Autobiography 3. The Royal Court 2

Royal Court 2. D. H. Lawrence.

The 1^st productions for which I designed the costumes was “A Collier’s Friday Night”, and such was the critical success of this that the following year a trilogy of all 3 of D.H.Lawrence’s mining community plays was produced to universal acclaim.

Although written between 1911 and 1913 they had never had professional productions, so these were, in fact, World Premiers. The director was Peter Gill, and the great John Gunter, then aged 28, designed the sets. We embarked on our researches with a day-trip to Eastwood, the bleak little mining town some 8 miles from Nottingham. It was something of a shock to see just how small the miners’ cottages were, with outside privies and no hot water. An exact, true to size construction of the entire cottage of the play fitted easily within the constricted sight-lines of the tiny Royal Court stage.

Like much of Lawrence’s stage works, and indeed his best known novel, “Sons and Lovers”, the theme was jealousy, a bitter battle between a man’s new wife and his glowering mother. It was clearly a theme that dominated Lawrence’s own life experience, where the women were, or considered themselves to be, “a cut above” their lumpen, furiously inarticulate coal-streaked men-folk. If I remember rightly the climactic scene took place while the women were waiting for news of their men after an accident at the coal-mine. “I dinna want the Orts and Slarts of a man” Minnie cries. I never did find out what an ort or a slart was.

We all worked hard to recreate this world without any sense of condescension, and the result in the end was beautiful in it’s honesty. The costumes were naturally very simple, but such was the care lavished on every pinafore and pit-boot that they had a great richness about them. Even if half the miners’ high-backed work trousers fell to pieces on the 1^st dress rehearsal as I had tried to bleach the colour out of army surplus trousers from Lawrence Corner in an over-strong solution of domestic bleach with disastrous results. The colour shifted not at all, military dyers might like to hear.

I suppose that these productions did define the Royal Court ‘style’. It was very earnest and deeply purist, which is maybe surprising the given the Court’s somewhat racy reputation as a centre of the dramatic avant garde.

Amadeus 3

Here are a final few photos of Amadeus. I love the smoky candle-lit feel of the lighting, it makes the stage pictures look like Hogarth paintings, I think. Though it must be said that towards the end as the play gets ever darker, more than one candle would make the photography a bit less challenging!

I have to admit that I do have issues with Amadeus, I want to barge in and stick up for the characters that Peter Shaffer defames. [Nearly all of them, it seems] I shall restrain my impulses to chorus “I don't believe it...” along with the Venticelli. But it is a fantasy, a memory play, and undeniably a most spectacular evening. It seems that all is fair in the author's search to make extremely dramatic points that might be made less powerful if mere justice to his characters got in the way.

Autobiobraphy 2. The Royal Court Theatre (1)

Chapter 2. The Royal Court Theatre.

In 1966 I was given a job at The Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. It’s strange how doors present themselves. I had just finished a year as the Arts’ Council trainee at Lincoln Rep. That last sentence needs explaining, as there are no longer any such thing as Arts’ Council trainees, and hardly any repertory theatres any more. When I left Birmingham College of Art it was suggested that I try for the Arts’ Council scheme. It was quite brilliant in it’s simplicity, and must have cost peanuts. You did some sort of exam, designing the set and costumes for a set project, I think mine was Don Giovanni, handed it in, went to an interview in St James’ Place if you were short-listed, and if successful were offered a job in some theatre around Britain. It could have been anywhere, but because of the comparative strength of my costume work, I got the Theatre Royal, Lincoln. The fledgling designer was paid 2/3rds of the minimum salary, £12 a week, I seem to remember, the theatre in question found the remaining third. So 12 designers got their crucial 1^st professional job as assistant house designer for a year, and the theatre got a very cheap designer. Brilliant – the first round of Thatcher’s cuts put paid to all that.

