactly a week from today and pretty much all of my spare time – and indeed of my energies – are currently being poured into that endeavour.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

I had intended – by this point – to be regaling the gentle reader with thoughtful discourse on the challenges of adapting the medieval lyrical epic to the somewhat prosaic environs of the late sixties school buildings in which we are – in the main – ensconced. I refer – of course – to my as yet embryonic production of Parzival – which is to be offered later this term as the School’s Junior Play.

Sadly the expected and eagerly anticipated directorial regimen of dramatic problem-solving is still not the main focus. I am rather yet beset by matters markedly more mundane – specifically those arising from the nature of the mind of the thirteen and fourteen year old boy, and in particular from their apparently antithetical ability to be simultaneously irritatingly clever and incomprehensibly incapable of the simplest feat of self-organisation.

There are twenty four boys in the cast. They play between them some forty named characters – in addition to the usual stage dressing of lunatics and spear-carriers. It is understood that – in the early stages of rehearsal – the boys will have many competing demands on their time, and great care was thus taken to canvas their availability before drawing up the first draft of the first call-sheet.

During the normal school week there are ten possible rehearsal slots – at lunchtime and after school each day. The average respondent seemed able to manage around six of those slots. The keenest – playing one of the smallest roles, naturally – was available for all ten, whereas the most reluctant could only offer three! One wondered quite why he had put himself forward for audition at all, given the clearly congested nature of his calendar.

Almost inevitably the task of matching the availability of any particular combination of boys to the groupings required by the script has proved to be a Herculean one. Each time a new call-sheet is required I must needs spend several hours surrounded by grids and charts attempting to unpick this particular Gordian knot. Inevitably also, no sooner have I posted the freshly-minted edition than some boy will appear at my door pleading special circumstances…

This is annoying!

It is not – however – the most annoying aspect of the process.

I have only slightly reluctantly taken on this massive organisational task and my feelings are – naturally – tempered by the fact that the previously enumerated complexities of my own script do not make life any easier. The boys – however – have only three immediate tasks:

• to know when and where they are required for rehearsal – and to be there on time
• to bring with them their script (let’s not even think about them actually learning it at this point!)
• to bring a pencil or other writing implement – to enable them to take notes

You would be astonished (or maybe you wouldn’t!) by just how much these simple tasks seem to be beyond some of the brightest boys in the country. Every time that one of them – and it is usually those playing the smaller roles – ‘forgets’ to attend rehearsal, the call-sheet must be amended afresh and further time carved out of an already stoppered schedule.

They are – of course – public school boys, and they will – therefore – naturally pull it all together at the last possible minute and triumph effortlessly yet again.

Thus was the empire forged…

I pontificated at some length – in this previous post – on the subject of the audition process for the Junior Play which I am directing at the School this term. The first full meeting of the cast – and the commencement of the rehearsal process – takes place later today, and I thought that this might be an appropriate time to provide – for the illumination of the gentle reader – some further details as to the nature of the production.

The piece is an adaptation of the Parzival story, taking as its source the major 13th century lyrical poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach – itself based on the earlier version by Chrétien de Troyes. I wrote the adaptation when at my previous school and it was performed there as the equivalent play for juniors in the summer of 2005 – the year that I left the school.

My ‘advert’ for this production – intended to arouse interest amongst the junior boys – read thus:

This ambitious project showcases a new adaptation for the stage of Wolfram’s epic lyric poem of knighthood, courtly love, honour and the search for the Grail. Battles, jousts, magical castles, magnificent feasts, gallant knights and beautiful maidens are all to be found within its compass. As befits such an epic production the play will be performed as a promenade in a number of locations around the School.

As an incentive this was clearly a success, since some forty nine boys auditioned for the twenty four roles. The piece was specifically written for boys of this age and aims to be a blend of comic book action, suitably dry humour and mythology – but with a subtle but healthy dose of more serious meaning lurking in the background.

The reader will have gleaned from the above that the piece is performed as a promenade. For those unfamiliar with the form of theatre this involves the audience being moved around to follow the action. This can range from a straightforward variety of different configurations in a studio theatre all the way up to the use of physically disparate locations – indoors and out – as we are doing here.

One of the drivers for doing the play in this manner at my previous school was that it possessed a splendid range of historic buildings, some dating back to the 15th century. We were thus able to make use of some wonderful medieval settings. My current school – though itself very old – is housed in modern buildings. This – naturally – presents more of a challenge. I will write further on how we overcome these difficulties as things progress.

If your mind is already boggled at the potential complexity of the production then – as certain famous Canadians are won’t to say – ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’  Wolfram’s Parzival is actually two overlapping stories wrapped up as one. There are two protagonists, Parzival and Gawan, and – though their paths cross at various points – the two strands are separate – wound around each other like the double helix. When I set about adapting the poem it occurred to me that the only way really to do it was to follow Wolfram’s model and to create two separate strands which would play simultaneously.

The play thus takes this form:

• The first two scenes take place in front of the whole audience and set up all that follows.
• At the end of the second scene the strands separate – as does the audience – half following each tale.
• The subsequent scenes for each tale are played out contemporaneously in different locations.
• The two strands re-combine for the final scene in which the protagonists are re-united and their quests resolved.

Well – these are bright boys and it seemed appropriate to set them a decent challenge.

I will – inevitably – write more regarding the production once things are under way.