Play Produced A Month of

Sundays by Bob Larbey

Jean Cox discusses her production for Heald Green Theatre Club

Plot and Casting

Dark mutterings within the society of "a miserable play about two old blokes in a nurs­ing home" greeted the Play Selection Committee's choice. The play does have an underly­ing sadness as these old men Cooper and Aylott face the infirmities and indignities of advancing old age and death. And attitudes to old age are examined in the roles of Cooper's visiting relatives, his

HEALD GREEN

THEATRE CLUB

7th - 11 th February

sympathetic nurse, Wilson, the cleaner, Mrs. Baker. It is a "momento mori' if you like, but shot through with humour as the old men joke wryly about their

condition and indulge in ludi­crous fantasies - like their "escape committee", a plot to cause an explosion of porridge in the kitchen and escape from the home disguised as nuns. Their

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moves. The rest of the game was best hidden behind a well -placed chess box.

Rehearsals We found that the low

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scenes at rehearsal, e.g. all Cooper/Wilson scene s Cooper/Ju lia and Peter sc than in sequence. And the a were spared much han about waiting to "come on'

lt was not difficult to ru n scenes in sequence eventuii and finally to run the wh thing through at one go as ran into the last week of our week rehearsal period.

lt took time for the actors ' practise synchronising u everyday actions as making t bed, cleaning the room, dres 5i ,, ~ and undressing, eating an ' drinking or playing ches exactly with the dialogue. lt \"·,a .

worth it. anyway, as the flick a duster or thrust of a Hom can point a line beautifully.

Scenery The one set - an upstairs roOl]" in an old Victorian house nm·.,. private rest room - was nc problem. The stage staff erectec it one Sunday early in rehear'>a and began the painting and decorating, so the cast were able to use the se t immediately

Colours were light but muted with a touch of autumnal orangt

courage banishes sentimentality and shines through the play to warm our hearts. No, not a "miserable" play.

Casting calls for a good mix­ture of older and young members of the society, though there are only six characters. Actors available and able do not always match up to the physical requirements of a part. Our Cooper is decidedly un-"frail" looking. We compensated for this by increasing his age from late 60s and shoved him into his 70s and the actor made him very bad on his pins. When casting make sure your Mrs. Baker, the cleaner, can sing. Ours confessed at the first rehearsal that she cannot sing a note. She has to sing to cover the sound of Cooper's "peeing", so we substi­tuted a radio. It helps, too, if Cooper and A ylott know the rudiments of chess. Ours didn't, but they learn't how to set up the pieces and a few opening

emotional key of the dialogue needed more care and attention in the acting of it than a text of high drama. Nothing of n()te happens in the daily round of the nursing home and yet the highs and lows of Coope r's days must be charted throu;,;h his relationships, his triumph and his disappointments. Rehearsals proceeded slowly at first as we

Cooper and Nurse Wilson.

scrutinised the text. It was more effective to do this in sets of

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• .lI dash of colour. decided that this was a ~ ome and not a "nursing" $ 0 the bed need not be a

~..)spital bed, which would ate the set, but a divan,

"ed is not a focal point in (ene, Cooper could also be ed to bring a few bits of his ,-urniture etc. to dress the

" . age staff left plenty of room -he lighting of the cyc. and

- ·: ,age bathroom and corridor.

hting ...t an exciting play for lighting,

m ing, noon and night light­of the room is necessary,

r electric lighting came appar­11 1' from a central pendant. but few scattered lamps might 'e looked more interesting,

et curtains hid the cyc., so as ll t to expose too much "sky".

-he curtains also helped foster ' h e "enclosed" feeling of ':::ooper's world.

Costumes -he time of the play is suffi­-iently up to date for the cast to provide much of their own ~ostume, but Julie and Peter must look like the worthy, middle-aged, middle-class citi­zens from Milton Keynes l A nurse's uniform is needed.

\1usic The simple story of unassuming

sonata for piano and cello ­Rachmaninov's Op. 19 - which emphasizes the elegaic quality of the play. The radio played a Strauss Waltz to cover Cooper's peeing and Mrs. Baker danced instead of singing. It also played "When I Grow Too Old to Dream", which was to hand instead of "Alice Blue Gown". I think Mrs. Baker's father would have liked that just as well.

Special Effects and Props I gave Mrs. Baker a Hoover to punctuate her conversations with Cooper as she cleans his room and it also gave her more cleaning "business". Emptying his waste paper basket and the odd vase, dusting and straightening things out did not give her enough to do to cover the dialogue. Cleaning a room is often a problem on stage; I have seen many cleaners trying to eke out the dusting to see them through a scene. But you can't have your actors disappearing up ladders to clean the windows'

The Hoover is heard along the corridor as she approaches. We found a live sound better for this, but the squeaking tea­trolley was recorded, reinforced by live plate rattling off·stage. Running tap water and lavatory Rushes were also recorded. The latter helped to remind the audi­ence that Cooper's world is bounded more and more by his physical condition. Lavatory

people slipping quietly out of Rushes usually raise a smile, Ufe did not call for a large which is not out of place here. orchestral sound as incidental There were no props difficult to music. I ch()<~ a movement for a obtain.

Special Requirements and Problems The two armchairs were a blessed nuisance' Our stage is high so sightlines dictated that they should not be too high­backed or else the front rows of the audience lose sight of people behind them. And yet I did not want the chairs placed upstage'

Cooper, daughter Julia and husband Peter.

as they are an important focal point. We found two that looked comfortable without being too high. backed and moves were blocked to prevent actors lurking behind them. But alas' the seats sloped backwards. Our Cooper, weak hip joints and aiL protested that all nursing home chairs had high, level seats to assist easy lift-off, so props struggled with plywood and cushions to raise the seats appropriately without making them look hopdessly out of proportion. And then, as they were all odd cushions, the chairs had to be re-covered.

Finally, a comment on the play. It looks deceptively easy to put on. It has only one set not difficult to erect, no speCial furni­ture; it is easy to light, easy on wardrobe and props, But I think it makes speCial demands on director and cast to read the text closely and imaginatively to make the humdrum round of the rest home interesting and enter­taining. There are no great events, but the relationships revealed in the ordinary conver­sation and small incidents must open out Cooper's world to the audience and show its relevance.

With hindsight, I would have pushed more rehearsals in earlier on to get the actors more quickly at ease in their characters

as they were not all experienced. That would have meant hauling them out more often around Christmas and New Year, but it might have been worth the drop in popularity!

Postscript I wrote the above before the play had been performed. We

had had some doubts as to audience reaction to the subject matter, but we need not have worried about audience recep ­tion of wry jokes about old age and the near black humour sur­rounding George Hartley's zombie-ness. All our audience enjoyed the humour and on some evenings the laughter was near riotous; not a joke was missed. "I expected George Hart­ley to walk on any minute," a patron said. But the humour's pointing of the redeeming quali­ties of love and courage was not missed either.

"What a good play!" "How well written l" were some of the comments and I think the cast can bask a little in the reRected glory!

In recommending A MONTH OF SUNDAYS to other socie­ties, I would stress the impor­tance of the casting of the main characters, Cooper. He is the mainspring and indeed only lea ves the stage for a few seconds at a time (for a quick "pee"), We were fortunate in our Cooper, who showed many sides of his character and nicely balanced the humour and the pathos.

Thank you, Bob Larbey, for a thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining play. 0

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