Lincoln was a fortnightly rep which went out on tour to Rotherham and somewhere else that I can no longer remember, (Scunthorpe?) so in effect there was a new production to prepare every week. I only did one show as assistant designer, the Christmas Panto, which was Aladdin, otherwise I did show for show with the head of design, Jonathan Porter, (I hope that’s right). It was very good training as you had to improvise and work very quickly, no spending all morning on a single costume design, but exhausting with at least every other Saturday was an ”all-nighter“ in order to light on Sunday, do the technical rehearsal on Monday, a dress run on Monday evening, and open on Tuesday. My year was cut short because after 2 nights without sleep I tripped over a stage-brace that someone had left out next to an open trap door over a spiral staircase which lead to the under-stage area.

When my broken finger had healed and my memory recovered from the days of ‘retrograde amnesia’ I left Lincoln to try my luck in London. It was suggested that I should begin my assault on the capital by going to see the great designer, Percy Harris. Percy, christened Margaret, was one of the 3 remarkable women who made up the iconic design team of the 1940s and 50s called “Motley”. Percy was the only one still living, and concerned herself greatly with encouraging the younger generation of stage and costume designers. Her 1^st question to me was “are you strong?” I couldn’t think quite what she meant, or why it was important. It wasn’t physical strength that she meant, though robustness of constitution was certainly part of it. But I did find out in the years that followed that a certain quality of steel in the backbone was crucial in order to survive in the perilous waters of the business.

It was typical of her graceful generosity that she took the time to see me, especially as I had got the date wrong. Her main piece of career advice was that I should find a director a year or two in advance of myself, and hopefully move up through the ranks with him. She knew just the person, she said, it was Peter Gill, then starting out as a director at the Royal Court.

At about the same time (and I can’t quite remember how this came about) I found myself making a set model for the other great designer of the decade, Jocelyn Herbert. I was so impressed by everything about her. She lived in austere splendour in an artist’s studio off Flood Street in Chelsea. Tiled floors, photos of the Carmargue on the walls, Monteverdi on the record player, and the wonderful, impractical Alvis Grey Lady car that she drove, I had never seen or heard anything like it. The opera she was working on was Gluck’s or possibly Monteverdi’s, Orpheo, and although I was never an expert model maker, I seemed to do alright.

Jocelyn was the widow of George Devine who had been the director of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court, and she decided in her rather grand way that I should have the costume supervisor job as she didn’t like the incumbent at the time. She proceeded to tell Bill Gaskell, the director, that he had to see me. So it came to pass, that in the space of a week, I was interviewed by both Peter Gill to design a D. H. Lawrence play “A Collier’s Friday Night”, and by Bill, to take over the wardrobe. I was 24. Looking back on it I have absolutely no idea how I survived Except that somehow I fitted in, and was not overwhelmed by this odd, brilliant group. I must have had the bravery that sometimes goes with ignorance and inexperience, and for the first time in my life felt completely at home.

I was a hopeless costume supervisor, as I don’t have a tidy mind, nor am I in the least bit good at, or interested in maintenance and filing, my desk in the cubby-hole of an office overlooking the yard and the bus depot at the back of the theatre was always covered in drawings rather than any sort of supervisory matter. Luckily this part of the job didn’t last very long as I was asked to design an increasingly demanding selection of productions. In those days I usually did the set as well, so set boxes and bits of ½” to the foot model bits and pieces added to the clutter.

I have been trying to work out what the defining characteristics of the Royal Court ‘style’ actually were. It was certainly a pared-down rigorous aesthetic much influenced by the work of the mighty Berliner Ensemble as directed by Bertold Brecht, seen through the English eyes of Jocelyn Herbert. One important Brechtian idea was that every thing you saw on stage had to be true to itself. There was no artifice. In other words if you had as a back-drop a painting of a landscape no-one believed for a moment that they were actually out of doors, they were merely responding to the paint and the canvas and the idea of a landscape. Therefore wood was never covered in paint to imitate wood, because what you saw was paint, but it would be scraped and waxed to enhance its natural woodiness.

