The Young Vic and the RNT Studio present
AFORE NIGHT COME
by David Rudkin
Resource Pack
CONTENTS
Page
1.
SYNOPSIS
2.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DAVID RUDKIN
3.
COMPANY LIST AND BIOGRAPHIES
4.
DAVID RUDKIN ON AFORE NIGHT COME
5.
INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR RUFUS NORRIS
6.
INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER IAN MACNEIL
7.
PRODUCTION NOTES
8.
COSTUME DRAWINGS
9.
BACKGROUND NOTES
10.
EXTRACT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH IAN MCDIARMID (1974)
11.
AN ARTICLE IN THE OBERLIN REVIEW (2000)
12.
AN ARTICLE IN TIME OUT (2001)
13.
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS
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 7633 0133
f: 020 7928 1585
e: info@youngvic.org
Contributions from, Sue Emmas, Jules Evans, Kat Fishwick, Phil Gladwell, Keith Patterson
Alison Trett, Joan Wadge, Tom Wright.
Edited by Sue Emmas
© 2001 Young Vic
First performed at the Young Vic on 21 September 2001
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The Young Vic and the RNT Studio present
AFORE NIGHT COME
by David Rudkin
Resource Pack
1.
SYNOPSIS
Act One
An autumn morning, early, in a black country pear orchard. Larry, a student and Jeff, a
Teddy Boy are looking for work. They meet the foreman (Spens) who hires them, with a
warning, This’m a man’s job, fruit-picking. Man’s job.
They begin to learn the rhythm of the working day. Jumbo, Albert and Ginger, Jim, Taffy all
start to pick the pears and Mrs Trevis shifts crates. After the introductions have been made
the conversation turns to work, politics, cars, women
The work involves sorting the pears; gotta keep the bitter ones out. The work goes on, as
does the talk. A new worker arrives, Roche. He has a strange way of dressing and an even
stranger way of talking. He proclaims himself a poet, and student until the day he dies. In
response they mock him and give him the nickname Shakespeare. But he’s defiant; Laugh at
me if you will. The work goes on.
Johnny, the tractor driver, and his mate Tiny arrive. They are there to collect boxes – bad
tempered, but friends. They greet Larry in silence but gradually the talk begins, of good and
evil, of truth and lies. Johnny believes in a better place, where he and Larry came from.
There is talk of salvation. We’m baptized. In the Blood.
They are interrupted as the foreman returns with instructions for the tractor drivers. More talk,
this time about the boss, Mr Hawkes. They wonder if he knows where his workers are or
what they are up to. As Roche frets over the size of the pears, Johnny, Tiny, Spens and Mrs
Trevis talk of pest control and rain. Of the danger and fear it brings.
The work is disturbed when Roche spills the pears and complains of a headache. He is
mocked again. Spens sends the tractor off. The work must get done whatever happens. As
the mockery continues Roche demands a glass of water. Spens gives him directions to
some non-existent cottages. Reckon as he won’t come back - he says.
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The mood changes rapidly from mockery, through pity and embarrassment, to unease.
Spens calls everyone back to work, with warnings and threats of violence against laziness,
and a cold reminder, Done worse afore now.
Roche does come back. Johnny has found him water. He talks to Larry about his opinions on
health and superstitions until, tired, he falls asleep. Johnny and Tiny hesitantly try to warn
Larry about Roche. I seen ever so much blood in my time.
The other workers return and find Roche among them. They taunt and keep pushing him
until, finally, there’s a confrontation between Spens and Roche. Spens wants to let him go
but Roche appeals. Another chance… I want another chance…
Act Two
After Lunch the horn sounds. The workers return to their ladders except for Roche. Mr
Hawkes and Gloria pay a visit with a change of instructions. Knives must be found and tyres
sliced up. Yet there are four hundred boxes of pears still to do. Amid complaints and delivery
mix ups the workers wonder if Roche has finally left. Hawkes returns to remind them that the
knives must be sharpened. And Spens tells the workers that Roche has been given another
chance. The news is greeted with disgust. Who has to get the bloody picking done?
Mrs Trevis is ordered to do the tree tops that Roche has missed the first time round. The
fear of Roche spreads. Fear of his hands, his voice, his power.
As Spens takes care of the knives, Johnny and Tiny sense trouble. Johnny wants to leave, he
fears for Larry’s safety and wants him to come too. But he can’t leave on his own, he needs
Tiny to give him confidence. But it be can’t be arranged without telling the truth. You got to
tell him a reason
The workers talk returns to dark themes and visions. They talk of war, Ireland and racism The
pest-control plane flies over and straining to see it Mrs Trevis falls from the ladder. It begins
to rain. Still the work goes on. Knives are sharpened and passed among the men. One for
the new Teddy Boy, one for Albert, and one for his son Ginge. Johnny arrives with more
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warnings and begs Larry to leave, but he can’t quite express what he wants to say. Larry
ignores him.
Roche returns, trying to collect his wage and go. But as he makes to leave he is mocked and
taunted. The tensions of the group intensify and events unfold.
Climax.
Afterwards they return to work. Johnny and Larry meet again and Larry gives him a pen.
Immediately afterwards Johnny is sent away by Mr Hawkes. The workers leave at the end of
the day’s work.
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2.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DAVID RUDKIN
David James Rudkin was born in London, 29 June 1936. He was educated at King Edward's
School, Birmingham, between 1947 and 55.
He then read Philology at St. Catherine's
College, Oxford, 1957-61 and followed up his studies with an M.A. 1961. He also served in
the Royal Corps of Signals, between 1955 and 1957. Afore Night Come, his first major play,
was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1962. During the period from 1961 to
1964 he worked as an assistant master of Latin, Greek and music at County High School,
Bromsgrove, before leaving to write full time.
In 1967 he married Alexandra Margaret
Thomson, with whom he had two sons and two daughters. Following the marriage Rudkin
focused on writing television screenplays, such as Children Playing in 1967 and Blodwen
Home from Rachel’s Wedding in1969.
He returned to the stage with Cries from Casement
as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin in 1973 and Ashes in 1975, both based on events in
Northern Ireland.
In recent years he has been writing screenplays for television, has
completed a new play set in a male brothel and is working on the libretto for an opera based
on the life of Buddha.
Rudkin clearly expresses the political purpose behind his work: `I believe the dramatist's
function in a society to be to transmute the idiosyncrasies of personal life experience into
metaphors of public, political value to mankind.'
PLAYS
Afore Night Come (produced 1962)
Moses and Aaron, translation of the libretto, music by Schoenberg 1965
The Grace of Todd, music by Gordon Crosse 1969
Burglars (for children) 1970
The Filth Hunt 1972
Cries from Casement as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin 1973
Ashes 1973
Penda's Fen 1974
No Title 1974
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The Sons of Light 1976
Sovereignty under Elizabeth 1977
Hippolytus, adaptation of the play by Euripides 1978
Hansel and Gretel 1980
The Triumph of Death 1981
Peer Gynt, adaptation of the play by Ibsen 1982
Space Invaders 1984
Will's Way 1985
The Saxon Shore 1986
Deathwatch, and The Maids, adaptations of plays by Jean Genet 1987
When We Dead Awaken, adaptation of the play by Ibsen 1990
Screenplays
Fahrenheit 451(additional dialogue, uncredited) 1966
Mademoiselle 1966
Testimony 1987
December Bride 1989
Radio Plays
No Accounting for Taste 1960
The Persians, from the play by Aeschylus 1965
Gear Change 1967
Cries from Casement as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin 1973
Hecuba from the play by Euripides 1975
Rosmersholm from the play by Ibsen 1990
Television Plays
The Stone Dance 1963
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Children Playing 1967
House of Character 1968
Blodwen, Home from Rachel's Marriage 1969
Bypass 1972
Atrocity 1973
Penda's Fen 1974
Pritan and The Coming of the Cross (Churchill's People series) 1975
The Ash Tree from the story by M.R. James 1975
The Living Grave (Leap in the Dark series) 1981
Artemis 81 1981
Across the Water 1983
White Lady 1987
Gawain and the, Green Knight from the Middle English poem 1991
Ballet Scenario
Sun into Darkness 1966
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3.
