A Voyage Round My Father education pack

A VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER

By John Mortimer

Teaching Resource Pack

By Helen Cadbury

Commissioned by

WYNDHAM’S THEATRE

A Voyage Round My Father Teaching Resource Pack

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Introduction This pack contains resources to enable preparation and follow up work for your trip to the highly acclaimed production of A Voyage Round My Father at Wyndham’s Theatre. The play was directed by Thea Sharrock, originally for the Donmar Warehouse and transferred to Wyndhams’ where it has continued to delight audiences. For further information about the Donmar, its current productions and educational initiatives, go to www.donmarwarehouse.com. This pack has been produced by The Mousetrap Foundation, which is committed to increasing access for young people to the best of live theatre in London and to enable them to engage creatively with that experience. For more information on The Mousetrap Foundation, see the back pages of this pack or www.mousetrap.org.uk

Before the show The following sections are useful for students before they see the play: Synopsis, Social and Historical Background and the practical lesson in Status 1. They could look at Writing About the Performance before they go or take it with them, but we would discourage them from writing notes during the performance itself.

After the show The interviews with the director, designer and actor will help deepen students’ knowledge of the process of creating the production. There are also a number of lesson plans, which can be used in drama, performing arts or English lessons. Please fill in the feedback form at the end of this pack to help us to develop packs in the future.

Contents

The Production Synopsis

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The Cast 4 Writer 5, 6 Designer 7, 8 Actor – Joanna David 9, 10 Historical and Social Background Timeline

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Social Attitudes and Divorce Law 12 Education in the inter war years 13 Teaching and Learning Resources Writing about the Performance 14 Exploring Blindness 15,16 The Elephant in the Room – Subtext 17 Status 1 – Introduction 18 Status 2 – Exploring the text 19 Script Extract – Reigate and Son 20 Script Extract – Elizabeth and the Mother 21 Between the Scenes – Devising From Text 22 Writing Exercise - Point of View 22 Further Resources 23 The Mousetrap Foundation 24,25 Feedback 26


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Synopsis A Voyage Round My Father is John Mortimer’s autobiographical play about his relationship with his own father. A boy grows up in a small house surrounded by a large garden in the 1930s. The story is told by the boy, now grown up, and takes us back to the moment when his father lost his sight while pruning an apple tree. The boy goes away to prep school (a private boarding school for ages 6 – 13) while his father, supported by his long suffering mother, continues to practice as a successful barrister. The father is a barrister who specialises in divorce law and often shares the details of cases with his son, which adds to the confusion created by the inept sex education delivered by the prep school headmaster. When the Second World War breaks out, his father reminds him not try anything heroic, so he joins a wartime film making unit. Although his time there is not very successful, he does meet and fall in love with Elizabeth, who works in the writing department. He marries Elizabeth after her divorce from her first husband. She is the first person to openly question why the family never discusses the father’s blindness. As the father gets older, he becomes more argumentative but in the end, the son realises how great the bond is between the two of them.

''It's a lucky play in that everyone has a father, so, however peculiar my own childhood was - and it was peculiar - it strikes a common chord. There is no such thing as a normal childhood. I think everybody is mad, unusual and eccentric. The only thing is that writers notice it. But perhaps the play also uncovers those feelings of pain, embarrassment and guilt we all at some stage have about our parents. There were times when I was ashamed of having a blind father, and I despise myself for it. But also I think the play is about a vanishing middle-class English world, which my father totally personified.'' John Mortimer