This hyper naturalism was combined with the simplest of scenic suggestions to create an evocative sense of place. Quite often the set was a gauze box of some kind with carefully chosen furniture. This style was certainly a reaction against the fussy 1950’s drawing-room comedy style prevalent in the West End, but was also necessary, as not only were budgets extremely tight, but that the stage itself was tiny. There simply wasn’t room for clutter. The costumes therefore, became very dominant in the space. And it was years before I felt comfortable using bright colours! The auditorium was painted Jocelyn Herbert brown, a shade somewhere between dark mouse and sepia, and over much colour on stage was thought to be a little vulgar.

Amadeus 2

The Amadeus costumes were fun to design - although it is a fantasy memory play, it is about real people in a specific time-frame, so obviously there has to be a high level of period accuracy, but because the 18th century part of the play takes place in what Shaffer describes as a “golden glow” this indicated a palette of pinks and golds that is, I'm pleased to say, very effective.

Also, one seldom gets a chance to do huge corseted frocks with full-on 5' wide panniers and towering wigs - with 2' feathers on top just in case they didn't look big enough.

Nowadays the fashion is to do 18th century plays operas in modern, or at least 20th century dress, lest complex costumes 'get in the way'. Also they are extremely expensive and difficult to make, requiring a level of knowledge and period expertise on the part of the cutters/drapers that is seldom available. There are few other costume shops that could have managed this little lot as well as the Old Globe has so done.

Amadeus 1

I was rather dreading the Amadeus Techs, the show is so complicated, and there are so many quick changes, but it's been OK - so far. “So far” being the end of part 1. Part 2 gets even more complicated.

It's challenging to photograph, but the 18th century candlelit lighting by the brilliant Alan Burret is actually very flattering, and makes everything look very, - well - 18th century in the wooden pruscenium of Ralph Funicello's elegant set. The “portrait shots” of Miles and Jay are quite inspiring me to take up portrait painting again!

Much Ado 2

Shakespeare's comics can be very tricky to get right. They were clearly written for a well loved company of actors with their own idiosyncrasies who the audiences found howlingly funny. Well to us they are often not funny at all, but this time we get lucky in the lanky shape of John Cariani as Dogberry, who leads his gormless team of Watchmen with joyous incompetance. [as Watchperson, I hasten to add, not as actor].

I have often wondered why that sort of glorious mangling of the language is called “Malapropisms” rather than “Dogberryisms”. Shakespeare certainly got there first.

Here also are pics of Georgia Hatzis as Beatrice winding up Benedick, [Jonno Roberts], Winslow Corbett as the enchanting, put-apon Hero, and Adrian Sparks who does another Shakespearean Papa with great gusto. Ryman Sneed is just right as Margaret.

Autobiobraphy 1

After much dithering I am finally embarking on my Autobiography - here is the 1st draft of of some of the opening chapter.

Chapter 1. Malvern.

I was adopted at the age of 8 weeks by Julie Clancy, who must have been a woman of remarkable courage. For the sad and obvious reason there were a large number of spare babies available towards the end of the war in 1943 and I was one of them. She was one of the last single women who were allowed to adopt, she was also 52 years old, and that wouldn’t have been allowed these days either.

Julie was the matron of a nursing home in Graham Road, Great Malvern. Before the advent of the NHS nursing homes were very different places from today, the main difference being that they were allowed to perform operations, tonsil and adenoid removals and the like. There was a fully equipped operating theatre attended by visiting surgeons. Patients also came to convalesce, as Malvern was always considered a healthy place to be, set as it is half way up the Malvern Hills. Does anyone convalesce any more? Or indeed remove adenoids? Julie prided herself on the quality of the food, and as a registered nursing home, rationing was not applied with anything like the severity found elsewhere.