COMPANY LIST AND BIOGRAPHIES
Cast
Christopher Brand Jim
Daniel Cerqueira Tiny
Edward Clayton Albert
Zoe Dawson Gloria
Patrick Drury Spens
Tim Harris Jeff
Ewan Hooper Roche
Mary Healey Mrs Trevis
Richard Lynch Taffy Hughes
Laurence Mitchell Johnny ‘Hobnails’ Carter
Roger Morlidge Jumbo
Peter Pacey Mr Hawkins
Adam Shaw Ginger
Jack Tarlton Larry
Direction Rufus Norris
Set Ian MacNeil
Costumes Joan Wadge
Lighting Rick Fisher
Sound Paul Arditti
Waterist Mario Borza
Casting Wendy Spon
Voice and Dialect Coach Jeannette Nelson
Assistant to Set Designer Anna Grue
Production Manager Paul Russell
Company Stage Manager Jules Evans
Stage Manager Xenia Lewis
Deputy Stage Manager Clea Matthews
Assistant Stage Manager Louise Masters
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Cast and Company Biographies
Christopher Brand Jim
Theatre includes Frankie and Tommy (Lyric Hammersmith and Palace Theatre, Watford), The
Winter’s Tale, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peer Gynt (Royal Shakespeare
Company), Coriolanus (West Yorkshire Playhouse and World Tour), Salome (World Tour, dir.
Steven Berkoff), The Taming of the Shrew (Bloomsbury Theatre), Bouncers (Bristol Old Vic),
Natural Theatre Company (Japanese Tour).
Television includes Doctors, The Vanishing
Man, Men of the World, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, Tomorrow People, Scarlet and Black,
Seekers. Films include Dark Prince, The Biographer. Radio includes Jupiter, Twelfth Night.
Daniel Cerqueira Tiny
Theatre includes Mountain Language (Royal Court and Lincoln Center, New York),
Luminosity (RSC), Meat (Theatre Royal, Plymouth), Aunt Dan and Lemon (Almeida),
Cleansed, Attempts on her Life (Royal Court), Powderkeg (Gate Theatre), The Art of Random
Whistling (Young Vic Studio), Crocodile Looking at Birds (Lyric Studio), Days of Hope
(Hampstead), The Brave (The Bush).
Films include Toy Boys, Valley Girls, Mad Cows,
Saving Private Ryan.
Edward Clayton Albert
Theatre includes Henry VI Parts I, II & III, Richard III (Royal Shakespeare Company), King
Lear (Royal Shakespeare Company – Japan, London and Stratford).
Zoe Dawson Gloria
Zoe has just completed her training at LAMDA. Theatre includes Of Thee I Sing (Bridewell
Theatre), Oklahoma! (Royal National Theatre). Films include Oklahoma!.
Tim Harris Jeff
Theatre includes Oliver (Birmingham Hippodrome), Love and Spare Parts, King of the City,
Man of Substance (Swan Theatre, Stratford), Two Gents (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), Utopia
and Beyond (Midlands Arts Centre). Television includes Peak Practice, In a Land of Plenty,
Dream Team, Dangerfield, The Locksmith, Guilty, Crimestalker. Films include Elephant Juice
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(Bandung Films), Get Real (Graphite Film and Television - winner of the 1998 Audience
Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival).
Mary Healey Mrs Trevis
Theatre includes Cartoons from a Cold Corner (New plays Festival, Gate Theatre), Come
Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Duke of Cambridge Theatre Club),
Cabaret Weill (La Bonne Crêpe Café Theatre & other venues), Live Like Pigs (Royal Court
Upstairs). Television includes Marion and Jeff: A Small Summer Party, Holby City, House of
Elliot, Blott on the Landscape (BBC), Nuts & Bolts (HTV Wales), Brookside (Channel 4),
Goodnight Mr Tom (ITV). Films include Chicken Run, Brassed Off.
Ewan Hooper Roche
Founder and Director of the Greenwich Theatre 1969 – 1978. Theatre includes King Lear
(Young Vic Japanese Tour), Toast (RNT Studio/Royal Court/Ambassadors), Roots (RNT),
Falkland Sound/Gibraltar Strait, All Things Nice, Hammett’s Apprentice, The Kitchen, The
Changing Room, The Weir (Royal Court), Blue Heart, Drummers (Out of Joint), Much Ado
About Nothing, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Richard II, Hindle Wakes (Royal Exchange), Henry
V, Coriolanus, The Broken Heart, The Caretaker (RSC), Entertaining Mr Sloane (Arts), The
Woman in Black (Fortune). Television includes The Rules That Jack Made, Hunter’s Walk,
King Lear, The Crucible, Invasion, Moonfleet, Hi-de-Hi!, Across The Lake, Roots.
Films
include How I Won The War, Julius Caesar, Personal Services.
Richard Lynch Taffy Hughes
Theatre includes Ghost Train Tattoo (Manchester Royal Exchange), Penny For a Song
(Oxford Stage Company), The Storm (Almeida), Gas Station Angel (Royal Court), The
Mysteries (Royal Shakespeare Company), House of America, Flowers of the Dead Red Sea,
East From the Gantry, Song from a Forgotten City (Fiction Factory). Television includes
Tales From Pleasure Beach, The Score, Thicker Than Water, The Healer (BBC), Sex,
Fondue and Dinosaurs (HTV).
Laurence Mitchell Johnny ‘Hobnails’ Carter
Theatre includes Accomplices, Mr England (Royal National Theatre/Sheffield Theatres), Six
Degrees of Separation (Crucible, Sheffield), Troilus and Cressida (Oxford Stage Company),
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Never the Sinner (Library Theatre, Manchester), Filumena (Peter Hall Company), The
Doctors Dilemma (Almeida), Cause Celebre (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith).
Television
includes Kavanagh QC (Carlton).
Roger Morlidge Jumbo
Theatre includes The Contractor (Derby Playhouse), The Riot (Royal National Theatre),
Henry V (Royal Shakespeare Company), The Changing Room (Royal Court Theatre), Blue
Remembered Hills (Sheffield Crucible). Television includes Crime and Punishment, Hearts
and Bones, All the King’s Men, Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, Pie in the Sky (BBC), A Wing
and a Prayer (Thames), Touching Evil (Anglia), The Heart Surgeon (World Productions), Moll
Flanders (Granada), ‘Get Calf’ & ‘Gareth Cheeseman’ – Six Sides of Coogan (Pozzitive TV).
Peter Pacey Mr Hawkes
Nominated for Best Actor for Clive in David Edgar’s Saigon Rose (1978). Edinburgh ‘Fringe
First’ for Soho (2000).
Theatre includes As You Like It
(BAC and West Yorkshire
Playhouse), Lady Chatterley’s Lover (National Tour), Look Back in Anger (Oxford Playhouse),
Frost at Midnight (Greenwich Studio), All Manner of Means, Contact UK (The White Bear),
The Protagonist, Mandragola (Southwark Playhouse), Romeo and Juliet (Belgrade,
Coventry), Barabas (Hong Kong Cathedral), The Tempest (St Georges Theatre), Noises Off
(Frankfurt Theatre), The Country Wife (Royal National Theatre), Mr Shaw in Search of Love,
Having a Ball (National Tour), The Norman Conquests (Hornchurch). Television includes
Happiness, Lorna Doone, Fish, Casualty, Hope and Glory, The Lakes, Cold Feet, Coronation
Street, London Bridge, Reckless, The Bill, Backup, Crocodile Shoes, Kiss and Tell, Close
Relations, Big Deal, Upcoming, Come Together, Manchild. Films include The Mystery of
Edwin Drood, The Young Poisoner’s Handboook, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The
Last Waltz, The Scene of the Crime, Nutcracker, Upcoming, Deadville. Radio includes King
Lear, Billy Liar, The Ruffian on the Stair, Night School, Drama Workshop, Listen With Mother.