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The Cast and Creative Team Father Derek Jacobi Son Dominic Rowan Mother Joanna David Iris/1st ATS Katie Warren Son (Child)/Daniel Lewis Aaltonen Edward Jackson Keen Ben Williams Ringer/Thong/Director/Mr Morrow Neil Boorman Japhet/1st Judge/Sparks/2nd Judge Jamie de Courcey Matron/Miss Cox/2nd ATS/Miss Ferguson Lily Bevan Ham/Boustead/Arthur/George/Doctor Osmund Bullock Mrs Noah/Mrs Reigate/Miss Baker/Doris/Witness Sadie Shimmin Headmaster Christopher Benjamin Reigate/Jonathan Alexander Barnett Sonny Muharrem Louis Williams Elizabeth Natasha Little Director Thea Sharrock Set and Costume Designer Robert Jones Lighting Designer Peter Mumford Sound Designer Geoffrey Clarke


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The Writer John Mortimer “He stands, whether you like it or not, for freedom – freedom of expression” Jeremy Paxman on Mortimer

• Born in 1923, son of successful divorce barrister, Clifford Mortimer and Kathleen Mortimer

• Grew up near Henley-on-Thames • Educated at The Dragon School, Oxford, Harrow School and then studied law

at Oxford University • During the Second World War worked as assistant director and writer for the

Crown Film Unit, making government wartime propaganda films • 1948 joined his father’s law practice • 1948 published his first novel, Charade • 1949 married Penelope Dimont Fletcher, a writer and mother of three children

from previous relationships, together they have a daughter and a son • 1957 his radio play The Dock Brief was broadcast by BBC Third Programme

and televised later the same year • 1960s wrote several television plays including A Voyage Round My Father

(1969) for the popular Play For Today strand, with Ian Richardson playing the boy and Mark Dignam playing his blind father

• 1970 A Voyage Round My Father produced as a stage play at the

Greenwich Theatre • 1971 still practicing as a barrister, famously defends the editors of Oz

Magazine on an obscenity charge

• 1971 A Voyage Round My Father transfers to the Haymarket Theatre in London’s West End with Alec Guinness as the father and Jeremy Brett as the son.

• 1971 divorce from his first wife

• 1972 marries his second wife, also called Penelope (Gollop) - together they

have two daughters


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• 1975 writes Rumpole of The Bailey as a BBC Play For Today. Starring Leo

McKern as the barrister Rumpole, it will eventually run for 44 episodes over 15 years and Mortimer will write at least 14 books based on the television programmes

• 1977 as a barrister defends Gay News against a charge of blasphemy • 1981 television film of A Voyage Round My Father, starring Lawrence

Olivier, is filmed in the house where Mortimer was born and where he still lives. He watches Olivier re-enact his father’s death in the bed he died in, with the same words: “I’m always angry when I’m dying”

• 1981 adapted Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited for television

• 1980s and 1990s prolific writing output continues including several scripts for

film and television as well as memoirs and the Rumpole novels

• 1998 receives a knighthood for services to the arts

• 2004 discovers that he has a son, now 40, by actress Wendy Craig

• 2005 receives the British Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award

• 2006 at 83, Mortimer has just published Rumpole and The Reign of Terror and is working on his next novel, Rumpole and the Asbos, he is not sure whether there will be one after that

“My mother thought it terribly vulgar to write about one’s family or to have a swimming pool installed, I have now done both” John Mortimer