We had a flat on the top floor, with the hills to the back and a slightly interrupted view over the Severn Valley To the front. I had a nanny till I went to school, I don’t think I liked her very much, a Welsh woman called Nora Bough, who went on to Higher Things when she became Nanny to the children of Lord and Lady Beauchamp of Madresfield Court, (famous for its association with Evelyn Waugh). Nanny Bough stayed on as housekeeper when the children grew up and was the ladies maid and confidante of Lady B, until she retired aged 80-something to a Grace and Favour almshouse in Malvern Link.

My preparatory school was Croftdown, an establishment that had been evacuated from North London for the duration of the war, and stayed. It was run with a kind of fierce cosiness by two unmarried sisters called Wortley. (There are a great many unmarried ladies of a certain age in my early life.) The children were encouraged to call the Misses Wortley, ”Auntie“, I think it was meant to inspire family feeling, it didn’t strike me as peculiar, or even embarrassing at the time. Auntie Wortles and Auntie Jan?? Oh dear, what were they thinking of? The other teachers got away with diminutives based on their surnames, the only one I remember was Milly for Miss Millward, a tall gaunt woman with iron grey plaits wrapped round her head and flat Clarkes sandals, Miss Millward would have been a far more appropriate means of address. She taught maths I think, certainly we were all very well taught the basics, times tables, mental arithmetic and so forth.

As an only child with a hard-working mother I presumably spent a lot of time on my own, I remember that visits were made to the school and conversations had to find out if anything was the matter with me, since I clearly had great difficulty making friends or interacting with other children. I suspect I was simply terrified of rejection and it seemed safer not to try. Like many somewhat lonely children there were a pair of imaginary friends, called, strangely enough, Monks and Bishy-bar. I didn’t know any monks, and certainly no bishops, nor wanted to, so what that was about I have no idea.

Julie decided after much discussion with friends that I should call her ‘Mardy’ supposedly a combination of Ma and Daddy, she didn’t realise that it was Yorkshire for whiny or grumpy, as in ”he/she’s a mardy little bugger“. But I didn’t find that out till much later, and no one in Malvern knew anything about the North so it didn’t matter.

I started riding lessons while still at the nursing home, and enjoyed them very much. The riding school was run by a hard-bitten ex-cavalry chap called Major Chandler, whose true metier was drilling tough young subalterns, he was wasted on slightly nervous small girls, and hopeless with them, really. We rode on Malvern Common, and the 1^st time I was allowed off the leading rein, the little brute I was riding, recognising complete inexperience when he felt it dithering on his back, bolted up the hill as fast as his legs would carry him, finishing the performance with a couple of determined bucks. I sustained a fractured elbow. Traditional wisdom has it that you are put straight back on again, [once someone has managed to catch the pony that is] lest you ‘lose your nerve’. Well, you lose your nerve anyway, at least while the plaster is still on.. I have a memory of ringing the door-bell at the nursing home, and saying rather apologetically – ‘I seem to have done something to my arm’. I tried again a couple of months later on a less volatile mount, and all was well.

Soon after the National Health Service came in 1948 Julie decided to give up the lease she held on the nursing home. She was told that she could no longer run a private operating theatre and felt that nursing homes would become simply geriatric establishments if people could get free treatment for all their ills in hospitals. She was of course partly right, but maybe she would have been better off to have sat out the transition period and kept going, because with the move she lost the only proper income she was ever to have. She bought a large house in College Grove at the western edge of Great Malvern called Far End. I think I was about 8.

I’ve no idea how Julie managed to keep afloat financially, and I realise now that she didn’t, sinking very slowly into debt until in desperation she turned the top 2 floors into self-contained flats. She should have done this right from the start, of course, but that’s easy to say now. She didn’t want to worry me, so never talked about it, I wish she had. There were all sorts of schemes that were supposed to make the house self supporting. A sort of extra canteen for children from Croftown School and a holiday home for somewhat older children whose parents worked in the Far East and who were only able to fly out to visit their parents once a year during the long Summer Holidays, were two that I remember.

In 1955 I went to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Tunbridge Wells. Julie had chosen this school with much care. She was a committed Catholic of the old school, (preferring the Mass in Latin, and hating the faux chumminess and the “bobbing up and down” that crept in later on) and felt that there was nowhere suitable in Malvern. The nicest of the holiday children, who must have been 17 or so at the time, attended this school, so visits were paid, I was accepted and off I went. I took the grammar school entrance exam, the “11+” and somehow scraped through which enabled me to achieve a small grant towards the boarding fees from Worcestershire County Council.

It wasn't easy to fit in to begin with. Know-it-alls with no talent for making friends are always going to have acceptance difficulties, so the 1^st couple of years weren’t much fun. But it did get better. I was a good all-rounder, good at art, good enough at sports to make it into various teams, and anxious to please. I never did quite the ”holiness“ business, though I did try, eventually enjoying the brisk daily mass. Attendance wasn’t in theory compulsory, but it was certainly noticed if you never showed up.

Many things would seem hopelessly quaint, not to say embarrassing, nowadays. We still had to curtsey to the Headmistress and the Reverend Mother, though it seemed as normal as shaking hands at the time. It was more a maid’s bob than a full blown stage curtsey, and we got very good at perfecting the double version on the slippery polished floors, if two high ranking nuns were standing together. It’s been a surprisingly handy skill, I’ve passed on the knack to many an actress!

Tempest 1

I think this is a wonderful production. I've never understood why the Tempest was supposed to be such a great play before, Prospero seemed petulant with serious anger-management problems, the romantic leads dull and the magical element somewhat twee.

Well not here. Miles Anderson was clearly put on earth to play Prospero, his humanity and lightening changes of mood making perfect sense, Winslow Corbett and Kevin Daniels are enchanting in their beauty and innocent directness, and the magic, headed by the graceful shape of Ben Diskant as Ariel is truly - well, magical.

I approached the design quite openly, almost the only things I had drawn in any detail were the goddess puppets, and Ariel as-a-Harpy - and the ever-present spirits. [managed to work on the spirit chorus with Adrian when we were bringing the Mozart Trilogy to the boil in Lyon] And Miranda, which got changed immediately I met Winslow.

Everything else grew out of the rehearsal process with input from the actors. Especially Jonno Roberts who is a terrific Caliban, using a hurt, angry, sexy energy that I suspect doesn't get let out very often.

Much Ado 1

This is a lovely production - Ralph Funicello's handsome black, filigree set and easily the best Beatrice and Benedick I've ever seen (Georgia Hatzis and Jonno Roberts. They must get heartily fed up with the prefix “married couple ...etc”), but to have a real, passionate relationship at the heart of this play makes the most extraordinary difference.

Ron wanted to set Much Ado in a period where the gender differences were at their most extreme, I felt that crinolines had been somewhat over-done, and were a bit boring, so rather than use the 1850s we decided to go for the less explored 1830s. The clothes are exceptionally pretty for the women, and the soldiers uniforms are seriously glamorous.

San Diego 2011

So I am back at The Old Globe designing the 3 plays of the 2011 season with Adrian Noble and Ron Daniels. The plays are The Tempest and Amadeus directed by Adrian and Much Ado About Nothing directed by Ron. Last week we did the technical rehearsals and 1st preview for Much Ado very successfully, and we are currently on the 3rd tech day of the Tempest. It has/is being very interesting to do 3 such different plays, not just different, but whole different approaches to the theatre.

Much Ado is, I suppose, a fairly conventional approach involving realistic, almost Chekovian 1830s costumes, lovely to do and very smart/pretty they look.

Amadeus is all about real people seen through the warped memory of Salieri himself, and involved a spin on accurate period fashion. Fun to draw, of course.

The Tempest is far more abstract - improvised almost - with much input from the actors in places

Almost the only 'concept' I had firmly in place for this were the Goddess puppets that Adrian wanted, which we decided to base on the Japanese Banruku tradition, and ideas for Ariel, particularly his Harpy wings.