Adam Shaw Ginger
Theatre includes The Comedy of Errors (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Three Minute Heroes
(Belgrade, Coventry), The Last Sortie (New End Theatre, Hampstead). Television includes
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Heartbeat (Yorkshire Television). Films include Just Visiting, Saving Private Ryan, Aardvark
Criminal, Walking with Walken, End of the Dream.
Jack Tarlton Larry
Theatre includes An Inspector Calls (National Theatre in the West End), A Month in the
Country, Troilus and Cressida (Royal Shakespeare Company). Television includes Swivel on
the Tip (BBC and Play UK), Hearts and Bones, Life Support, Wings of Angels (BBC), The
Cater Street Hangman (Yorkshire TV and A & E). Films include The Unscarred.
Rufus Norris Direction
Directing credits include Two Women (Soho Theatre), Under The Blue Sky, About the Boy,
Clubbed Out, Where The Devils Dwell (Royal Court), Shawna and Ron’s Half Moon, Pierrot
(ENO), My Dad’s Cornershop (Birmingham Rep), Small Craft Warnings (Pleasance), The
Measles (The Gate), Rosa Carnivora (Theatr Clwyd/Touring), Things Curious (BAC/Touring)
Strike Gently, The People Downstairs, The Art of Random Whistling (Wink Productions,
Young Vic Studio).
Rufus was Artistic Director of Arts Threshold from 1993-5.
He has
recently returned from Palaestine, where he directed Mish Alla Ruman for Al Kasaba Theatre,
Ramallah.
Ian MacNeil Set Design
Ian Studied at Croydon School of Art. Credits include Medea (Opera North), Tristan and
Isolde (ENO – Olivier Award for Best Opera, 1997), Ariodante (ENO and Welsh National
Opera), Death and the Maiden (Royal Court, West End and UK tour), Pioneers Ingolstadt,
Don Gill of the Green Breeches, Jerker (Gate Theatre), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Lyric,
Hammersmith), The Editing Process, This is a Chair (Royal Court), Via Dolorosa (Royal
Court, Broadway), Far Away (Royal Court, Albery Theatre), Der Freischutz (ENO), La
Traviata (Paris Bastille Opera), Ulysses (Munich Opera). For the Royal National Theatre, Ian
has designed Machinal (Critic’s Circle Award); An Inspector Calls (Critics Circle Award, Olivier
Award for Design) and Albert Speer. On Broadway, An Inspector Calls played at the Royal
Theatre winning an Outer Circle Critic’s Award, a Drama Desk Award and nomination for a
Tony for Best Design. Ian has designed two DV8 shows, Enter Achilles and Bound to Please.
Ian has also collaborated with The Pet Shop Boys on the design work and videos for their
album Nightlife and the subsequent world tour.
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Joan Wadge Costumes
Joan was Resident Designer with several Repertory Companies between 1974 and 1978.
Recent theatre includes Albert Speer (Royal National Theatre). Television and film credits
include Heaven on Earth, The Phoenix on the Carpet, Ivanhoe, Henry IV (1995 BAFTA
Nomination for Best Costume Design), Ghost Story, The Great Kandinsky, The House of
Elliott (1st series – BAFTA Award & Emmy Nomination for Costume Design), The Adventures
of Christopher Columbus, Lenny Henry’s ‘In Dreams’, The House of Elliott (3rd series – Emmy
Award Winner 1994), Old Times, Antonia and Jane – A Definitive Annual Report, Summer’s
Lease, All Passion Spent, The Interrogation of John.
Rick Fisher Lighting
Originally from the USA, Rick has been working in British theatre for over fifteen years.
Winner of a 1998 Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design for Lady in the Dark and Chips With
Everything, both for the Royal National Theatre.
Previously won an Olivier Award for
Machinal (RNT), Hysteria (Royal Court) and Moonlight (Almeida and Comedy). He also won
the Tony and Drama Desk awards on Broadway and in Los Angeles Ovation and Drama
Critics Circle awards, for the RNT’s production of An Inspector Calls. Recent theatre work
includes A Winter’s Tale (RNT); Blue Orange (Duchess Theatre); A Boston Marriage
(Donmar); A Russian in the Woods (RSC – The Other Place, Stratford), The Sunshine Boys
(Guildford & tour); Far Away (Royal Court and Albery), Napoleon (Shaftesbury); My Zinc Bed
(Royal Court), Albert Speer (RNT), Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Berlin; Via
Dolorosa (Royal Court & Broadway). Dance includes the award-winning Swan Lake (London,
Los Angeles & Broadway) and Cinderella (London & Los Angeles) for Adventures in Motion
Pictures and Danses Concertantes for Boston Ballet.
Opera includes, most recently,
Egyptian Helen and Wozzeck for Sante Fe Opera, as well as Verdi Requiem (ENO), Wozzeck
(Florence), Der Freischutz, Dr Ox’s Experiment and The Fairy Queen (ENO), Flying
Dutchman (Bordeaux), Traviata (Paris Opera), Gloriana, Medea and La Bohème (Opera
North).
Currently designing Mother Clap’s Molly House for the RNT.
He is currently
Chairman of the British Association of Lighting Designers and is also Visiting Professor in
Lighting Design at the Dramatisk Institut, Stockholm.
Paul Arditti Sound
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Paul Arditti has been designing for theatre since 1983. He currently combines his post as
Head of Sound at the Royal Court (where he has designed more than 60 productions) with
regular freelance projects.
Royal Court productions include Blasted, Mouth to Mouth,
Spinning Into Butter, I Just Stopped By To See The Man, Far Away, My Zinc Bed, 4.48
Psychosis, Fireface, Mr Kolpert, The Force of Change, Hard Fruit, Other People, Dublin
Carol, The Glory of Living, The Kitchen, Rat in the Skull, Some Voices, Mojo, The Weir, The
Steward of Christendom, Shopping and Fucking, Blue Heart (co-productions with Out of
Joint); The Chairs (co-productions with Theatre de Complicite), Cleansed, Via Dolorosa.
Other theatre includes Light (Complicite), Our Lady of Sligo (RNT with Out of Joint), Some
Explicit Polaroids (Out of Joint), Hamlet, The Tempest (RSC), Orpheus Descending, Cyrano
de Bergerac, St Joan (West End), Marathon (Gate). Musicals include Doctor Doolittle, Piaf,
The Threepenny Opera. Awards include Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design
1992 for Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (Broadway).
Mario Borza Waterist
Mario graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 1996. Since then he has worked as an
independent creative artist, exhibiting in various places in the UK and abroad, and has
worked with water in the Theatre. He worked with Primitive Science on Poseidon (Young Vic
Studio) as well as their two previous shows Vagabondage and The Spell.
He works
frequently with director Jude Kelly, most recently on Singing in the Rain (RNT), as well as
Macbeth, Deadmeat (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Elisir d’Amore (ENO) and Othello in
Washington, USA. Other theatre credits include Julius Caesar (Young Vic), The White Devil
(RSC) and Phaedra (Gate, Dublin).
Exhibitions include Warehouse Wareabouts (East
London Art Gallery), If not, then … (Moravian Burial Ground, London), 22 Thresholds (Brixton
Art Gallery), Around the Coyote 90 (Chicago, USA).
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Photos of cast – separate sheet.
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4.
DAVID RUDKIN ON AFORE NIGHT COME
Why did I write this particular play?
Everything starts a long way back. I knew I was going to be a writer, the first time I opened a
book. I was about 4. I was fascinated by the look of the print, the shapes of its lines and
spaces on the page. I wanted to make things like that. So it was books I wanted to write, not
plays. I didn’t know about plays, I didn’t know they existed.
My father was a Revivalist pastor; theatre and cinemas were forbidden places, abodes of
Satan. But my mother did take me, secretly, to see films: Gone With The Wind, Hitchcock’s
Rebecca, which were then (1940) on their first release. Because we couldn’t risk being seen
coming out of a cinema where people might know us, we had to go to distant cinemas far
across the city (Birmingham – my mothers family had come over here from Ireland, just
before the war). Because the cinemas were so far away, and we couldn’t be out very long,
we were never able to see a film complete. We had to make several trips, so I saw all these
films in bits and pieces, and many parts of each film I saw several times. So I got to know
these films image by image, pretty well.
Later, when I went to school (an old-fashioned school that taught now unfashionable things
like grammar, and Latin and Greek), in English classes we studied some Shakespeare texts –
I remember slogging through Henry IV part I, Macbeth, King Lear … And in Greek class we
struggled through the Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus and the Agamemnon of Aeschylus and
Euripides’ Alcestis - comparatively tame, that one; but then we went on to his Hecuba then
the Medea and ultimately The Bacchae.
So, with all this murder and blinding and
cannibalism, I grew up with a concept of drama as something naturally dark and bloody.
After school, I did my 2 years’ compulsory military service, then took up my place at Oxford,
where I read Mods and Greats (Classical languages and literature, ancient history, ancient
and modern philosophy). At Oxford I became involved in university theatre, and did a lot of
acting and directing, and I also made some films. I came to realise that there was a lot more
to drama than Shakespeare and the Greeks, but when friends said to me I should try writing a
play myself, I felt I didn’t have the theatrical background, or the technique. And the real
problem, as I saw it at the time, was the problem of language. How could I put on the stage a
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world and characters that a modern audience would find recognizable, yet have those
‘modern’ characters speak in language that had poetic stature but wasn’t fancy of unreal? I
thought it wasn’t possible.
Then (1958) a play came to Oxford on its out-of-town try-out, called The Birthday Party and
by an unheard-of-writer called Harold Pinter, and it simply exploded between my ears. This
amazing unknown writer had discovered poetry at the very opposite end of the language
spectrum, in the trite and the stunted and the banal. So of course I wrote a couple of student
plays very much under the influence of that.
But then, the following summer vacation or the next, 1959 or 1960, I went to work as a fruitpicker in a Worcestershire orchard. It was only a couple of miles, as the crow flies, from the
Longbridge Austin motor works; if you cycled, as I did over the rim of the hill at the southern
perimeter of Birmingham, you free-wheeled down almost immediately into dips and crannies
of old rustic Worcestershire. (It is still so.) I reported for duty at the foreman’s farmhouse (his
name wasn’t Spens, that was someone else who worked there); and with me, looking for work
too, was a lad who had come down from Redditch on his motorbike – he wore a sort of gear
influenced by the Teddy Boy fashions of 4 or 5 years before. Later in the morning we were
joined by an Irish tramp, in broken shoes without socks, a long ragged herring-bone overcoat
and wearing dark glasses and a teacloth on his head. His name was Roche. Suddenly a
play was there: in all the dialects and various coloured forms of speech around me; I was
doing what the Pinter play had taught me to do: to find the poetry by listening. What was
shaping was an amiable, quite comedic piece, without much of a story. And it wasn’t Pinter,
or anybody else: it was itself, and already it was writing itself.
Then, as the days went by, the Irishman began to become the butt of everybody’s jokes and
the victim of their resentments and frustrations and their rancour and malice too, and
sometimes these broke out in physical buffeting and ragging.
I didn’t behave very
honourably; I just kept a low profile because I was afraid. Then ultimately they ignored him,
went on as though he wasn’t there. I thought, in a Christian sense they’re murdering this
man; and the play that was writing itself turned dark. One day he didn’t appear. A few days
after that the weather broke; torrential downpour, there couldn’t be any picking that day, so I
stayed at home and began to write the play down.
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As I began to realise where the play was taking me, I became afraid. I thought no-one will
ever do this piece. The ‘strong language’ was stronger than had ever been heard on the
stage. And because I needed to thread through this dark story a counter-element of desire
and love, to offset the rage and hatred – and there weren’t any girls working in this company,
and in any case the rage and hatred were all very male, the desire had to be male too – so
inevitably it had to be homosexual, which according to the laws of the time meant that the
play could never be publicly staged. And the logical moral outcome of the play’s process
would be a climactic act of violence of a sort that I don’t think had been done on an English
stage since the Jacobeans.
So I had to choose: back off and not follow the logical
implications of the play; or go through with it and be damned. If I was going to be a writer,
there wasn’t any choice.
After I came down from Oxford, I went to teach in a school – ironically, quite close to those
orchards where the play had ‘happened’ to me – and when the RSC’s first production of the
play was imminent, my Head of Department asked me what was the play about, what was it
‘saying’? I was quite surprised. I hadn’t thought about it as ‘saying’ anything. It was just
what it was.
What is important is the level on which people in the audience find it truthful and recognisable,
in terms of human impulses and emotions, and individual and group behaviour.
What’s
important, too, is the kind of theatre it is – rather like a dream that grips you, and pulls you in,
and takes you down into that underworld you visit only in your dreams; so that when you’ve
‘woken’ and come back out into the ‘real’ world that dream will stay reverberating within you
ever after, for you to go on thinking about and dealing with. A kind of theatre that enables you
to see down into the roots of things.
David Rudkin
July 2001
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5.
INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR RUFUS NORRIS
Why produce this play now?
There is an element of the story which concerns the abuse of agriculture for commercial end,
and in that sense I think the play is before its time. The orchard is mismanaged but obviously
productivity is what they are going for, wherever possible, so they use pesticides, etc. which
have repercussions within the play, because they spray the crops while people are picking.
They make a lot of references to it; it makes you bald, blind, ‘you can’t have no babbies.’
There is an ecological side to the play, which we tried to accentuate, particularly in the design,
with the wires and light bulbs above the stage and a having a slightly hot-house feel; it’s
almost like a battery farm.
The play also deals with the fear of the outsider, which is very current with all the fear of
asylum seekers and the way that is used in the press. There is a racist element in the action
of the play; specifically anti-Irish, which would have been more prevalent in the 1960s than it
is now. Two outsiders come into the orchard and they are both treated as such because they
don’t fit in and behave in ways which promote antagonism and fear in the locals. One,
because he is educated and the other because he’s from a different culture and has a
different way of talking. He uses references and metaphors, which makes them feel insecure.
One of the outsiders gets on with the work, but the other one doesn’t which gives the locals
an excuse, and has grim consequences later in the play.
I think both the ecological element and the fear of the outsider are timeless, but at this
moment they are more relevant than ever.
The play depicts work in the orchard in some detail; has this influenced how you
approached the play?
Normally you would start rehearsal by looking at character intentions and the emotional
rhythm of the play but one of the big challenges in this play is just to get the boxes filled and
put in the right place, by the right person, at the right time. So a lot of rehearsal time has been
taken up with the practicalities of the work; if that isn’t smooth, especially in the first half, then
the play won’t work, if it is smooth then the play will look after itself. We had a lot of the set
and props from day one and the rehearsal process has been very methodical, going through it
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step by step, making endless notes on which boxes are where, how full, who carries them,
because we need pears to be in certain places at certain times so that the actors can pick
them up and juggle or throw them etc at the relevant point in the script. If a box goes out of
sync during a run-through the whole thing goes to pot. Also at one point in the play a load of
tyres have to be cut up, and if you’re going to cut up 50 tyres in 10 minutes you can’t leave it
until the technical rehearsal, you’ve got to rehearse it again and again with real knives and
real tyres. So the content of the play dictates a very methodical and practical approach to
what’s going on physically, before you can look at what’s going on emotionally.
Did you do any research into pear farming?
The play is loosely based on a real murder that happened around Bromsgrove in the 1950s,
where a man was ritually killed and decapitated and, I think, the murderers were never
caught. The actual orchard the play is set on was closed in the 1970s because of changes in
agriculture in the area. There is no agriculture between Bromsgrove and Redditch anymore.
So the designer and I went to the pear orchard closest to where the murder happened, just
outside Ombersley, which is almost in the Black Country. Then we went back there with the
full company. We had a session picking pears and driving tractors, and we had a long
question and answer session with the farmer and just sitting around the orchard, just getting a
feel for it. So that was very interesting and very worthwhile. Apart from everything else it’s
very good to have a trip with a company to get a little bonding going. Mind you the van took
four hours to get there when it should have taken two so I don’t think there was any singalongs by the end.
Were there any particular qualities you were looking for when you were casting the
play?
There were three things I looked for. One was the accent, it’s a tricky one to do and it’s
always better to get the real thing if you can. Two of the cast are from the right area and
another two are from Birmingham so we had four who were very solid with it before we
began, which made it easier for everyone else. Obviously, the others had to be very quick at
learning accents.
Secondly, they had to look like they’re industrial-rural working class, normal people with a
slightly odd local quality to them. There are a lot of actors who are good looking, because of
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the nature of the business, but I definitely wanted to get more character. So, I don’t know how
to put this, but they’re a pretty ugly crew; characterful and with enough of the real thing in
them.
Thirdly, the play has an ensemble cast of 14, with no lead roles, so its very important to cast
nice people who will have a laugh and get in to doing the piece, because they believe in it,
rather than thinking that it’s a good career move. Its vital because the atmosphere and
musical rhythm of this play will only work if everyone works together rather than in isolation.
How have you dealt with the violence?
The play specifies that one of the outsiders is murdered in a ritualistic way by having a cross
carved into his chest and his head cut off.
In 1962, when it was first staged, this was
incredibly shocking, but I’m not sure how shocking it would be now. It was done using a
theatrical sleight-of-hand that is possible on a proscenium arch stage but very difficult in-theround where there are people watching on all sides. Also a realistic prop head costs about
four thousand pounds which is pretty shocking in itself. A modern audience is used to special
effects and its very distracting for an audience if you try and deliver realistic violence and fail.
So we decided not to stage the murder exactly as it is written and I think we’ve found
something equally violating both of the character and the audiences’ expectations and which
makes clear that the murder is about more than somebody’s death. For the murderers it is
about fertility, the regeneration of life, both in the orchard and in the loins of one of the
characters. I think we will achieve all those things and hopefully it won’t have too many people
fainting.
Did the interesting mix in the play of the real and the heightened pose any challenges?
We tried to convey a sense of the heightened in the environment created by the set, which is
oppressive and quite claustrophobic. You don’t think of agricultural work being claustrophobic
but once you get in among the trees you’re surrounded with rubbish and the canopy of the
orchard weighs down on you. It’s not a wide-open space. It rains for a good twenty minutes of
the play, which shows that this kind of farm working is not particularly pleasant. When it’s a
glorious day then great, but most of the time it isn’t. I’ve had quite a lot of experience fruit
picking in that area when I was younger and its just hard work. So, a lot of the heightening we
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tried to achieve in the environment and we wanted the audience to come in and be part of
that environment as soon as they step into the theatre.
On a first reading the language can appear to be quite poetic or heightened. Having come
from that part of the world, I don’t think it is; it’s just the way they talk. I said that when I met
David Rudkin and he was very relieved to hear me say that. He said, ‘just do the
documentary,’ because that is the way that people talk, it’s not poetic. There are a lot of turns
of phrase, which seem odd on the page, but are totally natural for the characters so I have to
get the actors to live it as much as possible. I hope there will be a heightened element in the
atmosphere and the musical rhythm of it, and obviously what happens is extreme, in the end,
but I wouldn’t describe it as being poetic.
Why did you choose to do it in the round?
It was written to be performed in a proscenium arch, but I feel that with end-on staging the
audience are observing something rather than being a part of it, whereas in-the-round has the
potential to be very inclusive. So few theatres can accommodate in-the-round and the Young
Vic is great for that. I’ve seen a lot of in-the-round plays there that have really pulled me in.
The other factor is that it’s set in an orchard, completely outside, but if we used a thrust stage
we’d have a wall at the back of the playing area, what would we do it with it? We could have a
couple of sheds or a dreadful backdrop with a painting of sky or trees, but in the end you
would have something very solid in an environment where there is nothing solid except trees.
And if you put twenty trees on stage then the audience can’t see what’s happening.
Ultimately, being in-the-round provides you with an intimacy which is very celebratory of the
whole theatrical experience.
Apart from the ritual killing, are there other challenges posed by the transition from
proscenium to in the round?
One issue is sight-lines; you want everyone to be able to see certain things clearly and so you
have to stage the scenes so that everything happens facing three or four sides, rather than
playing it as a simple and static scene as you would in a proscenium arch. If a character,
especially a big bloke with a pear bucket, stands still too long the audience member sat
behind them can’t see, so even the still scenes when the characters stop working, you have
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to keep them moving without it seeming shuffly and unfocused. To a degree blocking the
audience’s view is unavoidable, and I don’t mind as long as you keep it varied, so that no side
of the auditorium is worse than the other.
How significant is the time the play is set?
It was written in 1960 and then performed first in 1962. There was one production in Germany
where they placed all the audience in cages, which I think says more about German theatre
than it does about the play, but in general I don’t think you can separate the play from its
period. For example, the reasons for the unpopularity of the Irishman are not related to ‘The
Troubles’, or the stupid Irishman jokes we listened to as kids; its got more to do with the war.
The fact that it is post-war is very significant, especially as a rural area in 1962 is likely to
have the attitudes and fashions of 1955 or 1958. Rationing had only just ended, clothes were
still heavy, which makes the experience of working very different, and there is a hierarchy in
the orchard that reflects the class system of the time. That was a big deal then, whereas now
the average bricklayer won’t any qualms about telling his foreman where to get off. They
wouldn’t necessarily have done that because work was less freelance. Many of them would
live nearby and this would be their work for the whole of their life, so it’s not just a wage, it’s
your whole livelihood. I think there are a lot of things in it that only really make sense in that
period.
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6.
INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER IAN MACNEIL
How did you get involved in the project?
I worked with Rufus at the Royal Court and he got in touch with me and sent me the script. I
had heard of it before and had a sense of what it was about but I don’t think I had ever read it.
From the first reading I found the play very atmospheric; you can immediately imagine the
mood of it, which is rare. I felt like I was missing something, though, so I kept rereading it and
there are some things which don’t add up; Rudkin was a very young man when he wrote it
and he wrote it quickly, in ten days, and in some ways that made it strong but it also means
there are a lot of anomalies about it. So, I was intrigued, and I wanted to work with Rufus and
I wanted to work at the Young Vic so I said yes.
How did you proceed from there?
When you are putting nature on stage you have to make it abstract. God makes trees and he
makes them better than we can so there is no point in shoving a real tree on stage, and
theatre is an artificial environment and you have to find a way to acknowledge that. If you
were doing a movie you would set it in a pear orchard, but in the theatre you have engage the
audience in the conceit that people will stand up in front of them and pretend to be something
they’re not. If you allow the audience to enjoy the pretending then they’ll go with you. If you
put something completely real on the stage, it doesn’t feel real, it feels strained.
When did you get the idea of a canopy over the stage?
It was the first thing. At the beginning Rufus and I would sit in the space and talk about the
play and I immediately thought that it was not interesting to have a load of vertical lines in the
space, indicating trees. It traps the space; the people are the vertical bits, not the trees, so I
imagined a canopy. We had no idea what the canopy would consist of but we knew it would
connect with the architecture of the theatre, would cover the playing space and would
completely re-sculpt it. Then I realised that it was about lifting the body of the actor up and
pressing it from above; so we built the stage up as well as lowering the ceiling.
Was it obvious to stage it in the round with audience on all sides?
If we discussed doing it any other way, thrust stage with audience on three sides, for
example, then I don’t remember. The Young Vic is an environmental space, it’s a studio
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space but it’s big as well and it works well in the round. Watching people work is an
interesting thing; there is something very satisfying in watching people put pears into buckets
and then empty them into boxes and then carry them off stage, so why not sculpt that and
isolate the actor by putting the audience on all sides of them. Then there’s the rain; people
love rain in theatres, it seems so naughty, it gives them a child-like delight, so why not
celebrate that and do it in the middle of the room, if you can? Especially as we all know
subconsciously that electricity + water = danger, so why not play with the illusion of that
danger?
Did your research trip to the orchard change any of your ideas?
It didn’t; it just confirmed things. I had already decided on what I call a ‘potting shed aesthetic.’
When you go past an allotment and there are these ramshackle sheds made of bits of
different things, it creates a sense of ‘a little corner of England’ which delights me and is very
essential to who we are. The play is about man and nature, not nature in its pure form; it’s not
a lyrical and romantic towny version of the countryside. The country is a workplace in the
play and when it rains it’s a misery to work there. So, we wanted a workmanlike atmosphere
and the visit to the orchard was very helpful with that. Rufus knew a farmer who had the
actual buckets of the period, the actual boxes, and still cultivates the trees in the same way.
We got very into the ways in which they torture their trees; they bully them into optimum
shapes for growing. The trees naturally want to be all sinewy and bent but they are
relentlessly staked and tied so that they grow in a convenient shape to allow a lorry to drive
up and down each row. I think the theme of nature in the service of man is still evident, as is
the way in which we plunder the land in a selfish, greedy, commercial way, without putting
anything back.
How involved were you in the specifics of the murder?
Rufus and I discussed it a lot. It is difficult to get an audience to contemplate what it is like to
actually kill somebody - the roughness of it, the struggle. When you have violence on the
stage or screen you have a responsibility not to glamourise it, but rather have the actuality of
it. Rudkin is interested in the ancient Greek idea that violence has a function in public events.
There is a danger, in the play and in our responses to horrific violence, that you imagine that
its other people who do that kind of thing, not you. But we are all human and we all have
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elements of that in our natures. So you have to be honest about that when you stage
violence.
Then you have to figure out how to stage it on a purely nuts and bolts level; it has to be safe
and believable. We couldn’t afford a convincing severed head, so we found a better idea.
That’s what theatre’s great at; you get the opportunity to spend over two months talking about
these things and worrying about them, and then when you think you have an answer you
realise that there’s a better idea. The process is a joy because you have the time to keep
travelling towards something that might be a better solution to the problem that the playwright
has given you. That’s why previews are so good. You get this fantastic opportunity to shove it
in front of a room full of people and then its so obvious what’s not working, even the problems
you’ve spent weeks banging your head against, but you still have time and resources to
improve things, not so much the set, but the acting and especially the writing if you are
working on a new play.
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7.
PRODUCTION NOTES
In a show like Afore Night Come there are specific challenges for the production department.
For the team at the Young Vic there were also even more specific challenges given the
overall look and feel of the set design. The play has many inherent problems to solve such as
creating believable 1950s fashions, making convincing blood and guts, researching how a
pear farm works. In addition there was the need to provide 300 hand painted light bulbs! The
production team give an insight into how they approached these unique challenges.
The Costumes
There is a myth that all the Wardrobe Department do is go shopping for clothes! However
there are many more aspects to consider as we are responsible for the general appearance
of the actors and this goes some way to help the actors realise their characters.
Once the theatre contracts the designer the planning begins. There is a very obvious initial
step, which is to read the script. This will give us an idea of how the writer envisaged the
characters. We consider their age, social standing, wealth, family, convictions etc. and any
direct references in the script to their appearance. Although, the designer may choose to
ignore these! We also consider how long the action of the play lasts for - hours, days or
weeks. Usually at this point, the designer will produce a costume illustration for each
character so that the wardrobe supervisor has an idea of the general look of the piece and
also specific details. Some designers may choose not to do a drawing at all and will work
with the actors and the director as the characters develop, using photographic references of
how s/he may have looked, as in our case.
At this early stage planning for sourcing the costumes is based on how much has been
allocated to costumes in the budget. An initial costing will be produced based on the hire
and/or the purchase and/or having the costumes made.
It is the job of the wardrobe
supervisor to work within this figure and that is not always easy! We have to consider time
implications, manpower and availability of costume makers etc.
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For Afore Night Come we chose to hire the majority of the costumes from Carlo Manzi
Rentals. They are based in West Hampstead and specialise in menswear. Therefore, the
women had to come from somewhere else, namely Angels in Camden. These organisations
have costumiers who will work with us to source specific items of their stock. The most
important thing for them to have is a set of measurements for each actor so that they can
begin pulling out items from their stock. So, the first job for us when we meet the actors at the
read through on the first day is to get a comprehensive set of measurements for each of
them. We will spend a couple of days pulling out items that we think may be appropriate in
advance of the fittings.
Working with the director’s rehearsal schedule we arrange for the (usually) second week to
include a fitting time for every actor. This process takes about a week. During this time the
deputy stage manager produces a daily set of rehearsal notes and we become aware of the
action, the characters and the implications this has in terms of their costumes. For Afore
Night Come it became apparent that five actors will be in contact with stage blood and
therefore could not have part of, or their whole costume hired because it could result in their
costume being ruined.
This also had time implications since we need to get costumes
washed and dried for the next performance and there is a relatively short time between
matinee and evening shows. So we decided that triplicates of some costumes were needed.
We also have to consider general wear and tear and provide the actors protection for
themselves in terms of kneepads and padding.
Once we had established that some of the costumes could not be hired we needed to look at
other ways of finding or making them. Three pairs of period trousers and a shirt could not be
bought, so we copied them and made multiples in the wardrobe at the Young Vic. Some
outworkers were contracted to take on part of this work. In order to do this fabric needed to
be sampled from shops around London for the designer to choose the right look. We were
able to buy some of the other pieces that needed to be multiples from specialist shops that
sell modern day replicas or original pieces. Then we faced the task of making these newly
bought pieces look like they belonged to part of the character’s wardrobe in the 1950’s.
Breaking down a costume is an integral part of our department and can range from dipping
things in tea to dyeing, spraying and burning garments. We have also been known to take a
cheese grater to items that need to look lived in and worn!
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Before we get to the production ‘tech’ week in the theatre, the wardrobe department will also
collaborate with the set designer and the stage management department to ensure that the
accessories and personal props tie in with the whole look of the piece. At the Young Vic we
also have to consider finer details of an actors appearance. Many larger theatres have a wigs
and make-up department, which will over see everything from haircuts to blood effects. In this
instance we booked a specialist person to come in and cut and style the actor’s hair and
advise us on how to achieve special effects that can easily be maintained by the wardrobe
staff.
Before the technical rehearsal starts all the costumes have to be labelled to avoid any
confusion. They are marked with the actor’s name, character name and the production name
so that they can be easily identifiable. We can then set up all the costumes in the dressing
rooms along with any other items, such as towels, that the actors might need. Back stage the
wardrobe staff ensure that there is sufficient room for the actors to do quick changes or hang
up items they need to get to themselves. We check the production schedule, which lists the
times that everything happens in each department beginning at the ‘fit up’ (week that the set
is built in and the theatre space is prepared.) We consider times of photo shoots and when
the actors are called to get into their costumes so that we have all the costumes ready.
During the tech the dresser will work with the actors to ensure that all their pieces of costume
are set in the right place. The dresser will produce a clear and comprehensive list of where
and when quick changes happen and how costumes are set. During this time we will produce
extensive costume lists for each actor so that we have a record of all the items in their
‘wardrobe’. We will take a photo of each of them in character. Finally we will produce
washing, ironing and dry cleaning lists for maintaining the costumes. All these lists will go into
a wardrobe bible which is kept for reference if any new members of staff join the show or if
the show goes on to tour elsewhere. At the end of the show the wardrobe manager is
responsible for returning any hired costumes and storing those, which belong to the theatre.
Stage Management
There are three members of the stage management department. The stage manager and the
assistant stage manager are responsible for obtaining all the props and furniture that are in
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the play or asked for from rehearsals. The deputy stage manager sits in rehearsals with the
director and actors.
They produce rehearsal notes (see example) which state props,
costumes, scenery that are needed and any changes that have occured in the play with
reference to lighting and sound.
Afore Night Come is set in a pear orchard.
This posed the first problem for stage
management. Where do we find pears in bulk and crates to put them in? After phoning a few
farms we found one near Birmingham run by Colin Bloomfield. After telling him our dilemma
– that we needed 120 crates from 1962 (when the play is set) and approximately 2000 real
pears a week he came to our rescue.
This fruit farm has been in his family for three
generations and he had a warehouse of old crates. Luckily for us pears are in season so he
offered to pick as many as we needed and to send them to us. He also allowed us (the acting
company and the director) to visit the fruit farm. There we learned how to pick pears, pack
pears, drive tractors and his parents talked to us about the times in 1962. This was an
invaluable trip for us as we learned so much that we could use in the play. Colin has become
an invaluable contact and has provided us with ladders, lining paper and a pair of scales!
Often in the first stages of rehearsals the director will not need all of the props and furniture
but in Afore Night Come the actors needed almost everything straight away. This meant we
had to be incredibly well prepared and also had to respond very quickly to any requests that
might come out of the rehearsal room. We also had to think about what to do about the
pears.
The budget would cover the number we needed for the run but we would need
thousands for the rehearsals as they would very easily get damaged and bruised as the
actors rehearsed. They also might get a bit smelly! So we decided to use potatoes. They
are much more robust, lasted much longer and were just about the right size and weight and
were cheap.
Stage management are responsible for making any props that we cannot buy or borrow.
One of our biggest challenges was how to realise the intestines. These had to look like
human ones that had just been removed. In the theatre we try very hard to replace real food
with fake as it goes off much faster under the stage lights. We thus decided make the
intestines.
Firstly we went to the internet and found a picture to use as a reference. Then
out of clay we built a model. This was then cast out of plaster to form a mould. When the
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mould was ready a thin layer of latext was poured in. The mould was then placed in the boiler
room (the warmest room in the theatre!) After two hours setting time, the mould was prised
apart and hey presto out comes an intestine! When we had made several intestines they
were entangled together and placed in a sealed bag with blood and strapped on to the actor.
It is important that our prop looks real but it is also important that the actors are comfortable
and confident in what they do. To ensure this happens we brought in a fight director to work
with all the actors who are involved in this aspect of the play. In order to get the intestines out
of the actor there is obviously a knife involved and because we don’t want any injured actors
safety is always an important consideration.
You can see what happens in the show and you can decide for yourself whether they look
real or not.
Electrics
Afore Night Come is set in a pear orchard and the director and designer wanted to
symbolise the pears by using light bulbs. In order for the whole space to feel like an orchard
Ian (the designer) we should cover the auditorium as well as the stage. We worked out we
would need 4000 light bulbs (1000 over the stage and 3000 over the auditorium) all hanging
on individual cables. In consultation with the lighting designer (Rick Fisher) we decided that
out of the 4000 light bulbs 1500 should work, that is glow (500 over the auditorium and all
1000 over the stage). This was going to be a major electrical undertaking. Then it was
decided that the rain storm in Act Two was to be real, so for twenty minutes during the second
half rain will pour through our pear bulbs onto the actors. Now it was not only a huge job but
a potentially dangerous one.
To achieve the look the designer wanted the pear bulbs all had to be hand painted with three
coats of paint and then finished with a coat of spray mount. It took two people the best part of
two weeks to achieve this – a great job for a visiting work experience student.
The 3000 over the auditorium are normal 25 watt ES bulbs as you would have at home
however, the 1000 over the stage have to be able to glow like any other bulb but not risk harm
when water flowed over them. Consequently we had them made specially for us and were
designed by the Young Vic’s Technical Manager.
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A 12 volt small capsule lamp is cased in an outer shell that will be formed in the shape of a
normal light bulb and will receive power through a track system so that the main voltage is
above the height of the rain effect. In short we covered a small bulb in a bigger plastic fake
one so that it was waterproof!
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8.
BACKGROUND NOTES
The setting and context for Afore Night Come naturally is a crucial aspect of the play. The
play is rooted in the particularity of the world in which it is set, the Black Country, and the time
in which it is set, the late 1950’s. Both of which may be slightly illusive to a modern London
audience.
The Black Country is the region west of Birmingham in the Midlands; it is mostly in
Staffordshire but also includes parts of Worcestershire and Warwickshire and the towns and
cities of Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton. The area had great deposits of coal, iron, clay
and limestone making it perfect for the mining and working of iron. Iron founderies and forges
began to appear from the mid 18th century, and by the mid 19th century the smoke from the
factories gave the area its name. In the 1950s small farms dependent on fruit growing (and
specifically pears because the soil conditions were particularly conducive) were an important
aspect of the local economy and job market. Whilst much of England was enjoying the social
and financial changes of post war Britain many rural areas continued untouched by modern
advancement.
The memories of Ray Cutler, who grew up in the Black Country in the late 1950s give an
indication of living conditions around that time.
“My parents and my grandparents houses were of the two up two down terraced variety with
outside 'skullery' (kitchen) and 'privy' (toilet).
On entering my grandmother’s living room you were greeted by the smell of home made
bread & cakes. She would be sitting in front of the 'range'/'black- leaded grate' (where ALL the
cooking used to be done) usually humming a 1920's tune while the kettle sang on the range.
A pot of tea could always be found almost instantly.
On a swing-out support on the range would hang a 'meat-jack', a clockwork device, which
was used to hang and rotate the meat over the fire. A small seat could be found at each end
of the range, coal was stored beneath them. Also in the room was an old piano sporting a
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candlestick at each side. The trip from the living room to the skullery was affected by the
weather since it was a twelve feet open 'foad' (yard).
The skullery was without a ceiling (the roof slates were visible) and the walls were
'whitewashed' bricks (quite normal), the forerunner to emulsion paint. Inside was an iron
mangle and a half-barrel containing a dolly/maid. The dolly was basically a shaped piece of
wood for manually agitating the washing. In the corner was a 'copper' and positioned over
this was a hand pump.
The privy was furnished with a nail in the wall on which to hang torn up pieces of newspaper
for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the newsprint of the day did not adhere to the paper too
well.”
In the rest of post war Britain and particularly in the urban areas there was much more
change in both living conditions and more importantly attitudes, opinions and aspirations. The
austerity of ration books gave way to a peacetime affluence and with it came a renewed hope
for the future. Like many rural areas the Black Country would by no means be untouched by
these developments but it would take much longer for the changes influence to be felt.
Naturally this sea of change was not completely without it’s tensions and antagonisms as the
status quo was questioned and redefined.
As the social landscape in Britain changed antagonisms and tensions built between different
groups as the status quo was questioned. Between young and old, working class and middle
class as well as between the indemic population and those newly arrived.
In the aftermath of World War Two the 1950’s provided people with previously unknown
opportunities and this was particularly true for young people. In an atmosphere of change
young people were able to question the status quo. As the values of the adult generation
came under scrutiny, the seeds of the generation gap began to take root and the young found
a voice and identity of their own. In the 1940s you were either an adult or a child but as the
youth culture took root in the early 1950s England saw the first of the Teddy Boys – urban
working class young men ambiguously drawing on the Saville Row designs of upper class
Edwardians but with their origins in an East End gang known as the Cosh boys.
In their
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draped jackets and drain pipe trousers they launched a wave of juvenile crime that ranged
from mindless vandalism to gang warfare. The newly emerging Rock’n’Roll music of Elvis
Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry was adopted by the Teds and along with other young people
became a sign of their rebellion.
Equally further from home the move to create an independent India and Pakistan heightened
the desire for independence from all Britain’s colonies. England’s relationship with Ireland
also intensified and the complicated war-time division between north and south Ireland
caused continuing friction.
It was also a complicated time economically as relative to other industrialised countries
England continued to decline yet but the early 1960’s the standard of living had improved
steadily and the likelihood of upward mobility became more possible.
Afore Night Come presents the complex world of the late 1950s in the Black Country with
great precision and insight. It reflects the tensions, complications and idiosyncrasies of a very
particular time in history and location in England.
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9.
EXTRACT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH IAN MCDIARMID (1974)
The renowned actor and director, Ian McDiarmid, until recently the artistic director of The
Almeida theatre and the Emperor from Star Wars, played the role of Roche in Afore Night
Come, with the RSC in 1974. Here, in an interview from David Ian Rabey’s book, David
Rudkin: Sacred Disobedience: an expository study of his drama, 1959 – 96, he talks about
the role.
“David Rudkin's work has a deep and complicated erotic charge. He understands - not so
much the "relationship between" sex and violence, but how one contains the other. Ron
Daniels's early 70's production of Afore Night Come addressed the play as partly a 'work of
play' of a similar nature to those of David Storey, partly as a play placed unusually close to
the audience: both in the physical dimensions of The Other Place, and the geographical
location of the rural Midlands: so that audiences felt, to an unusual extent, that they were in
the middle of something, not necessarily in a naturalistic sense (though that might have been
part of it), but in a mythic sense. A further resonance for the area was the stigmatisation of
Roche as "Shakespeare", the one who is too clever by half, and the way that he almost
invites his persecution and wills the end by his insistence on speaking and acting in a different
idiom to those around him. Like Shylock, he remains someone of immense personal pride
and attempted dignity; someone who realises when he is identified as the outsider that this is
a special role, and, again like Shylock, determines to play that role absolutely, to the hilt, and
beyond. It's a risky business, for that way disaster lies, but there is a great deal of temporary
satisfaction in it. And that has to be true of the actor who plays him, too. I seem to have
played many outsiders: people who, often unconsciously, expose and subvert morality,
despite the likely failure or grim consequences.
My costume assembled some of the naturalistic trappings associated with tramps, such as
the overcoat with safety pins, but Rudkin's specified addition of the tea-towel lends him both
an absurdity and a mad, Lear-like grandeur; the addition of sunglasses also recalls Hamm in
Beckett's Endgame. I remember working towards a sense of the mouth as not at all defined
by teeth: they were blacked, and I moved my mouth in a strange, flaccid way as if not
governed by the jaw.
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The character who is regarded as, or affects to play, the charlatan, is a recurrent figure in
Rudkin's work. Roche is like an actor of a style which has gone out of fashion: as soon as he
appears, he creates a sense that he is doomed because his "performance" smells of sham,
though he plays it out to the final act with an admirable recklessness. There are some
similarities between Roche and Davies in Pinter's The Caretaker, for example in Roche's
attempts to bend facts to fit his own mythic version of them and suggest that the fruitpickers
'are not bad men, just a wee bit-rough'; but Davies remains more pathetic and craven, content
in his own petty dignity rather than stirred by aspirations to grandeur, tending to attempt
alliances and ingratiation by playing low status, whereas Roche is compelled to play high
status, insist upon himself as a Celtic, poetic 'writer of sorts'. Roche self-consciously plays the
stage Irishman, the role allotted to him, sometimes with commanding sweep, sometimes like
a rank amateur. Rudkin is unusual in that he places the stage Irishman in the tragic centre of
the stage, rather than on its comic peripheries, in order to provoke.
Individuation and self-authorisation, which results from extremity or crisis may be a difficult
notion for an English audience-though less so perhaps for an Irish one. Rudkin is quite
ruthless, even brutal, with himself and with his characters, so there is never any danger of
false emotion or sentimentality if you're playing what he's written. His work denies facile
separations of sexualities, violence, the possible and impossible; separations which some will
seek to categorise and marginalise as "problematical", seeking to discount the active hunger
for, and relish of, difficult truths.”
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10.
AN ARTICLE IN THE OBERLIN REVIEW (2000)
This article comes from The Oberlin Review, (Volume 128, Number 21, April 21, 2000) the
magazine of the Oberlin University, USA, which has a campus in Britain and holds workshops
with professional writers for the students.
"I am a quarrier of language." This is how David Rudkin began his talk to the Oberlin-inLondon class. "Language is a major issue in my plays. Language is a character in my work!"
In front of us is a short, stocky man with disappearing chestnut-colored hair. He has a goatee
and sweats a bit. On his feet are well-worn Velcro sneakers. Bi-focals adorn his face. When
he becomes passionate about something, every three minutes, he opens his eyes big and
lets his voice, with its slight Irish brogue, thunder.
Rudkin's first play, Afore Night Come, was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in
the sixties. He has not had a professional production in fifteen years. Why? Most likely
because the language of his plays is too rich. I know, that sounds like a funny problem for a
playwright. He studied philology at Oxford, the study of language. This passion has fused to
David Rudkin. When Rudkin wrote a play set in fifth-century England, he did not write it in
English, but tried to create a language base that would sound as foreign as the language
itself.
"How does one write language that sounds fifth-century? I try to write modes of speech that
an actor can feel. People ask me why I won't just duck and write it in English. If I did this then,
I would not be speaking from the heart. I do not have to revolutionize, I merely go where the
harmony takes me."
Our jaws dropped as he spoke. Rudkin lives two hours away by train, in the English midlands,
and he travelled down to our little Oberlin group with a one-hour speech lovingly typed up for
our edification. I am not sure that 'speech' is the right word; more like 'love letter'-a love letter
entitled, "Politics of Body and Speech." Rudkin surfs an intellectual wave taller than anything I
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have ever been conscious of. David Rudkin is one of the smartest, thorniest, sweetest men I
have had the extreme fortune of meeting. How does he survive if no one is listening? (Some
years ago, Rudkin flew to Oberlin to see a premiere of one of his plays.)
"How do you create your plays?" one of us asked Rudkin.
"This will sound most peculiar. Actually, I lay down on the cold ground of my office and close
my eyes. I wait and wait for an image to appear out of the ether floating around in my head.
The image appears and it takes weeks to harden up, as it always escapes. I once saw a
woman striding forward through filthy, dirty air. One day I discovered she was carrying a
scythe. Like the statue Britannia. She was death. The marass I saw was dead bodies in
London during the plague. This was the core image for a play that turned into something
called John Piper and the House of Death."
Rudkin talked for two hours. He is a gracious and kind man who answers questions as if he
has been thinking about the answer for years instead of seconds. In his backpack he carries a
crumpled notebook to write down little thoughts and to chart scenes for upcoming plays. "I
acquire the confidence to write a play." Plays that end up in his desk drawer.
At the end of his talk, I asked David to sign my copy of his play Ashes. This, I think,made him
happy. Please give Rudkin a reason to return to Oberlin.”
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11.
AN ARTICLE IN TIME OUT (2001)
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