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Designer Robert Jones How did you design the set for A Voyage Round My Father? It’s very much a two way thing between the director and designer. I’d worked with Thea before and we knew each other really well, so when we met to talk about it, we agreed on the things we didn’t want to do with the play, before we talked about what we did want to do with it. It’s episodic, there are so many different scenes and it’s non-stop, and that was one of the main points: how do we do all that without it being an evening about scene changes? There would have to be a house, a garden, an interior, an exterior, a law court, the top of the hill, a picnic and you just can’t do all that stopping and starting and changing scenery. We could have added another half an hour onto the evening if we had approached it literally. The Donmar, where the play was first produced, is a very particular theatre, and one of the most important things for us, was how would this play work in that empty space? So we tried to think about doing it with absolutely nothing and every time we put something in we said: do we really need that? And if we said no, we don’t, we got rid of it. So it was more a process of elimination rather than adding things in. We started with an empty space which was nothing, but which could become something with a change of lighting, costume or furniture, so that when you put a particular chair in, or a table, then you knew immediately where you were. That was where we started, we tried various things but we kept coming back to an empty space with nothing there, which is actually quite hard to do. It’s quite hard to design nothing, it’s much easier to design something! How did you come up with the idea of the brick wall which disappears to reveal the flowers? The Donmar has a brick back wall that is actually very beautiful, we wanted to include it, but we knew we couldn’t because we needed the idea of the house and the garden. We also needed to work out how to get these flowers on stage and be seen. So we used the gauze to give the idea of it fading, almost like a hazy memory. It gives the impression of recalling the past: it starts faintly then becomes more and more focused and clearer and clearer. If you are doing film you would cross-fade from something else but theatrically you use a gauze and change the lighting, so that things are appearing and disappearing, it’s an old fashioned technique but people really love it. How easily did the set move in to Wyndham’s Theatre? Basically the set stayed the same, we added the side pieces but other than that it is just as it was. It made a perfect fit really. Continued…


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What was your process when you began to design the costumes? I’m one of those designers who likes to do set and costume, so I think it’s important to be clear about what the world of the play is, before you put colours into it. With this play, the set came first and then the costumes followed. The costumes became even more important than they normally are because it’s in an empty space and we wanted them to be absolutely right and of that period, with all the right details down to the button. How do you research your costumes? I look at reference books, do some drawings then start to source the fabrics. I have sheets of reference material of those clothes, in that time, to refer to. There are obviously plenty of photographs of the period, if I was doing something in the Elizabethan period I would look at paintings, but this period, the 1930s to the 1950s, is very well documented. I would look at photos then look at the actors, do a few more drawings and then slowly put it together. It needs to look real, people have a very clear idea of the styles of the period, and some people in the audience may still remember it. One of the dresses that lots of people have said they like is Elizabeth’s grey silk dress. The clothes for the scenes in court we had to get absolutely right, so we went to the law courts and to the company who do all the clothing for barristers. We could then get the details completely accurate, down to how many tucks there are in a gown, how many pieces of braiding. We found out about the right sort of wig hair, shirts, trousers and jackets. A designer has to be that detailed because a designer’s job is to get it right. If you are going down an abstract route, you can create your own world and your own rules, but if you need to create something that people are going to relate to, if you decide to do something naturalistically, you’ve got to have those reference points. You couldn’t take this play out of its world; it’s so quintessentially English at a very particular period in time. What are you working on now? As we speak I’m at the Palladium, it’s the technical week for The Sound of Music so it’s really hectic! I’ve been doing fittings all morning and now I’ve got to get back to work… Thank you!

Late 1930’s dress pattern


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Joanna David Playing The Mother

Joanna in rehearsal

How did you develop the character of The Mother? I think all actors draw on experiences they have in their own lives, you find parallels. One can certainly put oneself in the situation of the 1930s and finding out about the real person, John Mortimer’s mother, was very important. She trained at art school and when she graduated she went out to South Africa to teach. I asked to have the line about her art put in. because I felt it gave her a bit more dimension as a character, which she of course was in reality. The family she met in South Africa, said, when you get back to England, look up our son, who is reading law, and that was John’s father. One knows from books and plays and television, that many women gave up their own work to look after their families. It certainly didn’t make her a doormat, she was just incredibly good at dealing with a very volatile man. I think she was amazing at it and I think they had a great sense of humour together, although that didn’t stop them getting irritated with each other. It’s quite underwritten, the part of the mother, so you have to do a lot with her in the silences, or reactions to the Father, to make her a very rounded person, which I hope I’ve succeeded in. One of my favourite scenes is where they’re listening to music because all the characters are interacting with one another. You can’t be the mother but you can try and find the qualities that she had and I was able to do that by talking to John and to Penny, his second wife. Do you think it is underwritten because his mother was still alive when he wrote the play? I think the play is about the boy’s life with his father, and how the father affected him, the mother would have been part of that, but the father’s personality was so strong that it absolutely dominated John’s life, given the time you have for a play, you only have two hours and that’s the way John chose to do it, just to show snippets of his life, as opposed to making it into a bigger drama.


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Was John Mortimer involved in rehearsals? Yes, very much so and he comes to see it regularly. He’s thrilled to be able to work on the production again. We took both texts (he had two different versions from thirty five years ago,) and we married certain things together and ended up with the final text which we’ve used. John has been incredibly moved by it . He finds Derek’s performance absolutely superb, and that he got all aspects of the father. In a way it is art mirroring life: because now John is in the position his father was in, he’s in a wheelchair himself, just as the father he wrote about is in wheelchair at the end of the play. It’s fantastic that it’s been revived in his life time, and people don’t feel that it’s dated. It still has relevance today because everybody has a family and everybody has to face dying, and it’s still very much a play for today. John Mortimer in rehearsal with Derek Jacobi

How did it feel transferring from the Donmar to Wyndham’s? It was quite a change from the intimate space of the Donmar. It’s a very different space. We rehearsed there for a week and were re-directed by Thea Sharrock to accommodate the proscenium arch. We had to change quite a bit, it was a very different feeling and one felt one was over acting at Wyndham’s, because obviously you have to take into account the fact that there are four levels if it’s full, but that’s a technique of acting and now we’re used it . Many young people are interested in acting as a profession. How did you begin and how has the profession changed? It’s changed completely really. We went straight into repertory companies when we left drama school and then you stayed there for three, six months or even a year, and did three or four plays one after the other, rehearsing all day and performing at night. Whereas today, young actors get into television almost before they start experiencing plays and it’s very much harder for them to get experience in the theatre. Derek and I are of the old school, we’ve clocked up hundred of plays between us and we are jolly lucky to have had that grounding.

The company in rehearsal


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Social and Historical Background

A Brief Timeline of Britain between the Wars 1914 – 1918 The First World War claims the lives of a whole generation of young

men, while many others return shell-shocked 1918 Women first get the vote 1919- 1920 Two years of post-war posterity 1920s The post-war boom is followed by a slump, unemployment rises:

economic depression, hunger strikes and marches 1921 Irish Free State is founded 1923 Birth of John Mortimer 1924 Ramsay MacDonald forms the first Labour government, but by the end

of the year the Conservatives are back in power. Over the next 15 years, power changes hands several times.

1926 The General Strike 1931 Three million unemployed, unions organise hunger marches 1933 Hitler’s rise to power in Germany 1936 Spanish Civil War breaks out 1936 Abdication of King Edward VIII to marry his lover, the divorced Mrs

Simpson 1939 Hitler seizes Czechoslovakia and war is declared


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Divorce : The law Until 1969, anyone seeking a divorce had to prove in a court of law that the other party was guilty of adultery, cruelty or desertion. Witnesses had to be produced to prove the adultery, which gave rise to potentially comic situations. Often, when the divorce was amicable, the act of adultery was faked and one or other party would book into a hotel and arrange to be seen with someone willing to act as “correspondent” – in other words, the “other” man or woman. Private detectives did a roaring trade, spying on potentially unfaithful spouses and they would then be called upon to give evidence in court.

Divorce: Attitudes

Attitudes to divorced people were very negative in the 1930s. Edward VIII, who had become King of England after the death of his father, George V, on January 20, 1936, wished to marry an American woman named Wallis Warfield Simpson, whom he had known since 1931. He sought the approval of his family, the Church of England, and the political establishment to marry her, but met with strong opposition. She had been married twice and her second divorce was still pending. On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated from the throne and became the only British monarch ever to resign voluntarily.

Discussion Point How have attitudes to divorce changed? When Prince Charles wanted to marry Camilla Parker Bowles, who was divorced, did he face the same obstacles as Edward VIII?

FATHER: I am writing to you from outside the President’s Court at the start of a divorce case. Like all divorce cases this one is concerned with sex, which you will find to be a subject filled with comic relief.

MOTHER: (looking after Elizabeth) She has nice eyes…Not at all the eyes of a divorced person.

“you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” Edward VIII


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Education for the Middle Classes

Until 1945, there was little or no provision for secondary education, beyond age 13, for the majority of children in Britain. Even if they passed exams to a grammar school, working class families were excluded by fees and expensive uniforms. Middle and upper class children, on the other hand, passed through a series of private fee-paying institutions which enabled them to go on to university. They might begin at a local private school or a government village school but as young as six, they were often sent away to boarding school. These schools were called prep or preparatory schools because they prepared children for an examination called the Common Entrance, which would get them into private senior schools, called – rather confusingly – public schools. Although the parents paid fees and the schools were thought to provide a good education, prep and public school teachers did not need any special qualifications to teach. Many were university graduates but they were not necessarily good teachers or fond of children. After the First World War, ex-servicemen were welcomed into teaching posts in many privately run schools. The trauma of their wartime experiences often made them eccentric or even violent. Ham’s outburst, when he hurls books at the Son, is probably typical of these shell-shocked war veterans.

Sex Education… …didn’t really exist in the 1930s prep school. Read this extract from the Headmaster’s speech to the boys before they leave to go on to public school. How does it compare to the sex education you have received as part of PSHE?

Discussion Point Nowadays, there are a small percentage of children attending private schools, but the numbers of children at boarding schools has dropped dramatically in recent years. Why do you think this has changed?

MOTHER: He’ll soon be going away to school…We can’t expect him to stay here - forever.

HEADMASTER: …Now, what was I going to tell you? Ah! I was warning you about dreams. You’ll have them. Oh, certainly you’ll have them. And in the morning you may say to yourselves, ‘You rotter! To have a dream like that!’ Well, you can’t help it. That’s all. You simply can’t help them. Not dreams…Now to the most serious problem you’re likely to run up against. Friends. You may find that a boy…comes up to you and says, ‘Let’s be friends,’ or even offers you a slice of cake…Remember, the only drawback to our great public school system is unsolicited cake – have you got this very clear?


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Teaching and Learning Resources Writing About The Performance

Why does a director make certain choices? Watch carefully and write notes at the interval, or after the play. These questions will help you:

The Set • what effects and colours do you see? • why have they been chosen? • how are the different locations and scenes in the play demonstrated?

Costume • what colours and styles are being used? • what impression do they give about the historical period and the social class of the

characters? • compare different characters, for example Elizabeth and the Mother, what does the

contrast between their costumes tell us about them?

Lighting – to work out why different lighting effects are being used, ask yourself these practical questions: • what time of day is it? • are we inside or outside? • if outside, what is the climate/ weather? • what is the light source in this scene: sun/ electric light? • what colours and shades of colour are being used? • what levels of brightness are being used and why? • think about angles of light, who is well lit and who is in shadow? • when do the lights change? • what is atmosphere and what emotions are suggested by the lighting?

The Performers – • how has each actor used voice, movement and gesture to create their character? • how do characters who are playing two or more roles, vary their movement,

gesture, facial expression to show the different aspects of the character? • how do the actors use the set? • how do the actors relate to the audience? • which performances do you find the most convincing? Why? Which performances

do you find less convincing? Why?

And Lastly But Most Importantly • what does the play make you think, feel, want to talk about?


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Exploring Blindness Learning areas: exploring the challenge of a sighted actor playing a blind character, establishing trust between performers, extending the use of other senses, exploring the role of the Mother as guide to the Father

Safety note: these exercises require a certain level of trust between participants in the group. Trust is undoubtedly built up during the exercise but it would be advisable to begin with some trust warm up exercises of your own choice. There should always be a few members of the group to act as guides and protectors and all dangerous objects and trip hazards should be removed. These exercises can be done with eyes shut but the experience is more effective if blindfolds are worn. Some young people find it genuinely disturbing to be blindfolded and this should be respected, they can act as guides and be encouraged to try the exercises after they have seen how they work. Repeat the exercise to enable guides and blindfolded participants to swap over. Each section begins with a line from A Voyage Round My Father in order to root the work in the text.

1. Listening exercise. The whole group sits in a circle and then turn your chairs (or yourselves if you are sitting on the floor) to face outwards. Close your eyes or put a blindfold on and simply listen, first to your own breathing, then to the sounds in the room, then to the sounds outside. What is the furthest away sound you can hear? What is the nearest? Listen to the section from the play in the box above.

2. He never used a white stick…he simply pretended nothing had

happened. – Stand up and move around the room, with eyes open, familiarising yourselves with how it looks then find a space, not in a circle. Choose a point on the wall ahead of you, focus carefully on it, remembering its details and position. Close your eyes, or put on blindfolds and walk towards it, moving slowly. If you collide with another person try to keep eyes shut but work your way around the human obstacle and continue in your chosen direction. After a few moments stop, remove your blindfolds and judge how close you have got to your point on the wall, are you going in the right direction? Repeat the exercise: those who found your path easily, should choose a harder journey and those who were way off, find a nearer point.

Continued…

SON: (Grown Up) One day he bought a step-ladder for pruning the apple trees. He hit his head on the branch of a tree and the retinas left the balls of his eyes. Suddenly, total black-out in which we hear the son’s voice. That’s the way I looked to my father from childhood upwards. That’s how my wife and his grandchildren looked. My father was blind but we never mentioned it.


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3. Is that you? - In pairs, stand close to your partner, put on your blindfolds and

then shake hands (or hug if that’s appropriate) then step backwards slowly for several steps, guides may be needed here to avoid collisions. Everyone should stop then take the same number of steps forward, without speaking, see if you can find your partner, shake hands or hug them to see if it is really them. Stand with the person you have found and then remove your blindfolds to see if you have come back to the right person. Repeat the exercise with different partners.

4. Is that a wasp? – In pairs label yourselves A and B. A makes a sound of an

insect, bird or animal that will be a signal for B. B puts on the blindfold and A leads B around the room by making a sound for B to follow. Be daring with how far away from your partner you are prepared to go, B will not move unless he/she hears the signal from A, so experiment with causing your partner to stop and start. The first time through can be very noisy, so when you repeat the exercise, be more subtle with the sound so that it does not just get louder and louder in competition. Swap roles and try it again.

5. I’ll tell you something about your father… Feed back as a group the

learning from these exercises. What do you discover about your other senses? What do you discover about yourselves when you cannot see or be seen? What did you observe about your partners when they were blind? How did they move, speak, gesture? What is it like being a guide? Imagine if this was your responsibility twenty four hours a day, how would that affect your own life?

6. He sent words out into the darkness – obviously you have been literally

unable to see during these exercises but Derek Jacobi, as the Father, is sighted. To explore how to play a blind character, repeat the exercises above without the blindfold but try to imagine blindness, can you retain the same pace, physical shapes and focus that you had before? Work on a small scene with the father from the play, in your own words, to explore acting "blindness".

7. Extension activity: If you were directing or playing a character with another

type of disability, how would you research the part? How could a hearing actor prepare to play a deaf character? In groups, devise an activity like the one you've just done, that would help create the sense of being deaf.

Discussion Point John Mortimer’s father was able to continue working when he went blind because of his social status and the support from his wife. However, many disabled people were isolated and institutionalised. Do you think attitudes and opportunities have changed between the 1930s and today?


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The Elephant in the Room - an obvious truth that is being ignored, for various reasons. It is based on the fact that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to ignore. Wikipaedia Learning areas: sub-text, creating tension

1. Create a scene in a family or a group of close friends. 2. Decide on an everyday situation which involves plenty of activity: a meal,

helping with housework, picking apples etc.

3. Run the scene to clarify the action and the relationships between the characters.

4. Now introduce a ‘problem.’ (Could be suggested by the teacher or ideas

brainstormed with the whole class, e.g: one of the group/family has been bereaved, one of the group has a medical condition or a disability, one of the group has committed a crime.) N.B. Care needs to be taken to ensure that re-enacting a disability is not seen as offensive, if this option is chosen, students should explore how to play this very carefully.

5. Replay the scene with actions, as in step 3, without anyone mentioning the

‘problem’. Your scene now has a sub-text (a meaning running underneath the words and actions) which informs the way you act and speak to each other.

6. Find a way of showing the audience the problem without the characters

mentioning it directly. How is this achieved in A Voyage Round My Father?

7. Introduce another character to the scene. Decide at what point this new person mentions the unmentionable, choose your moment carefully for maximum impact. How do the other characters respond?

8. When you show and evaluate each others’ scenes, notice how the sub-text

increases the tension of the scene, notice where the tension is broken by the new character.

ELIZABETH: Why do you bother? FATHER: About what? ELIZABETH: I said why do you bother to do all this gardening? I mean when you can’t see it… The SON tries to interrupt her protectively SON: Elizabeth… ELIZABETH: Well, he can’t, can he? Why do you all walk about – pretending he’s not blind?


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Status 1 – Introduction Learning areas: status, particularly useful for students new to the term

Cards Exercise

1. Shuffle a pack of playing cards and give one card to each member of the group. Ask the group to line up in order of the value of their card from king down to ace, they must not say what is on the card, but rather, act out the social status of that card’s value. When they have negotiated their position in the line, ask them to reveal their card. Evaluate with the group how well they were able to express, physically or verbally, the aspects of their character’s status.

2. Re-shuffle the cards. Ask the group to remain the same social status but they

must now take on the ‘playing’ status of their new card value. Ask them to renegotiate their position in the line, observing closely what improvised conversations take place.

3. Pairs develop the conversations from this encounter into small scenes.

See-saw Exercise

1. Create an imaginary scenario for two players: e.g. shop assistant and customer in a shoe shop returning a pair of shoes for a refund.

2. Three volunteers, A, B and C. C stands where the other two can clearly see

him and hold his arms out on either side. When he raises or lowers his left arm, A must raise or lower her status accordingly and when he raise or lowers his right arm B must raise or lower her status. Initially the arms should raise and lower in opposition during the improvised scene, but it can be interesting to see what happens if both players are high status or both are low status.

3. Repeat with different players, locations and scenarios.

4. When you watch the play, try to work out the relative the status of the

characters. Are there moments where status changes? How do characters establish their status?

Discussion Point How do you and your peer group express your status, verbally and visually? How 'fixed' is the status within the group? Can it shift in different scenarios?

“Status is a confusing term unless it’s understood as something someone does..” Keith Johnstone, 1981


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Status 2 – Exploring the Text Learning areas: status, characterisation, the role of the director. After watching the play

1. Whole group: create a status line using all the characters that you can

remember from A Voyage Round My Father (if you are stuck refer to the cast list near the front of this pack.)

2. Look at the script extracts Reigate and the Son and Elizabeth and the

Mother. For the first extract you will need to work in threes, with two actors and a director, for the second you will need three actors and a director.

3. Each group should read their extract and decide on the characters’ status.

There is very little difference in social status between these characters, what other factors are at play? Do the characters say anything to try to increase their own status?

4. Are there any points in the extract where the status changes? If there are, one

of the directing members of the group should act as the see-saw when the group re-reads the extract. Now act it out, with movement and gesture. Does standing up or sitting down make a difference, decide what the characters are doing while they are speaking. Remember to think about voice: pitch, volume and accent.

5. Re-enact the scene again, this time, really exaggerate the status difference. Then

repeat it again, but try to make it very subtle.

6. Directors in each group should evaluate how successful this is, what elements they would like to retain and agree how the final version should be played. Their role is to stand back and look at the work, imagining what the audience will see and need to know. The actors need to be able to listen and take on board the director’s suggestions.

7. Each group should perform to the whole class. Ask the spectators to evaluate

how successfully they established, maintained or changed the status of the characters. Was status clear, even when portrayed with subtlety? It may be useful to think about the small ways in which people score points off each other in conversations, something Mortimer observes very accurately in the play.

Discussion Point The Father is blind and towards the end of the play is in a wheel chair. What is the effect of disability on social status? How do the attitudes of able-bodied people affect that? Does the Father’s disability diminish his status in the play? Explain your answer.


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Script Extract: Reigate and Son

REIGATE: (To the son) Do you get many letters from home? SON: Hello, Reigate. Once a week I expect. REIGATE: Keep the envelopes. SON: For the stamps? REIGATE: To put the fish in, on Saturday nights. The fish is disgusting. Put it in the envelope and post it down the bogs. SON: Why in envelopes? REIGATE: Well, you just can’t put bits of fish, not straight in your pocket. (He pauses.) Is your mother slim? SON: Fairly slim Pause REIGATE: Is your father good at golf? SON: Pretty good. REIGATE: My mother’s as slim as a bluebell. SON: Well, mine’s quite slim too really. She goes to cocktail parties. REIGATE: As slim as a bluebell. With yellow eyes. SON: Yellow? REIGATE: Like a panther. SON: Oh, I see. REIGATE: Very small feet. High heels, of course. Does your mother wear high heels? SON: Whenever she goes to cocktail parties. She wears them then. REIGATE: My mother wears high heels. Even at breakfast. Of course she’s as slim as a bluebell… SON: (Grown up.) But November the eleventh brought embarrassing revelations…


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Script Extract: Elizabeth and the Mother

MOTHER: They’re giving him a lot of briefs.

ELIZAETH: Yes.

MOTHER: It’s hard to believe. Of course his father would so have enjoyed Clarkson v. Clarkson.

ELIZABETH: Oh, yes, I’m sure he would.

MOTHER: It must be keeping you very busy.

ELIZABETH: Me? Why me?

MOTHER: Don’t you help him with his case?

ELIZABETH: Oh, he’s got a secretary now. He hardly ever discusses his work: he thinks I take it too seriously.

MOTHER: Of course his father misses going to London. He used to get such a lot of fun out of the divorce cases.

FATHER: (opening his eyes) What’s that?

MOTHER: I said you missed going to London, dear.

FATHER: It’s my son, you know. He’s pinched all my work. Are we still waiting?

MOTHER: Yes, dear, we’re still waiting. Children all settled?

ELIZABETH: Yes, they’re all settled.

MOTHER: And how’s our little Jennifer?

ELIZABETH: Your little Jennifer’s fine, and the same goes for our little Daniel and Jonathan.

MOTHER: Jennifer’s so pretty. I’d like to have done a drawing of her. Perhaps a pastel.

ELIZABETH: Well, why don’t you?

MOTHER: Oh, I gave up drawing when I got married. You have to, don’t you – give up things when you get married… ELIZABETH: Do you?

MOTHER: Of course now there’s no time…

ELIZABETH: (Looking at the FATHER and whispering.) Doesn’t he ever leave you half an hour to yourself?

MOTHER: He doesn’t like to be left. I suppose I often think, some day I’ll be alone, shan’t I? You can’t help thinking.

ELIZABETH: What will you do? Travel. Go to France.

MOTHER: Well, I shan’t dig the garden for one thing.


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Between the Scenes Learning areas: devising from text, staging techniques, exploring the ‘backstory’ behind the text.

1. Based on the dialogue above, create a scene without words, up to where Peter speaks. