The Soldiers’ Fortune
By Thomas Otway
Contents
1. Thomas Otway – Man, Life and Career
2. Otway’s London
3. Restoration Theatre
4. Restoration: Politics, Society and the Theatre
5. Restoration Comedy
6. Synopsis
7. The Play
8. History of the Tango
9. Cast and Creative Team
10.Interview with David Lan, Director
11.Interview with Alexandra Reynolds, Choreographer
12.Interview with Lizzie Clachan, Designer
13.Interview with Joan Wadge, Costume Designer
14.Interview with David Bamber, Sir Jolly Jumble
15.Interview with Oliver Ford-Davies, Sir Davy Dunce
16.Assistant Director’s Diary
17.Further Resources
18.Feedback Forms
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If you have any questions or comments about this Resource Pack please
contact us:
The Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London, SE1 8LZ
T: 020 7922 2858
F: 020 7922 2802
e: info@youngvic.org
Compiled by: Alexandra Brierley
© Young Vic 2007
First performed at the Young Vic Theatre on 16 February 2007
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The Soldiers’ Fortune
By Thomas Otway
1. THOMAS OTWAY – MAN, LIFE AND CAREER
Thomas Otway was born on the 3rd March 1652 in West Sussex, the only son of
the rector of Woolbeding. He went to school at Winchester College and in 1669
he attended Christ Church College, Oxford, but left university without a
degree in 1672.
He quickly made his way to London and became friends with the famous female
playwright, Aphra Behn. Through this friendship, Otway embarked on a shortlived career on the stage as an actor. Behn cast him as the Old King in her
play Forc’d Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom at the Dorset Garden Theatre
[also know as the Duke’s Theatre]. He had such serious stage fright on the
first night that he never made a second appearance.
Thomas Otway by Thomas Flatman, 1675
Elizabeth Barry
Otway from then on turned his attention to playwriting. In 1675, the famous
Restoration theatre actor Thomas Betterton produced Otway’s first play
Alcibiades at the Dorset Garden Theatre. It was his first attempt at a
tragedy, and was only saved from utter failure by the actors. The part of
Draxilla was taken by a seventeen year old girl called Elizabeth Barry, who
was to become the greatest actress of her day; she was thought to have had an
incredible presence and was considered a great tragedienne. Otway fell
passionately in love with her, an unrequited love that would last all his
life.
Barry was already the mistress of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester – a
famous Restoration rake1, and a poet. Despite Rochester’s and Otway’s love
rivalry, Otway dedicated his next play to him – Don Carlos, the Prince of
1
A rake is a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat.
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Spain which was produced in 1676, and was his first success. As a result,
Rochester introduced Otway to the Duke of York (the future James II), but as
other famous playwrights of the period such as Dryden found out, Rochester was
a fickle patron, and soon turned to ridiculing Otway.
In 1678, he produced his first comedy Friendship in Fashion which was very
successful. It was perhaps at this time that he lost hope in his love for
Elizabeth Barry. There are six surviving letters to her - here is an excerpt
of one of them:
“Could I see you without passion, or be absent from you without pain, I need
not beg your pardon for thus renewing my vows that I love you more than
health, or any happiness here or hereafter.
Everything you do is a new charm to me, and though I have lanquished for seven
long tedious years of desire, jealously despairing, yet every minute I see you
I still discover something new and more bewitching. Consider how I love you;
what would I not renounce or enterprise for you?
I must have you mine, or I am miserable, and nothing but knowing which shall
be the happy hour can make the rest of my years that are to come tolerable.
Give me a word or two of comfort, or resolve never to look on me more, for I
cannot bear a kind look and after it a cruel denial.
This minute my heart aches for you; and, if I cannot have a right in yours, I
wish it would ache till I could complain to you no longer.”
Elizabeth clearly never had any intention of exchanging Rochester for Otway.
Driven to desperation, he obtained an army commission through the Earl of
Plymouth in a regiment serving in the Netherlands. An unexpected peace treaty
the following year in 1679 disbanded the troops and they were left to find
their own way home. Otway returned to London, ragged and starving. His
resentment at the treatment of disbanded soldiers would find an outlet in his
play The Soldiers’ Fortune in 1680, which will be explored in detail below.
(Section 7.)
In 1680 the first of Otway’s two successful tragedies was produced at the
Dorset Garden – The Orphan, or the Unhappy Marriage. Its success was due to
the tragic pathos, of which he was master, and the superb acting by Elizabeth
Barry who played the part of Monimia. Next came The History and Fall of Caius
Marius in the same year – it is based on the story of Marius in Plutarch’s
Lives. The year he also published his The Poet’s Complaint of his Muse, or a
Satyr against Libells in which he retaliated against his literary enemies,
such as Rochester.
Early in 1682, his play Venice Preserv’d, or a Plot Discover’d was produced to
great acclaim. The story was based on the Histoire de la conjuration des
Espagnols contre la Venise en 1618 by the Abbé de Saint-Real, but Otway
modified the story considerably. Its success was partly due to its bearings on
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the Popish Plot [a Catholic plot to assassinate the King] and because of its
caricature of the Earl of Shaftesbury as the naughty old senator, Antonio, as
well as Mrs Barry’s fine performance as Belvidera. It was so successful that
it was translated into every modern European language.
Nearly on the verge of theatrical and financial prosperity, Otway made one
last attempt to win Elizabeth. She promised to meet him in the Mall but
unsurprisingly, she stood him up. He sent her this last letter:
“You were pleased to send me word you would meet me in the Mall this evening,
and give me further satisfaction in the Matter you were so unkind to charge me
with; I was there, but found you not, and therefore beg of you, as you ever
would wish yourself to be eased of the highest Torment it were possible for
your Nature to be sensible of, to let me see you some time to Morrow, and send
me word by this Bearer, where, and at what Hour you will be so just as either
to acquit or condemn me; that I may hereafter, for your sake, either bless all
your bewitching Sex; or as often as I henceforth think of you, curse Womankind
for ever.”
However, poverty was ever fast on his heels, and despite the success of Venice
Preserv’d he never did find financial security. The Atheist, a sequel to The
Soldiers’ Fortune, appeared in 1684 but was not much of a success. He died in
utter poverty in 1685. There is no reliable source of how he died, but the
most famous account of it was in Cibber’s Lives of the Poets. Hiding from his
creditors in Tower Hill, he was
"driven at last to the most grievous necessity, ventured out of his lurking
place, almost naked and shivering, and went into a coffee-house on Tower Hill,
where he saw a gentleman, of whom he had some knowledge, and of whom he
solicited the loan of a shilling. The gentleman was quite shocked, to see the
author of Venice Preserv'd begging bread, and compassionately put into his
hand a guinea. Mr. Otway, having thanked his benefactor, retired, and changed
the guinea to purchase a roll; as his stomach was full of wind from excess of
fasting, the first mouthful choked him and instantaneously put a period to his
days."
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2. OTWAY’S LONDON
The City
In 1660 the population of England was just over five million (compared to over
seven million in London alone today). There were five major provincial cities
– Norwich, Bristol, Newcastle, York and Exeter – and their combined population
was only eighty thousand. In London, over 300,000 people competed for space
and food – it was the third largest city in the world, and by 1750 it was the
largest, despite the effects of the plague epidemic in 1665.
London during this period comprised of the main City – the part of the city
that fell within the Roman walls where most of the business and administration
took place – and growing suburbs. During this period, London was beginning to
spread outwards to Westminster in the west, Hackney in the north by the rich
and the middle class, and to the shipyards in the east by the poor, as well as
further south beyond Southwark. The skyline was dominated by St Paul’s
Cathedral [not the one we know today which was re-built after the Great Fire
in 1666), Westminster Abbey, the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall and the Tower of
London. The streets were still just the same as they had been in Roman times –
narrow and rarely paved - and there was only one bridge across the Thames –
the famous London Bridge. Some improvements were made after the Great Fire of
1666 in which the whole area of the City burned for four days and nights,
destroying some 13,200 houses and all the public buildings. This provided an
opportunity to widen the streets and to build taller houses without the
characteristic medieval overhanging storeys.
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London, and England as a whole, was prosperous for the time, unlike some other
European countries. Textiles were the country’s most important industry,
followed by mining and agriculture. London was the principal manufacturing
city, with the luxury trades of such things as lace and dress making, at the
centre. It was also in London were bankers were based, and were lawyers fought
their cases at the law courts in the City and Westminster. Lastly, London was
a major port; ships from all over the world docked there unloading their
cargoes; it was a hub of experienced seamen and ship builders who would be
building and sailing in England’s fleets.
London attracted people from all over the world, and from all over England,
seeking to make their fortune. As a result, it was a thriving, teeming
community; of young men fresh from the countryside looking for work and
apprenticeships into trades, of the joyful and pleasure-seeking aristocratic
elite in their fine silks, and of the prosperous merchants, bankers and
lawyers doing business in the courts and at the Royal Exchange and down at the
docks. And there was of course the underbelly of the city too; the beggars,
criminals, and prostitutes. All of these people would be eating and drinking
in their local taverns and alehouses, visiting London’s theatre, and strolling
through the parks.
London was a noisy and smelly city. Fresh water was hard to come by so most
drank beer or wine as their daily drink. There was no drainage system in the
way we know it. Instead, the very best you could expect was a channel in the
road that would collect all the mud, excrement and general rubbish. Household
waste was collected in cesspits which were supposed to be emptied regularly
but often were not – in the summer this must have been intolerable. The city
was probably also shrouded in a perpetual fog or smog from the thousands of
household fires, as well as various industries such as the tanneries, the glue
makers and the soap boilers that lay to the south and east of the city that
produced clouds of noxious fumes. These products were made from the hides,
bones and fat of dead animals, all of whom were slaughtered in the city too in
the hundreds of butchers and slaughter houses. On any day hundreds of people
would be trying to force their way through the narrow and congested streets; a
farmer herding his sheep to one of the slaughter houses to be killed, carts
and drays transporting various supplies around the city, businessmen and
lawyers trying to make the daily journey between the City and Westminster in
hackney cabs or by the river boats, and fine ladies in their sedan chairs.
Added to this noise were the street vendors shouting their wares, town criers
and hundreds of stray dogs and cats.
Life in the City
Life expectancy in England during this time was thirty five years. Of all the
children born, about a quarter of them would die before their tenth birthday,
diseases and epidemics being the main cause for infant death. As now, women
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tended to live longer than men, assuming they survived the first ten years of
their marriage which was when women were most at risk due to pregnancy and
childbirth.
At seven a girl was old enough to be betrothed; at twelve she could be legally
married. During her life before marriage she was the responsibility and the
property of her father or male guardian. Once she was married, this became the
responsibility of her husband. Her rights to property, her children and any
education were not usually hers to enjoy. Marriage was the cornerstone of
seventeenth century society, and an institution in which fathers and would-be
husbands haggled over the price of the dowry. Love rarely entered the
equation; and even a liking did not always seem necessary to marriage. Yet
despite this, it was binding. There was no such thing as divorce, and
separation was uncommon.
Women might expect to have between six and seven live babies during their
lives, though it was not uncommon for only two of those children to survive
into adulthood. The horrors inflicted on women and babies during childbirth
were truly appalling. Women of all social standings tended to have someone
official to help them through delivery, but these midwives, nurses and
attendants often did more harm than good. In 1687, one midwife estimated that
two thirds of miscarriages, stillbirths and maternal deaths in childbed were
due to her colleagues. Not only was there no concept of hygiene, labours would
also be hurried on by midwifes eager to get to their next paying customer by
manually piercing the ‘waters’ and pulling the baby out. Once a child was born
it had a host of diseases to face from fevers, rickets, diphtheria, typhus,
tuberculosis, smallpox, and of course plague. During the plague in 1665 it was
thought that somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people died in London.
Pleasure in the City
For the eighteen years prior to Charles II’s reign, the Puritans had closed
all the theatres and places of entertainment and had even gone so far as to
forbid maypoles. The Puritans partly closed the theatres for fear of plague
spreading, but they also objected on moral grounds. They believed that it
encouraged drinking, lewd behaviour and absenteeism from work. When Charles II
was restored to the throne in 1660, there was an explosion of all forms of
entertainment across the country – people had too long been oppressed. Of
course in London there was more entertainment than anywhere else as the
lively, pleasure-seeking Restoration court looked for amusement.
Fashion for a start gained new heights of frivolity, especially for men, who
covered themselves in expensive lace and ribbons. In this the King led. Dress
for women was typically uncomfortable with corsets, stays and whalebone and
heavy brocaded cloth. As neither people nor their clothes were regularly
washed, great store was held in perfumes and oils to conceal the stench. Women
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also had an enormous task in hand to conform to the considered beauty of the
age; dark curly hair, fair clear skin and slim waists. A white, lead-based
cream, called ceruse, was applied to the face – over time this would result in
hair loss and blood poisoning. There were no such modern luxuries such as
hairbrushes or toothbrushes either.
The various entertainments on offer to Restoration society were varied, and
enjoyed by a cross-section of the population. Music, dance and theatre all
enjoyed a period of rejuvenation. One of the first things Charles II did as
King was to issue two patents for two new theatres and companies. He also
issued a proclamation that for the first time in English history, women would
be allowed to appear alongside men on the stage. Other pastimes included
drinking and eating at the many alehouses in the city; visiting gardens and
parks such as Hyde Park; trips to the Royal Menagerie at the Tower; excursions
to the outlying villages such as Highgate; puppet shows at Charing Cross; and
then there were the dubious pleasures of visiting the lunatics in Bedlam (now
the Imperial War Museum) or seeing the latest criminal being hung, drawn and
quartered at Tyburn (now Marble Arch).
In Restoration London, there was one trade that particularly flourished;
prostitution. It has been estimated that the number of whores trading in the
City streets was 3,600. If you consider that the population of the City was
105,000 and that about half of them were women, then the figure becomes quite
stark. They were often country girls lured into the city with promises of good
jobs and good husbands. It was a desperate life; prone to illness, disease and
death by starvation and exposure. There are some famous examples of
prostitutes that were lucky, who through their beauty and wit became the
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mistresses of rich men – Nell Gwynn, Charles II’s mistress being the most
famous.
Despite this now popular view of the Restoration period as immoral and
dissipated, it was a surprisingly principled society. Religion was still the
mainstay of everyone’s lives. Marriage, family and honest living were at the
front of most people’s minds, and there was even some quite vocal criticism of
some of the excesses of Restoration society, particularly focused on the
aristocracy and the Court. The Restoration era is a period full of paradoxes;
it was a time when women were allowed on the stage, but at the same time could
be sold in marriage to a man they hated. It was a time when it seemed anything
went in terms of sex and pleasure, but at the same time the illegitimacy rate
was at its lowest. It was a period of great progress in trade, shipbuilding
and business, but at the same time it suffered such serious setbacks as the
Great Plague and the Great Fire. And it was a period of apparent creative
freedom and prosperity in the arts due to the enthusiasm of the newly restored
King and his court, but at the same time it was a period that saw a playwright
such as Thomas Otway die of starvation in obscurity in his hovel in Tower
Hill.
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3. RESTORATION THEATRE
The Companies
On Charles II’s restoration to the English throne after eighteen years of
exile and Republican rule, he issued two patents for new theatres in London.
He authorised two courtiers, Davenant and Killigrew, to be the sole theatre
managers in London, and to hire actors, set salaries and ticket prices.
Davenant ran the Duke’s Company, and Killigrew the King’s Company.
Charles II
During those eighteen years, the Republic under Cromwell had banned all
official theatre in the Puritan belief that it corrupted morals and encouraged
idleness. Gone were the days of Elizabethan enthusiasm for the theatre, when
seven theatres had been built between 1576 and 1605 in a London whose
population did not succeed 200,000. Davenant and Killigrew started by putting
on plays in some of the relics of these old theatres, but almost immediately
set about building new premises. The new structures were much smaller –
usually seating around 400 people – and were built within the walls of roofed
tennis courts. The two theatre managers could only expect a small aristocratic
following so in order to attract a more middle class audience, and thereby
make theatre a commercial success, they introduced scenery and female
actresses; the novelty proved irresistible.
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So successful were the first few years that Davenant’s Duke’s Company soon
started re-building again; this time a much larger premises called the Dorset
Garden Theatre [or Duke’s Theatre]. Unfortunately, Davenant died in 1668
before the new building was finished, but the company was taken over by the
very capable actor, Thomas Betterton. Killigrew on the other hand, had not
been so successful and his group was in such financial difficulties that by
1682, the Duke’s Company had absorbed the King’s, and for over ten years
London had only one patented theatre group, the United Company. Through the
share buying system, the control of the company then came into the hands of a
wily and domineering lawyer, Christopher Rich and his partner Sir Thomas
Skipworth. After a while, the older, more established actors, led by Thomas
Betterton, rebelled and set up their rival theatre company in the Lincoln’s
Inn Fields playhouse.
The Theatres
The two main theatres during this time were the Dorset Garden Theatre and the
Drury Lane Theatre. An important part of all Restoration theatres, and unique
to England, was an apron or forestage. This was an acting area forward of the
curtain, thrusting well into the audience space, with permanent proscenium
entrance doors on each side. Performers would stand in front of, rather than
in, the scenic area. This forestage area is ideal for plays where words are
important, and certainly in Restoration theatre, authors wrote plays that were
highly verbal and full of wit, with frequent soliloquies and asides to the
audience. The Soldiers’ Fortune is a prime example of this, with the character
of Sir Davy Dunce. In the Young Vic production, this is reflected with the set
coming right into the audience.
Scenery in Restoration theatre was not three dimensional, but painted on flat
canvas-covered frames called wings. Virtually everything was painted in
perspective to give the illusion of depth. These wings stood in grooves on the
stage floor so that a team of stagehands could slide them on and off as the
scenes changed. To enhance the perspective effect, the stage floor in most
Restoration theatres was raked or sloped from front to back. In the larger
theatres of Dorset Garden and Drury Lane, theatre managers also introduced all
sorts of machinery for creating aerial flight, sudden appearances from above
or below, ocean waves and other special effects. Lighting on the other hand
was difficult. To achieve what passed for darkness, stage candles could be
dimmed but there was never total darkness. Conversely, sometimes theatres
could be so badly lit, that the audience at the back could hardly see what was
happening on stage.
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A set used in the Dorset Garden Theatre
The Audience
In a 17th century theatre, there was no opportunity for dimming and
brightening the lights as they had to use candles, both for the stage and for
the auditorium. As a result, an audience tended to be very conscious of
itself and its part in the theatre event. This had a profound effect on the
style of the acting: in a house almost as well illuminated as the stage, where
spectators could see one another throughout the performance, the actors had to
work very hard to get their attention. This was further compounded by the
seating arrangements which often placed many of the audience along seating
each side of the auditorium with a brilliant view of the opposite side. All
this meant that the audience was far less likely to remain silent; what people
enjoyed was the act of going to the theatre and seeing who else was there. If
they also enjoyed the play and the acting, all the better.
The social make up of the audience also shifted with time. When the theatres
first re-opened the audience was mostly the fashionable aristocratic elite.
With time, the audience was full of apprentices and merchants and other middle
class citizens. However, many theatre patrons went to the playhouses either to
impress others or to search for sexual prey. For many it was like a game, and
the audiences liked watching on stage the imitations of immorality that were
comfortably or uncomfortably like the game of life they played themselves. In
a period where the characters frequently addressed their lines to the
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audience, it should not be too surprising that the audience talked back.
Despite this tendency to talk during a performance, there were many examples
of actors’ performances that could silence the crowd. The fame of Thomas
Betterton’s characterisation of Hamlet has gone down in theatre mythology.
A set used in Drury Lane Theatre
The Actors and Actresses
Actors and actresses worked extremely hard, working on roughly two hundred
days of the year over the course of an eight or nine month season. Some would
then also do summer tours and fairs. Key company members could be expected to
play on relatively short notice perhaps as many as thirty different roles.
This era saw the first celebrity actors too. They made themselves objects of
public fantasy. One of the great paradoxes of the stage – and one that
persisted for centuries to come – was the belief that people of the theatrical
profession were on the periphery of social respectability. This rendered them
vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, while at the same time they were
performing glamorous representations of socially dominant roles, from royalty
to romantic or erotic icons. This paradox of the performers’ social standing
intruded even on the most practical aspects of their jobs. Some of the
physical skills required of them belied their low status: fencing was
essential for most of the men, while the women had to learn how to manage with
grace and elegance the heavy weight of their elaborate dresses. Other tools of
their trade included voice, movement, histrionic sensibility and excellent
memory. Of course, great looks also helped, as did good teeth and skin, as
well as the ability to sing, dance and to execute comic routines.
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The introduction of women on the stage is one of the most famous occurrences
of the Restoration period. Prior to this time, the female roles had all been
played by young boys. Despite some of the later publicity surrounding this
revolutionary change, the original motive behind it was actually a reformation
of morals. Some of the Puritan concerns had rubbed off as there were fears
that seeing cross-dressing young boys might prove to be a catalyst for
‘unnatural vice.’ Of course, what actually happened was that the female
actresses also became objects of desire. Even Charles II had affairs with
several actresses, most notoriously with Moll Davis and Nell Gwynn. During
this period, the role of the cross-dressing woman became really popular,
providing plenty of opportunities for women to show off their legs in tight
breeches. Of the three hundred and seventy five new plays or adaptations
performed between 1660 and 1700, no fewer than eighty nine contained one or
more ‘breeches’ parts.
An essential skill for any successful actor was memory. Acting in a revolving
repertory of plays in various genres, some of them hybrid and experimental,
the players typically had to do their jobs in such a lively way as to keep
audiences coming back to the afternoon performances while they rehearsed the
next days’ shows morning and night. Only success in the afternoon could turn
characters on the page into enduring roles for the stage. It was the
performance that predominated – it was the success of the acting that
determined the plays success. The playwrights’ names didn’t even appear on the
advertising playbills until the 1690s. The actors were so crucial to a play’s
success that playwrights would often create characters with the aptitudes and
attributes of particular actors and actresses in mind. Audiences were so
desirous of novelty and variety, that more often than not, new plays would
close after a handful of performances, never to be revived, frustrating a
substantial investment in rehearsals and the private labour of memorising the
lines. A play was thought successful if it ran several days in succession.
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4. RESTORATION: POLITICS, SOCIETY AND THE THEATRE
The Background
On the accession of Charles I in 1625, England had experienced relative peace
for as long as anyone could remember. Although pious and with little personal
ambition, Charles expected outright loyalty in return for just rule. He
considered any questioning of his orders as insulting. This latter trait, and
a series of events, each seemingly minor on their own, led to a serious break
between Charles and his Parliament, and eventually to war.
Cromwell
The English Civil War took place between Parliamentarians (known as
Roundheads) and Royalists (known as Cavaliers) between 1642 and 1651. The
Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son
Charles II, and the replacement of the English monarchy with first the
Commonwealth of England (1649 - 1653) and then with a Protectorate (1653 1659), under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell. His style of rule, and the
form of religion he adhrered to, is called Puritan: it was austere, moralistic
and devout. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British
monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament.
Cromwell died in 1658 and in little more than a year the English revolutionary
regime had collapsed as a result of inner dissention and popular hostility.
Charles II was welcomed back to England and restored to his rightful throne in
1660.
The Theatrical Response
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The theatre of the Restoration period was intimately tied up with the social
and political issues of the day. When the Republic collapsed and the Stuart
family were restored to the throne of England, the first Restoration comedy in
1660 was entitled The Rump which satirised the selfish ambition of the Puritan
grandees and the pretentiousness of their wives. Comedy was being used as both
a tool of revenge, but also as a way of healing the wounds of civil war and
strife. Dramatic representations of monarchy restored, in which royalty is
glamorised, were common until the early 1670s, never more strongly than in
Orrery’s play The History of Henry the Fifth (1664).
Although the Restoration continued to be an important dramatic subject for at
least eleven years, fashion did not stand still. Etherege’s first comedy The
Comical Revenge (also 1664) celebrated the frivolity of the new order.
However, there was widespread disappointment with the new King. His
promiscuity and extravagance offended many of his own supporters, plus he
wanted greater tolerance for Dissenters than his parliament would tolerate.
Dissenters were people who did not follow the rules of the Church of England
but dissented – this generally meant Catholics. Charles’ marriage to a
Catholic princess inflamed the situation, and this coupled with the natural
disasters of the plague in 1665 and The Great Fire of London in 1666, plus the
humiliation in war against the Dutch in which the enemy fleet sailed up the
Thames, resulted in growing dissent. Loyalist dramatists carefully criticized
their monarch, creating king characters who are wise and just, but enfeebled
by some sort of weakness – normally love.
In the 1670s, it became clear that Charles’ marriage to Catherine of Braganza
would be childless. Despite numerous illegitimate children for Charles and
many failed pregnancies for the Queen, no heir was born. This propelled the
country into a crisis about the succession. This was not aided by Charles’
brother, James, who was his heir, announcing in 1673 that he was Catholic. In
various dramas of the early 1670s, there is a sudden shift from celebrations
of restoration to a repeated concentration on problems of succession.
Furthermore, there is a marked change in the portrayal of kings, who were
increasingly depicted as tyrannical and lustful. Royal families are frequently
portrayed as dysfunctional – the kings and queens adulterous, incestuous, and
murderous, the sons rebellious. Otways’ play Don Carlos shows this fear – his
would-be king is insane.
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James II
Mistrust of James’s religion, and of his autocratic character, led to the
crisis which began in late 1678, when Titus Oates produced a fictitious but
widely believed report of a planned Catholic uprising and assassination of the
King. This was called the Popish Plot and it led to the Exclusion Crisis in
which Parliament demanded Charles exclude his brother from the succession.
Factions also started to appear in Parliament between Tories and Whigs; Tories
accusing the Whigs that they were in danger of inciting another civil war, and
the Whigs accusing the Tories that they were not respectful of parliament’s
rights.
After four years of turbulence, with the threat of civil war never far away,
Charles II managed to obtain French funds to enable him to rule without
Parliament. But the Crisis had affected the theatres badly. People were more
interested in the political area than in attending plays. ‘The Devil take this
cursed plotting age,’ wrote Aphra Behn, ‘’T has ruin’d all our Plots upon the
Stage.’ Drama was also subjected to censorship during the Crisis, more than at
any time since the theatres reopened in 1660. The Crisis also coincided with
three developments in drama: a change in comedy (discussed below), the
development of tragedy, and the rise of the sentimental. Tory playwrights
struggled with the question of loyalty to a King who was not worthy of their
self-sacrifice. Tory tragedies tended to idealise heroic absolute loyalty and
demonise rebellion. Whig legalism, Puritanism and patriotism were satirised,
and in comedy this took the form of mocking the Whiggish citizen-merchant
class. This was reflected in many plays of the time, most importantly in
Otway’s The Soldiers’ Fortune, considered a Tory play in which he mocks his
Whiggish character, Sir Davy Dunce. Whigs reverse this, offering a mirror
image of Tory plays. They focus their spleen on Catholics, attributing them
with all the qualities which Tories attributed to rebels: ambition, arrogance,
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arbitrariness, hypocrisy, plotting and cruelty. To Whigs, the twin evils of
the world were Catholicism and arbitrary power.
In 1685, Charles II died and James succeeded him. Little more than three years
later in 1688 James II was deposed. His confrontational approach to extending
the powers of the crown, and to the advancement of his fellow Catholics,
alienated a critical number of his natural supporters. The birth of a male
heir, raising the prospect of a perpetual Catholic dynasty, led certain
members of the nobility to invite William of Orange (James’s son-in law from
his first marriage) to intervene to protect the religion, liberty and property
of the nation. William invaded, James fled ignobably to France and William
became King. This is known as the Glorious Revolution, partially because no
blood was spilt, but mainly as it cemented the power of Parliament in English
political life once and for all.
As the seventeenth century drew to a close, William and his Queen, Mary
experienced a dip in theatrical enthusiasm until a plot was exposed in 1696 to
assassinate William. This boosted his popularity, and also seemed to provide
playwrights with a platform on which to tackle the events of 1688. Until that
moment, they had found it hard to deal with the fact that a legitimate,
hereditary monarch had once again been deposed. Now, however, they poured out
plays justifying the events. Treatments of the Revolution in comedy were
predominantly celebratory, a favourite procedure being to portray the
reconstitution of disrupted families and households: the reordering of the
home parallels the reconstruction of the state. The best example of this is
Congreve’s Love for Love in 1695.
1700 approached with some optimism. In post-Revolution drama, the power of the
state over individual lives is restricted and conditional in a fashion that
pre-Revolutionary dramatists could only have dreamed of. For them, they could
see no cure for oppressive rule by a repressive state with a tyrannical king.
By 1700, they had proved the power of the Parliament, and safeguarded its
rights, and the nations rights, against an autocratic monarch.
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5. RESTORATION COMEDY
As the theatres had been closed for eighteen years prior to 1660, there was no
longer a pool of playwrights to draw on at the beginning of the Restoration
era. Most theatres fell back on the old masters – such as Shakespeare and
Jonson. The new playwrights that were emerging in the 1660s and 1670s drew on
both this inherited tradition, and also on foreign material, especially from
France and Spain. In comic fashion, the plays broached and endeavoured to
resolve serious cultural concerns, such as the definition of gender roles, the
regulation of sexual behaviour, the characteristics of class, and the
compatibility of marriage partners. There developed a series of recognisable
characters that tended to appear in most comic plays of the period: young
lovers, blocking parents, witty servants, dupes, fools, bullies, mistresses,
whores, cuckolds2 and unhappy wives. They all sort a combination of courtship,
seduction and cuckolding. However, even though comedies adhered to these
traditional forms, the audiences demanded a huge amount of variety. This
shaped a theatre that responded to the concerns of the society that produced
and supported it, while still following the set traditions.
Restoration comedy of manners is known today for its wit and sophistication,
as well its loose sexual morals. Courtship remains central to the plot lines,
and the lovers’ exchanges are dominated by sharp repartee. The dupes, often
husbands or would-be suitors, lack wit and are mostly relieved of their wife
or intended bride by the rake about town. In The Soldiers’ Fortune Beaugard,
the rake, cuckolds his lover’s husband, Sir Davy Dunce. Plays also tended to
reinforce the values of the town versus those of the country - loyalty to the
monarchy and the established church, plus the aristocratic rakish ethos of the
King’s court. The unsentimental comedies of Dryden, Wycherley and Etherege
reflected this atmosphere at court and celebrated with frankness an
aristocratic masculine lifestyle of sexual intrigue and conquest. The duping
of self-centred, greedy or hypocritical characters – usually making fun of a
particular political group – was the goal of the play. Perhaps the most famous
play of this period is Wycherley’s The Country Wife. In it he raises a number
of difficult and complex moral issues about private life, and especially love
and marriage among the middle classes and gentry without offering comfortable
solutions or resolutions. Otway had a similarly dark and uncompromising comic
vision. He shared a general concern over marriage contracts and the position
of women in marriage, which is reflected in The Soldiers’ Fortune sub plot
involving Courtine and Sylvia. Here the young couple work out their own
personal agreement over the distribution of power and wealth in their
relationship before agreeing to get married.
During the heady early days of the Restoration, the example of the King, famed
for his many mistresses, meant that many of the early Restoration plays
2
the husband of an unfaithful wife
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equated sexual potency with political power. But, too great a love for a
woman, which transfers power to her, brings with it a deeply misogynistic
discourse. In many comedies, the prospect of marriage is frequently greeted as
both a curtailment of male freedom and a diminution of masculinity. This is
clearly the concern of both Otway’s Courtine, and Sir Jolly Jumble.
The other popular tool of Restoration comedy was cross-dressing roles. These
allowed heroines to reverse the usual flow of power. Of course, they were
often merely an opportunity for a display of female legs, but they also
indicated that it was custom, not ability or intrinsic modesty, which kept
women covered and quiet. However, this only went so far – female claims to
equality in drama were usually only temporary and partially endorsed. In
tragedies the female who challenges male power is generally a villainess; in
comedy she is a butt for humour. Again interestingly, Otway’s Lady Dunce in
The Soldiers’ Fortune, although not cross-dressing, challenges male power and
is taken seriously. This is an example of how Otway employs some of the stock
characters of the period – the rake, the disgruntled wife and the cuckolded
husband – but he asks many questions and provides no simple answers.
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6. THE SOLDIERS’ FORTUNE SYNOPSIS
Act One
Two soldiers, Beaugard and Courtine return to London from wars abroad – empty
handed and disenchanted. While Courtine bemoans his fate, Beaugard tells him
that with the help of a ‘very reverend pimp’ they could improve their
fortunes. This gentleman, called Sir Jolly Jumble, has paid Beaugarde for his
portrait and has promised to act as go between for Beaugard and ‘a married
lady who desires him’.
Meanwhile Lady Dunce and Sylvia, discuss the disadvantages and advantages of
marriage. Lady Dunce, forced in to an unhappy marriage by her parents, reveals
to Sylvia that her heart belongs to Beaugard- who she knew seven years ago and
believes also loves her. She then teases Sylvia about her love for Courtine,
which Sylvia denies vehemently. Lady Dunce enlists Sylvia’s help to deceive
her husband, Sir Davy Dunce. Her plan is to give Sir Davy Beaugard’s picture
and tell him to return it to ‘the foul seducer’ according to her very
particular instructions, hence making him instrumental in his own cuckolding.
Act two
When Sir Davy arrives at the Mall with the portrait, Beaugard recognizes it as
the one he had given Sir Jolly. In his confusion and anger, he mistakenly
assumes that Lady Dunce and Sir Jolly are playing him for a fool. When Sir
Davy berates Beaugard’s dishonourable behaviour towards his wife, Beaugard
vows to get his revenge.
Meanwhile in another part of the Mall, Courtine and Sylvia engage in an
argument about love and marriage, and resolve to hate each other.
Beaugard and Courtine are reunited and commiserate with each other over their
misfortunes. Jolly interrupts with news that Lady Dunce awaits Beaugard.
Beaugard, still under his earlier misconception refuses to meet with her.
Jolly denies any wrongdoing and manages to persuade Beaugard to talk to Lady
Dunce. Beaugard accuses Lady Dunce of betraying him by giving her husband his
portrait and tries to return her money to her. Perplexed and angry at
Beaugard’s reaction, she tells him to keep the money and the ring she sent
through her husband. Beaugard, not having received a ring from Sir Davy, runs
after her only to have Lady Dunce spurn him and call him a ‘foul traitor’.
As Clarinda exits, Sir Davy reappears, laughing that he had forgotten to give
Beaugard his ring. Beaugard realizing his mistake, begs Davy to tell Lady
Dunce that he is very sorry for the way he treated her and returns a veiled
message to her. Sir Davy leaves, happily believing he has humbled Beaugard
when he has actually been the lovers’ go-between.
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Act three
Courtine and Sylvia meet again and flirt with other, while pretending to hate
one another. Sylvia tells Courtine to be beneath her window between eleven and
twelve that night. He agrees.
Sir Davy returns home to find his wife absent. He panics thinking that he is
being cuckolded. Sir Jolly arrives at this point to assure him of Lady Dunce’s
faithfulness. He recounts how he witnessed her spurning Beaugard in the Mall.
Lady Dunce returns and scolds Sir Davy for his lenient treatment of Beaugard
and demands that her husband has Beaugard’s throat cut. She says this is the
only suitable solution to Beaugard pestering her and she shows Sir Davy a
letter that according to her was sent by Beaugard. She implores Sir Davy to
find Beaugard and return his letter unopened. This he does, thereby safely
delivering his wife’s letter to her lover.
On Lady Dunce’s instructions, a disguised Fourbin – Beaugard’s servant –
manages to convince Sir Davy that the Lord Mayor invites him to supper. An
overjoyed Sir Davy hastens home to be dressed for this momentous occasion and
tells his wife he will be out all night. Lady Dunce sends Sir Jolly to find
Beaugard and to bring him to her house.
Having forgotten his gold medal and chain, Sir Davy returns, unbeknownst to
his wife. When Beaugard arrives he is nervous and imagines that he sees
something. Lady Dunce laughing at his nervousness leads him to the bedroom. At
the height of their passion, Sir Davy interrupts the lovers. Confusion ensues
and Beaugard runs off leaving Lady Dunce to face the wrath of her husband.
Quick thinking Lady Dunce, with the help of Sir Jolly, manages to convince Sir
Davy that Beaugard broke into the house and tried to ravish her. Sir Davy vows
to have him murdered.
Act four
Beaugard, Courtine and Sir Jolly meet at a tavern. Courtine tells Jolly how
much he is in love with Sylvia and might have to marry her, but Jolly says he
will have nothing to do with marriage.
Sir Davy arrives at the same tavern to hire murderers to kill Beaugard. The
murderers turn out to be none other than Fourbin in disguise and his friend
Bloody Bones. Together they scare Sir Davy into hiring them to give Beaugard
a severe beating.
A very drunk Courtine stumbles to his appointment underneath Sylvia’s window.
Sylvia is ready for him and has her servants haul him up to her window and
leave him hanging.
When Sir Davy returns home his servant, Vermin, informs him that a murder has
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taken place inside. According to plan, Sir Jolly and Lady Dunce arrange
Beaugard’s body on the hall table to look like a corpse. Upon seeing Sir Davy,
Lady Dunce berates him for having Beaugard killed in their own house and
dishonouring them. Sir Jolly convinces Sir Davy that the only way to bring
Beaugard back to life is to put him in a warm bed. He also tells him that Lady
Dunce would be able to help - as he believes she ‘has the gift of stroking’! A
very distraught and confused Sir Davy agrees to this plan and urges his wife
to take Beaugard to her bed!
Act five
Courtine wakes up disorientated in Sylvia’s room. After much discussion they
agree to get married, but very much on Sylvia’s terms.
Sir Davy tormented by guilt is unable to sleep. Capitalising
Sir Jolly, Lady Dunce and Beaugard convince him that he sees
Devil - a sign that he will hang for the murder of Beaugard.
Sir Davy that he will remove the body to his house, and that
bring Lady Dunce with him to protect her.
on his confusion
ghosts and the
Sir Jolly tells
he will also
Sir Davy agrees, but as soon as the body is out of the house, he asks Vermin
to call the constable. He double-crosses Sir Jolly by informing the constable
that a murder has been committed in Sir Jolly’s house. Sir Jolly, forewarned
that the constable and watchmen were coming, hides Lady Dunce and Beaugard.
When Beaugarde is discovered alive, Sir Davy realizes he has been played for a
fool and submits to his fate as a cuckold.
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7. THE PLAY
Most Restoration comedies are primarily about the complicated courtship
between one or more witty couples, who may or may not decide to marry.
Unusually, The Soldiers’ Fortune combines an abrasive courtship duel, with a
marriage in crisis. This manifests itself in a cuckolding plot, involving the
discontented wife, her elderly and loathed husband, and the man on whom her
affections were fixed before her parents compelled her to marry wealth. The
way Otway handles these elements is radically innovative. The play also
directly engages with the major crisis of the time – the Popish Plot and the
Exclusion Crisis – which was convulsing the political nation.
The two younger men, Beaugard and Courtine, are unemployed soldiers –
something that Otway had first hand experience of – desperately aware that
pennilessness threatens them. Again, Otway has altered a usual stock character
of a younger son of an aristocrat striving for recognition, to a character
where poverty is a reality. His soldiers are grown men, facing a bleak future.
Otway had himself obtained a military commission in 1678, bound for war in
Flanders, but was disbanded and sent back to England with nothing. Parliament
believed that many of the officers in the army were Catholics, and they were
convinced that the King would use his army to consolidate royal power at
parliament’s expense and re-establish Catholicism as the state religion.
Consequently, the majority of the soldiers when they returned home with
nothing, also faced a cold reception from suspicious parliamentary supporters.
Not only are Beaugard and Courtine penniless, they are also horrified at the
rise and fall of status in society. They are shocked that an ex-footman and a
retailer of ale who used to be a vagabond, are all now considered gentlemen.
They, on the other hand, boast that they can trace their lineage back to the
old Cavaliers whose fidelity to Charles I only taught them that loyalty and
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starving go together. They view with contempt the England of 1680 where their
honourable service is disregarded and where prosperity and advancement are
monopolised by those whom they regard as the heirs of men who brought Charles
I to the executioner. They are irretrievably outsiders. Otway offers a bleak
prospect: loyalty, without hope of reward, to a King who neither deserves it
nor values it. But, as a penniless disbanded soldier and a loyalist himself,
Otway saw no other alternative but to endure misfortune. This particular theme
would resurface with tragic consequences in his later play Venice Preserv’d.
In The Soldiers’ Fortune the female character, Lady Dunce, hunts for her
would-be suitor. She does not sit passively waiting for him to find her, but
instead actively seeks him out. Lady Dunce is quick-witted, streetwise,
utterly exploitative of her husband, and devoid of moral scruples. The object
of her attentions is Beaugard, the man she was in-love with before her parents
made her marry Sir Dunce. Otway casts the despised husband as the play’s
specimen Parliamentarian. Lady Dunce says he is ‘is one of those fools that
are led by the nose by knaves to rail against the king and the government.’
Davy has earned his cuckolding by marrying a woman whose heart’s another, but
his Whig allegiances add an extra spice to his undoing. As an aging rich man
who steals Beaugard’s bride while he was fighting for his country, Davy really
is the Royalists’ enemy within. This betrayal therefore triggers more than
personal revenge – it becomes both sexual and political.
Otway wrote the role of Sir Davy for a great comic actor of his day, James
Noakes. Sir Davy’s impressionable mind makes him an ideal recipient of
Parliament propaganda. The play mocks his readiness to swallow recycled scare
stories. Implicit here is Otway’s own scepticism about the validity of the
Popish Plot. Sir Davy is not only a fool in regards to politics, but he is
also fooled into being his own wife’s go-between. Just as Whigs make him a
tool, so do the would-be adulterers. His mental pliability at the end of the
play is extraordinary. His nervous, giggling acceptance of his fate as a
cuckold, merely confirms that destiny has marked him out to be a fool. He
makes pathetic pleas to the audience, and asks Beaugard not to be too cruel to
him. It makes for uncomfortable viewing – are we meant to pity him, or hate
him all the more?
A soldier with sword at the ready who has invaded Sir Davy’s house and
deprived him of his wife while making him a fool, could be no greater insult.
However, there is more to this than simple comic revenge. This is a period
when there was no divorce, so the Dunce’s and Beaugard are fated to a
perpetual ménage-a-trois. The original wrong of Sir Davy stealing Beaugard’s
bride can never by fully righted, just as the manifold wrongs that both
soldiers so bitterly resent, show no signs of being remedied. Beaugard and
Courtine’s political anger remains unsolaced at the end of the play, just as
Beaugard and Lady Dunce’s love is frustrated.
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The character of Beaugard shows how Otway’s play stands at the threshold of an
emerging style in Restoration comedy. Beaugard, compared to earlier
Restoration rakes is pretty useless. Left to his own devices he makes mistakes
and complicates his chances of seducing Lady Dunce. His successful moves are
realised by other characters, Lady Dunce herself and Sir Jolly Jumble. In an
unusual reversal of Restoration comedy, it is the go-between, the fixer, Jolly
who has the initiative and the wit, not the rake. He seems to be the prime
mover, but he is condemned by his own impotence to be nothing more than a
voyeur.
The secondary courtship plot between Courtine and Sylvia is like no other play
before. Wit and mockery were established tools for how courtship between the
young was presented on the stage, but no previous couple had been as savagely
derisory in tone as they are.
In this battle, hostility and sexual excitement are closely combined. But they
also both feel that their independence could be lost if they commit to each
other. The trick Sylvia plays on a drunk Courtine shows nothing about him she
doesn’t already know, but it acts out her own need to be in control before
committing her fortune and herself to him. Their marriage bargain is also
brutal. She constantly reminds him about her financial advantage over him in
the hope this might curb his waywardness. But it is ultimately clear to them
both that controlling him is something that no legal contract can do: Sylvia
embarks on marriage with her eyes wide open. Otway’s sequel to The Soldiers’
Fortune, The Atheist explores the misery of the marriage they endure together.
The play’s courtship and adultery plots trap its characters within an
entanglement of circumstances and passions to which its ending affords no
lasting resolution. Society’s ills are not resolved, just as Lady Dunce cannot
have Beaugard to herself. Surely this reflects Otway’s own disappointments in
life: his unrequited love for Elizabeth Barry, and his own disillusionment as
a disbanded soldier.
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8. THE HISTORY OF THE TANGO
Tim Sutton, who composed the music, was inspired by tango and the great
composer and bandoneon player, Astor Piazzolla. The tango is sexy and
therefore perfect for this play. It was also used in the rehearsal room as a
warm up for the actors.
The tango
Tango is a social dance form originating in Buenos Aires, Argentina and
Montevideo, Uruguay. The Argentine tango is often regarded as the authentic
tango since it is closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay,
though other types of tango have developed into mature dances in their own
right.
Origins
Tango was created by the kinds of people who generally leave no mark on
history - the poor and the underprivileged. In the early years of 1900 two
million immigrants arrived in Buenos Aires from Europe. One figure suggests
that at one point the ratio may have been about fifty men for every woman.
These men tempted by the idea of a better life and streets paved with gold,
instead found a lonely squalid place with muddy streets and poor
accommodation. The one trade that flourished above all others was
prostitution. It is here in the brothels and bordellos on the back streets of
Buenos Aires, that the tango really came to life. To fill in time while
waiting their turn, and to attract the ladies, men danced the tango with other
men.
In the mysterious way that culture develops, the dance and music became
popular, and moved up the social scale. By 1910, the rich sons of Argentina
were making their way to Paris, the centre of the cultural and entertainment
world. The Argentine upper classes who had shunned the tango were now forced
into accepting it, because it was fashionable in Paris. Hollywood glamorised
the tango to a mass audience, with Valentino as the most famous, if completely
inauthentic tangoing gaucho.
Style
Argentine tango style is danced in an embrace that can vary from very open, in
which leader and follower connect at arms length, to very closed, in which the
connection is chest-to-chest, or anywhere in between. Close embrace is often
associated with the more traditional styles, while open embrace leaves room
for many of the embellishments and figures that are associated with Tango
Nuevo. In The Soldiers’ Fortune the actors dance the more traditional tango.
Tango is essentially walking with a partner and the music. Dancers generally
keep their feet close to the floor as they walk, the ankles and knees brushing
as one leg passes the other. Argentine tango relies heavily on improvisation.
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As Argentine tango does not have a rational pattern which can be predicted by
the follower, the reliance on strict rules has to be discarded and replaced by
a real communication contact, creating a direct non-verbal dialogue. A tango
is a living act in the moment as it happens.
More than anything else, the tango is about a connection, an empathy between
two people, the need to embrace, and be in the arms of another. Tango must be
simply danced, with immense feeling, with a sense of energy flowing between
the dancers. This energy grows or decreases as the music ebbs and flows. It is
a seduction, or a private conversation, something to be quietly shared, not
publicly displayed.
9. CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM
Cast
Sir Jolly Jumble
David Bamber
Lady Dunce
Anne-Marie Duff
Captain Beaugard
Ray Fearon
Whore
Kate Feldschreiber
Sir Davy Dunce
Drawer
Oliver Ford Davies
& Constable
Michael Howcroft
Vermin
Sam Kenyon
Sylvia
Kananu Kirimi
Whore
Lisa Lee Leslie
Courtine
Alec Newman
Bloody Bones
James Traherne
Fourbin
Ben Turner
Creative Team
Direction
David Lan
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Set
Lizzie Clachan
Costumes
Joan Wadge
Lighting
Rick Fisher
Composer
Tim Sutton
Choreography
Sound
Assistant Director
Alexandra Reynolds
Paul Groothuis
Vik Sivalingam
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10. INTERVIEW WITH DAVID LAN, DIRECTOR
What was it about the play that drew you to it?
I’ve known about the play for over twenty years, but in the last four or so
years, I have been thinking that we should produce it here. It’s a very
original play, and very unlike other plays of that time, not at all what you
expect. It’s very direct and modern. And what is interesting about the
sensibility of the characters, especially the sexual imagination of the
characters, is that it seems they are struggling with the same difficult
issues about how to live together and how to get on with each other as people
do now. This seemed very attractive to me, that even though it is an old play,
it still feels so full of life and very funny. I didn’t realise just how good
the comic writing was until we started working on it - it comes up
brilliantly. So, why did I choose it? For the excitement of putting on a play
which is relatively unknown and a lost classic.
What research did you have to do?
The main research, like with any play, is really to get to know the play and
to understand what the energy in the play is. Plays are curious things - it is
not always obvious how the machine of the play works – sometimes it takes a
little thinking about how it works, or how you think it works. The original
text of The Soldiers’ Fortune is full of contemporary 17th century references
and allusions which the original audience would have had no difficulty with,
but of course are more difficult for us, so I had to do some research on the
Restoration: late 17th century history, the religious history - relationship
between the Protestants and Catholics - the political history and the
relationship between the countries mentioned in the play - France, Holland
etc. There is relatively little known about Thomas Otway himself, so we had to
refer to the play most of all to understand it.
What was behind your decision to incorporate tango into the production?
To some extent, I have done it before. I’ve done two plays before where music
has been integral to the play –Skin of our Teeth where we introduced more
music into the play than is written there, and then As You Like It, which has
lots of music in it anyway, but we did it in such a way that the musicians
were also playing characters in the play. The Soldiers’ Fortune is similar to
that, in that our band is placed centre stage. But the idea of using 20th
century music came from the fact that I was thinking of the play and listening
to Argentine tango music concurrently, for no particular reason, and I thought
that there was something very expressive in that music. Also, using period
music is very difficult because if you are trying to produce a play in a
modern way – in that you are presenting the play as though it could have been
written yesterday – and then you play period music you immediately thrust
everyone back into the past. I thought tango was a modern version of the
play’s musical past, in the same way that we are trying to make the text
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modern. I like integrating music and text as much as possible, and I think it
works well in this piece.
How do you go about working with the design team?
I’m working with people who I haven’t worked with before, but I know their
work well. For the set, Lizzie [Clachan] and I spent a lot of time in the
theatre trying to get to know the space, and I conveyed to her how I thought
the space could be used. Also, I took a decision early on that I wanted to use
the workshop space [where the Young Vic builds many of its sets] in the show
because I had the idea of having a double set – partly to introduce that
potential in the theatre which no one will have seen before and will be a
surprise - but also so that there is a joke in the design, as part of the set
is a 17th century stage, so it’s a theatre within a theatre. Lizzie did lots
of research of theatres of the time. We thought about the angle and shape of
the set – and in particular – the theatre. With Joan I’ve worked with before,
and she is very good at period detail in costumes – she has a very rigorous
approach. Again we spent a long time talking about the characters and what we
wanted to show. The three of us also went to houses of that period, in
Hampstead and Hackney, to get a sense of the 1600s, and to see the
architecture of the period, and the domestic environment of how people would
have lived. Lizzie did a lot of research into the architecture of the era,
especially when she got interested in staircases.
What have been the challenges to date?
Don’t know where to start! A challenge is doing a play that has a very
particular language, style and intelligence, and trying to find a way for
myself to understand it, and then the designers, and then to introduce the
actors to the world we are trying to imagine in as persuasive a way as I can.
Is this your first Restoration piece?
It is. I’ve done three plays by Shakespeare, one Elizabethan play – Faust and one Carolinian play– Tis Pity She’s A Whore - so I’ve done plays of this
sort of style or dramatic ambitiousness, but not of this period, so that has
been a challenge.
One of the big things I think, is trying really to stay with the play and the
period historically in as far as one can understand it, and not to imitate
other Restoration productions you have seen. It’s earlier than most plays
people think of as Restoration – much earlier than School for Scandal and
Congreve. It’s more like Ben Jonson and even some Shakespeare than the world
of School for Scandal. It feels like the people have just come into town more
recently – much less financially secure, still have country roughness to them,
less socially secure than the characters in some of the later Restoration
plays. So the challenge is to rid ourselves of the many assumptions and look
at it afresh.
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How do you think it speaks to a modern audience?
I have hopes that it will but it is a difficult question to answer. For me the
important thing, whether they are new or old, is to discover the similarities
and the differences between those characters and us. The important tension is
the sense of similarity and difference. One way of doing an older play would
be to present it in modern terms with modern dress. For me it is not really
the same because the pressures of the period were very different - nature of
class, economy, political situation, the way men and women related to each
other, the way people experience their sexual lives, relations between the
rich and the poor. It is important to remember these things in trying to
understand the pressure that make the plays interesting to us. If you ignore
and oppress these things, what’s the point in doing the play? On the other
hand, you always have to look for what is similar in the play, because if
there is not enough which is close, then there is also not much point in doing
them. Sometimes, plays were very topical at the time they were first produced,
but things change and they no longer speak to us. For me the characters’
amorphous sexuality, their very lively sense of potential, their using
sexuality as a means to get along in their lives feels very modern, and the
consciousness of those potentials also seems very modern.
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11. INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDRA REYNOLDS, CHOREOGRAPHER
What aspects of the play were you particularly inspired by?
David [Lan] chose something that juxtaposed with the period of the play - a
Restoration comedy with tango - and that really interested me. I thought it
would be really fascinating to place tango in a different environment.
Furthermore, it also struck me that the tango and the play are both about
emotions – particularly lust - and relationships, but this doesn’t come
through as an obvious language in both of them, it comes through as dance and
rhythm in the case of the tango, and though codified language in the case of
the play. So, although there are many differences, there are also
similarities.
What images, thoughts and ideas did you start from?
The rehearsal and devising process has been very organic. I have responded to
the scenes that both precede and then follow the moments when there is dance.
The dance takes its inspiration from the emotions in the play, and the way the
characters are developing.
Have you used any other styles of dance apart from tango?
The language of the piece is tango, but I’m not sticking to all the rules. I
want to develop an individual language for The Soldiers’ Fortune that will
come from the actors - the way they move and feel – so that we can create our
own world. It should be a shared experience.
How did you prepare the choreography?
Many conversations with David! It was hard to do much preparation before the
rehearsals started as David wanted me, and Tim [Sutton, the composer], to
respond to the rehearsal process and to the actors and to the music. So, I
observed the rehearsals, discussed with David when we thought the characters
should dance and for how long, and listened to the music as it developed too.
I then went away and thought about the choreography in relation to the set.
Once we were in the theatre, rehearsing on the stage, the choreography was
firmed up.
When you work with actors rather than dancers how does your approach differ?
It differs greatly. Actors need more clarity, and a slower pace. I can’t keep
changing things, as unlike dancers, they don’t have the experience to reverse
moves, change the emotion behind the moves, and respond to quick changes in
direction. It has to be simpler. Also, it is very important for them to
understand that the dance is sewn into their characters and into the action –
that it’s integral and not an add on.
What have been the main challenges to date?
At the moment, the main challenge is making the actors look like they tango as
a social dance, that it comes naturally, that it is something they do every
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weekend. The other challenge for me as a choreographer is that David is keen
for the actors to dance on their own, especially as there are few female
roles. This for me is difficult as tango is all about the emotional story of
the two people dancing, so this is the biggest leap for me.
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12. INTERVIEW WITH LIZZIE CLACHAN, SET DESIGNER
What were the earliest thoughts, ideas and images you and David Lan worked on?
I have never done a Restoration play before so I did a lot of research – more
than I would do usually, as I normally do contemporary or devised pieces. So,
I read a lot about London in the 17th century, and looked at lots of Hogarth
prints, even though he was a bit later. The play is very specifically London –
Otway clearly says Covent Garden or the Mall for scenes.
The Duke of York’s Stairs
The play also constantly jumps backwards and forwards from an outside to an
inside location, so I needed to find something that was generic to both of
those environments. This is how we settled on the stairs. My starting point
for this was the Duke of York’s Stairs near the Mall, but I then wanted to
incorporate the environment of Covent Garden as well, so I read a lot about
the architect who designed it, Inigo Jones. I also thought that the stairs
could be quite representative of the social climbing, hierarchy that is a
preoccupation of the play. The pit area where the musicians are is where the
underbelly of London is encountered – the prostitutes etc – and the top level
is often used as the entrance into Sir Dunce’s house.
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Covent Garden Piazza
How did the Young Vic space feed into the design?
Massively. David [Lan] was very keen to use the proscenium as that hadn’t been
done yet in the Young Vic, and of course that is also how the play would have
been presented traditionally, so it felt right. However, the Young Vic is such
a particular space, where the middle is the heart, so I had to make the set
come into the centre as well. The characters had to make a journey from the
proscenium stage into centre, especially as it’s a very active comedy with
lots of comings and goings. It also makes it modern by pushing the staging out
into the centre. By playing in the round, the actors and the audience have a
real relationship, and in Restoration comedy where there are asides and
dialogues with the audience, it made even more sense. It brings out the
theatricality of the piece.
What aspects of the play inspired you?
I think it was that unique actor / audience relationship in the play – there
is no concept of the ‘fourth wall’. It’s also such a modern play – its
concerns are the concerns of today. When I first read it, I couldn’t believe
it was written in 1680. And this is why it seemed so important to us not to do
it in modern dress, but nonetheless present it in a modern way. We kept the
sense of the period, because the interesting thing about the play is that
despite its age, it’s really very contemporary.
How do you go about working with the costume and lighting designer?
This has been the first time that I have not also been the costume designer.
So it’s been quite different for me not to be involved in that side of things,
as I have had to change the way I work and that has been quite a challenge.
Lighting designers always come in quite late into the process and they tend to
respond to a concept and an idea already in place. This is so useful because
the director and the designer can get so focused into something, so involved,
and then the lighting designer arrives with a fresh mind and perspective. I
don’t mind having details I’ve missed pointed out to me!
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Has attending rehearsals developed your ideas?
I come from a devised theatre background, so working in this way with design
deadlines and model boxes even before the rehearsals have begun has been very
different. One of the things we didn’t know was how prop heavy it was going to
be, and during the rehearsal process it has developed into being quite sparse
on props. But spatially it has stayed the same, but it was a matter of
realising it. And, it’s such a huge set so there has been some fine tuning
once it was in place inside the theatre.
What does the play mean to you?
I find the social and historical context really interesting in this play. But,
I am still in two minds whether it is a sharp political and social satire or
just a real opportunity for innuendos and dirty jokes. For me, it is about the
joy of the comedy and the joy of the performance.
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13. INTERVIEW WITH JOAN WADGE, COSTUME DESIGNER
What were the earliest thoughts, ideas and images you and David Lan and Lizzie
Clachan worked on?
We spent some time last summer looking at old houses of this period to examine
the interiors and exteriors including the gardens. We were impressed by the
different levels and walkways in some of the gardens which would have been
designed to allow the visitors to show themselves and to display their new
clothes to their neighbours - rather like we do today when we meet with
friends. Lizzie, the set designer has reflected this in the set by creating
platforms at different levels to promenade the actors and costumes.
What aspects of the play inspired you?
The play describes the period of 1680 and its characters. They are not wealthy
people but from the merchant class, and they and their servants are seeking to
make a living at a time of great social change. The costumes must reflect
their characters and their level of cleanliness or wealth.
How do you work with the set and lighting designers?
I first build a pallette, in this case around the red of the soldier’s
uniform, which is interesting but complimentary to the actor. The colours
should work together without any one dominating. This should give the lighting
designer a base to work from.
What does the play mean to you?
It was a time of social change. Charles II had returned to the throne,
bringing with him many new attitudes to life. Theatres were rebuilt and women
actors were allowed on stage. But for women, marriage was necessary for status
and security and once married, the contract had to be kept.
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14. INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BAMBER WHO PLAYS SIR JOLLY JUMBLE
What drew you to the play?
The character, initially, was tempting, colourful and unusual. I also haven’t
done a Restoration play since RADA and wanted to work at the Young Vic. I also
knew that Oliver [Ford-Davies] and Anne-Marie [Duff] were going to be in it.
How do you go about preparing and developing a character?
Thoroughly investigate what the playwright has given you. I did some reading
around the play about the period and so on, but you have to look at the clues
in the text – they are the most important thing as they dictate what you have
to deliver.
What do you think are the main insights into Sir Jolly’s character?
He’s a strange character – somewhat of a gentleman, somewhat good natured, but
also a self-confessed whore-master. He hates marriage as it goes against his
profession as a pimp. Marriage was the cornerstone of society then – Davy
Dunce is trying to hold his together and Jolly is trying to pull it apart. He
has a certain philosophy which he espouses – that life is too short, and you
have to make the most of it. It’s daring for the time. Theatre is a potent
form – it’s there to provoke ideas, and in The Soldiers’ Fortune there are
many provoking concepts. He has no moral structure underpinning him – he’s
like a Lord of Misrule. He challenges the need for rules to operate in the
world – it’s a very modern question. Some would say that we don’t have a
moralistic structure today. The name Jolly Jumble is also a sexual reference –
I believe jumble means to have sex. His character is really at the perimeters
of taste, both then and now.
What have been the main challenges to date?
Learning all the lines – it’s a big part, and it’s also challenging getting
your mouth around the language.
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15. INTERVIEW WITH OLIVER FORD DAVIES WHO PLAYS SIR DAVY DUNCE
What drew you to the play?
I’ve never acted in a Restoration Comedy before or at the Young Vic and I’ve
wanted to do both! Also, I played Anne-Marie’s [Lady Dunce] father on
television in The Way We Live Now by Trollope, so the idea of playing her
husband was delightful!
Do you remember the first time you read the script, and what did you think?
I saw The Soldiers’ Fortune about forty five years ago so I had a memory of
it. When I read the script I thought it was very unusual – it’s what we would
call a comedy-farce, but it’s very on the edge and has quite an air of
desperation and of excess about it. All the characters are to some extent
unsympathetic, so they are the opposite of bland sentimental comedy. I think
Otway was a pretty desperate man. He’s quite a modern writer in that way.
How do you go about preparing and developing a character?
I keep reading the play – you cannot read it too many times. While reading,
you hope that a whole lot of things are going on in your subconscious and that
an idea of someone – the character – is forming. His surname is Dunce – so
clearly he is meant to be a stupid man who is slow on the uptake and who has a
childlike, endearing quality, but he also has a nasty side to him which is
unusual. He’s a complicated character. The question throughout the play, is
how sympathetic you should be towards him at the end. Otway leaves it open
which is interesting.
What do you think are the main insights into Sir Davy Dunce’s character?
Sir Davy knows he has taken a big risk at sixty five in marrying a beautiful
young woman of twenty five, and is terrified of being a cuckold. He’s fond of
her but at the same time his own sense of status is so very dear to him.
The other interesting thing about him is that he is the character who has most
asides to the audience. He talks and confides his own stupidity to them.
Again, is this to make him appear more sympathetic or is it just a further way
of ridiculing him? He tells the audience that he has ‘the best wife in the
world’ when the audience knows he doesn’t. As a general rule in other plays,
such as Shakespeare, when a character has a soliloquy you always assume the
audience are on your side, even if you’re a villain – you assume they are
sympathetic to your point of view. Richard III is a classic example of a
character who confides in the audience even though he is an arch killer.
What’s it like playing such a character in Restoration Comedy?
Great fun! It’s always fun playing a character who is slow on the uptake and
constantly gets hold of the wrong end of the stick.
What have been the main challenges to date?
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It’s a very difficult part to learn. Sir Davy’s mind doesn’t work logically –
it shoots off in all different directions. Clarity of thought is much easier
to learn but if you’re all over the place, it’s much more difficult.
Also, the part becomes very melodramatic - for example he misquotes Macbeth
quite a bit, seeing the Devil and ghosts – and you don’t often get the chance
to play melodramatic characters. So, you can risk pulling out all the stops.
Hopefully it works!
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16. THE SOLDIERS’ FORTUNE: REHEARSAL DIARY BY VIK SIVALINGAM
Week 1
The first day of school! Director David Lan commented as much when he gathered
everyone- cast, crew, creative team members and the Young Vic family together
for the introductory meet. David welcomed the cast and the creative team and
expressed his excitement about working with them. We then went around the
circle and introduced ourselves.
When we couldn’t put off working any longer, David handed the cast over to
choreographer Alex Reynolds and Tango expert Claire for a Tango lesson. Alex
explained that the Tango was going to be the physical language that would
thread through the play. Claire was there to teach some basic steps and
technique which would later be incorporated as and when needed. This was a
great way to start the day and the room was very soon filled with slightly
self-conscious dancing couples!
The rest of the day was spent sitting around the table with the actors.
Refreshingly, David bucked the convention of the dreaded first read through
and dived straight in to talking about the play and the characters. He
stressed that this was the time for discovery and that any decisions about how
to approach the text and character should be delayed. This was a fantastic
opportunity for the actors to articulate their thoughts on the characters and
why they do what they do in the play. David said that this process should be
unhurried and that we should spend as much time as we needed to interrogate
the play and find the clues that the writer has provided in the text.
Day two started with a Tango lesson. Claire and Alex added to the foundation
that they began the day before. New movement sequences were taught to the
company. After this session, the company had a voice session with Patsy
Rodenberg. Patsy was very helpful in putting the language of the play into
context. She talked about the differences of language in the 1680’s and now.
She then talked about the technique that would be helpful in being able to
bridge the differences with the actors’ habitual speaking patterns and what
would be needed to be able to speak for the characters. She worked on some
basic techniques for voice production, which she would build upon in the
coming days using text from the period.
There was also a singing session with Music Director, Tim Sutton. While the
play is being done in period, the concession to modernity is in the choice of
using the tango and Latin influenced music. This is the physical and ambient
language that will be present throughout the play. Five actor musician members
of the cast provide the music while playing the smaller roles.
The rest of the week settled in to a similar pattern. Tango and voice in the
morning, then sitting around the table and interrogating the text. The
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afternoons were split between David and principals working on text, and Tim
and musicians working on music. Some of the questions that were asked in these
discovery sessions were:
What is the timeline for events before we meet the characters in the play?
What time of year was this?
What time of day was this?
Why did they behave the way they did?
How long have the characters known each other?
Do they live in London or do they come from the country?
Where in Covent Garden did they live? (We got maps of Covent Garden from 1685
and decided where the house would be. What surprised a lot of us was how
little Covent Garden had changed!)
Some of these questions were apparent in the text: either through the writer
giving it to us directly or through the characters talking about places,
themselves and each other. Our job was to distinguish and decide which of this
information was true and which was characters’ point of view and not
necessarily the truth. For example: in Act 1, Scene 2 Lady Dunce and Sylvia
describe Sir Davy as ‘a horse load of diseases- a beastly, unsavoury, old,
groaning, grunting, wheezing wretch that smells of the grave he is going to’
and ‘ his person is incomparably odious. He has such a breath one kiss of him
were enough to cure the fits of the mother.’ Oliver Ford Davies who plays Sir
Davy laughingly remarked that if we followed these descriptions, he would have
to make his entrance on a stretcher! But even this ‘misinformation’ by the
characters was useful. We could ask the question why they speak about him in
such a way and in trying to answer them, we arrive at character motivation and
state of mind.
Some questions were not easily answered and this was when we would conjecture
and come to a decision so that we all were, as it were, singing from the same
hymn sheet.
The week ended with some questions answered clearly and some that would need
to be tried on the floor. The one thing that everyone left thinking was that
this was an enormous play but one that we were going to have lots of fun
doing.
Week 2
Rehearsals took a more active and physical turn. David began working the play
from the top, looking at the scenes in greater detail and putting it on its
feet. Cast members were called in as needed.
This is always an interesting time in the process. The actors were primed to
be ‘off book’- to have learnt their lines or at least to have some kind of
familiarity of the scenes. Naturally, trying to do it without looking at the
script provided some entertaining moments. What also started to emerge were
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more questions about situations that we thought we’d clarified last week! As
they worked through the scenes, David started to shed light on some of his
ideas for staging that would help clarify some of the inconsistencies in the
play and help tell the story with greater clarity.
There was a final tango session with Claire on Tuesday reinforcing the
technical aspects of the dance. There is in 5 sessions a remarkable change in
the actors. They are really starting to look very stylish. From now on any
dancing/ movement will be what it would be in the final version of the play.
The musicians came in early in the week to remind themselves of what they had
learnt last week.
By Wednesday, David had worked through the play up to the end of Act 2,
roughly sketching in some staging ideas as well as questioning the characters’
needs in the scenes. It was becoming apparent that there were many layers to
the characters and every time the scenes were run through, the actors with
David’s help, began to discover and reinforce these layers adding nuance to
the characters.
Thursday and Friday were revision days. David and the actors looked at the
choices that they made and re evaluated if these choices were still valid or
if there were things that could help tell the story better. Tim came in with a
song for Anne-Marie who plays Lady Dunce. Alex also worked on some movement
sequences. Both the music and the movement are being used both to enhance the
characters emotions as well as underscoring scenes to create mood and provided
segues between scenes.
On Saturday, David spent the morning with Ray and Anne-Marie, plotting the
journey of their characters. This time brought new discoveries about the
timeline of the characters especially in terms of why/ how they act the way
they do when alone and when with others.
The afternoon session was a music and movement discovery session. David, Tim
and Alex spent the time looking at how the music and movement can be used to
incorporate the action without it feeling like an imposition. They chartered
the first scene in which David Bamber, who plays Sir Jolly, has his encounter
with the whores played by the musicians. A complicated scene told through
text, music and dance.
Week 3
Continued from where we stopped. The process was similar in that ideas were
discovered, put to test in the space and either kept or discarded depending on
their success. The work was happening with greater speed as the actors and
David got to know each other’s working methods. By mid week, we had covered
the play up to the end of Act 3, which is where the interval is to be placed.
Stage management brought in pieces of furniture, costume and rehearsal props
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and the actors began to incorporate this when working on the scenes. This
added a new dimension to the process with swords clanking and getting caught
between actors’ legs, letters getting stuck in pockets and general mayhem of
handling props while trying to remember lines.
Through the week more decisions were made about identifying scenes that would
need underscoring and moments where the actors sing. Similarly, scenes that
would allow for movement and dance were decided upon. As the play was delved
into, more detail was added and while sometimes it felt like we were going
around in circles, the truth was these were concentric circles, allowing the
story to emerge succintly and coherently.
Part of the difficulty in the play was the abundance of ‘in jokes’ and
resonances that a Restoration audience would have completely understood but is
less easily communicated to a twentieth first century audience- it would be as
if an audience in the future were seeing a twentieth first century play where
the characters talk about the episode of Big Brother when Jade Goody bullied
Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty. So the actors with David have to make these
parts work without changing the script or re writing the play, while keeping
the feel of the period!
What was also being incorporated into the actors’ thinking was where the
various events take place on the set. The events of the play take place in
many locations and change from interior to exterior from one scene to the next
in an almost filmic way. In the old days this was not a problem as plays were
performed on the forestage in front of a cloth and the audiences were told
where the characters were and this was a fine and accepted convention. Today’s
audiences expect more sophisticated story telling. Designer Lizzie Clachan’s
set is non naturalistic and suggests the multi location aspect rather than
spelling it out. There are no walls or doors and interiors are suggested by
dressing the space with minimal furniture and props for definition. For
example: Lady Dunce’s bedroom is a low bed on the forestage with pillows and a
throw. When the space becomes Sylvia’s bedroom this is made evident by
changing the colours and design of the pillows and throw. Tables and stools
suggest the interior of the coffee houses and when taken away become the
Piazza. While lighting will help, in order for these suggestions to work, the
actors will need to be very clear about what these spaces are and where the
boundaries lie on the set. Along with David’s guidance, the actors get used to
this and we begin to get a clear idea of Sir Davy’s house, the Tavern and
Coffee House as well as the Piazza and the Mall. By Saturday, the entire play
had been sketched out in this manner. The 2nd half of the play has a lot of
complicated scenes with people entering and exiting in furtive and clandestine
meetings as the plot to cuckold Sir Davy is realised. So it was with great
relief that we got to the end and were happy with what we’d achieved.
Naturally, when we go through the play next week, things will change but a
framework is in place.
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Week 4
Monday started with rehearsing from the top of the play again. The plan was to
do an Act a day, which would mean that the play is covered by Friday, and on
Saturday we could attempt a first stagger through of the play. This plan we
realised early in the day was just not going to work. Having to incorporate
movement and music during the scenes just took longer to do and this meant
that we fell behind. Playing the scenes were taking longer as well simply
because the actors were now much more secure with their lines and as such were
beginning to play with the scene which in turn releases more sense to the
scenes. When this happens we begin to find more layers to the characters and
what they are doing to each other. This is an important process to find
nuances to the characters and situations that will give the play greater depth
and believability. As the days progressed, the play starts taking on greater
shape. More music, movement and staging elements begin to sharpen the story
and keep the impetus of the complicated plot moving forward.
This week is also a delicate balancing act of trying to keep actors happy in
the rehearsal room by rehearsing as much as possible but also keeping the
other elements of putting on a play ticking along. This means actors are taken
out of rehearsals for interviews and photo calls as well as costume fittings.
Despite all this though, by the end of Thursday, we get to stagger through the
first act and feel good about it.
We learnt a few things from running the first Act. Firstly, it was too long
and David would look at how he could cut what was superfluous. There are, as
mentioned, many elements in the play that were ‘inside’ jokes and topical
references for the audiences of the day. Some of these are incredibly obscure
to us and we were finding that with a little circumspect editing, we could
keep the play that was written AND not distract our audiences with obscure
references. Secondly, we realised that unless the actors were absolutely
secure with their lines, it was impossible to play the scenes. Being secure
with their lines meant absolute accuracy so they weren’t distracted if they
missed a ‘what’ or substituted ‘and’ for ‘so’. Friday and Saturday were spent
making sure that this accuracy was achieved. We ran through scenes, stopping
actors when they made the tiniest mistake and re rehearsed it slowly and
painstakingly. This was an interesting process: it started off with the actors
being happy to be stopped when they made mistakes but then they began to get
frustrated with being corrected on what was perceived to be small details. We
pushed through nonetheless and realised that as they got slicker with the
lines, they began to play with ways of saying things and suddenly the play
began to lift off - words that we had heard numerous times began to make sense
and scenes were suddenly terribly funny.
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Week 5
The company were introduced to the theatre and the set that they will be
working on. For the last 4 weeks, we rehearsed in a studio that was possibly
five times smaller than the theatre. The floor of the rehearsal room was
marked out with tape to denote the playing space and when David would talk
about staging to the actors, he would always refer to photographs of the model
of the set. However, seeing the set in miniature and seeing it in reality is
two very different things. Firstly, the scale is simply unimaginable! The
theatre is huge with a very high ceiling and the set is magnificent in it very dramatic, solidly thrusting out of the proscenium, with steps going out
this way and that. Where everything was on one level in the rehearsal room,
here steps going up really took you up one storey and going down into the pit.
Charlotte, our company stage manager, gave the cast a general welcome to their
home for the next 10weeks and a Health and Safety talk. Then they were walked
through the set including all entrances and exits. Suddenly the realisation of
time and distance was brought into focus. This is a really interesting time
for the company. Even though we have been rehearsing a play for 4 weeks, it
suddenly feels like we are really going to put on a play and this realisation
affects people in different ways. There is excitement, nervousness, panic and
trepidation all rolled in to one! Seeing also as how we only managed to run
the first Act once, some of this anxiety was very understandable. So to work!
The first three days were spent working through the play looking at staging
and the logistics of being able to get around to entrances and exits on time.
Some of these had to be adjusted and or changed completely. Generally though
we were in rather a good place with the work from the previous weeks apparent
and on Wednesday afternoon we did a run of the entire play. This gave the
actors a feel of the entire play and the stamina they needed to get through
the performance and it helped the creative team identify where there were
problems and also allowed lighting designer Rick Fisher to see the shape of
the show and where the big lighting moments were needed. Sound designer, Paul
Groothuis, was also here to watch so that he could begin to plot in any sound
effects and cues that were needed as well as plotting the sound levels for the
musicians’ instruments. What was pretty apparent to David was that the play,
while in relatively good shape, was still too long and he went home with the
resolution to trim it further. Thursday and Friday saw us in the rehearsal
room during the morning session and the theatre in the afternoon. The morning
was spent looking at the new cuts and working the scenes to make sure the
actors were secure with these and the afternoon was about putting it on stage
to ensure that the cuts actually worked. Saturday morning we ran the entire
play for the second time. This was a more satisfactory run, the actors feeling
much more at home with the space, the play and with what they were doing.
While it wasn’t completely what it should be, we all left with the feeling
that we had a play.
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Week 6
Tech week- the week in which everything pulls together to a cohesive whole.
This is probably the hardest of all weeks in terms of having to negotiate
schedules as there are only so many hours in the day and all departments want
time to do what they need to do in order to complete the final production of
the play. This means that we work long hours, stage crew and technical staff
starting anywhere from 8 or 9 am and working late in to the night. Actors too
are called in from 10.30 am and work till 10pm. What’s really exciting about
this week is seeing the scenes that we’ve been working on for five weeks and
the space that we’ve been in for a week suddenly take on a new shape and feel.
It’s like a painting that you’ve been looking at everyday is suddenly framed,
hung up and lit. You begin to see new things in the familiar and the play
itself takes on a grandeur that comes with full production value.
On some levels, this week is a repetition of last week where scenes are looked
at and then amended. Only this time the changes happen because of technical
repercussions - maybe the actors are out of the light or they are lit when
they shouldn’t be. For example there is a scene where Lady Dunce is
overhearing a conversation between Sir Davy and Fourbin. To give the sense
that she is near enough to eavesdrop but far enough that Sir Davy doesn’t see
her, in the absence of walls on our set, is done through lighting. This means
sometimes moving the actor to a different space or sometimes it means having
to re plot a lighting cue. We were allocated 10 sessions totalling 28hrs to
tech the entire play, then a dress run on Friday afternoon and open for the
first preview performance on Friday evening. David was hoping to try and get
through the tech sessions by the end of Wednesday, which would allow us the
whole of Thursday to spend time with the actors on stage in the actual
lighting states with sound cues. We almost managed this - finishing the tech
on Thursday afternoon and doing a dress run in the evening. It was, as one
would expect, a first dress run in all aspects. When it was good it was
glorious and when it wasn’t, it was also magnificently not!
Contrary to the original plan to do a 2nd dress run, it was decided that
Friday afternoon would be better spent doing working notes in full costume and
tech support. This meant rehearsing the scenes that needed clarity in the same
conditions as a performance. There was a list of scenes to look at and soon
the 4 hrs of rehearsal time came to an end. It was with nerves and trepidation
as well as excitement that we looked forward to the evening. Let the games
begin!!!
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17. REFERENCES
Nancy Bradfield, Historical Costumes of England- From The Eleventh to The
Twentieth Century (London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 1959)
ed. by Michael Cordner, Four Restoration Plays (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995)
ed. Deborah Payne Fisk, English Restoration Theatre (Cambridge University
Press, 2000)
ed. by Robert and Linnet Latham, The World of Samuel Pepys (UK: Harper
Collins, 2000)
Fergus Linnane, Madams- Bawds & Brothel Keepers of London (UK: Sutton
Publishing Ltd., 2005)
Liza Picard, Restoration London (London: Phoenix, 1997)
Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved, ed. by Malcolm Kelsall (Great Britain:
University of Nebraska Press, 1976)
Maureen Waller, 1700- Scenes from London Life (London: Hodder and Stoughton,
2000)
Some useful websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_comedy
http://www.jrp.dial.pipex.com/PG/pieces/thomas_otway.shtml
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18. FEEDBACK FORMS
FAO:
Alex Brierley
Fax: 020 7922 2801 Deadline: Friday 30th March 2007
Name: .......................................................................
School: .....................................................................
Year group of class: ........................................................
The Resource Pack:
Did you find the pack useful?
Did you use the pack before or after the students had seen the show?
Did you feel it helped them understand more about the play?
Did it feed in to any other work you are doing with the students?
Any other comments?
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The Production:
What did you and your pupils think of The Soldiers’ Fortune? Did your pupils
make any revealing comments?
What did you think of the music, the set and the costumes?
How will your trip feed into your class work?
If you didn’t use all of your tickets, what were the main reasons for the
tickets not being used?
How often do you take pupils to the theatre?
Organisation between your school and the Young Vic:
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Please comment on the following areas of the Funded Ticket Scheme process.
Please indicate any suggestions you may have:
 How easy/difficult is it to organise a trip to the theatre within your
school?
 Correspondence with the Young Vic. Please comment on: bookings,
confirmations, queries. (Please tell us if there is an alternative way to
contact you).
The Theatre
Did you have any difficulties travelling to the Young Vic theatre. If yes,
what were they?
Did you have difficulties once at the theatre? What do you think of the new
building?
How did you find the theatre Front of House staff?
General
Any other comments?
Please return this form to Alex by fax to 0207 922 2802 or post it to:
Alexandra Brierley, Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London, SE1 8LZ
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Thank you for taking the time to complete this form.
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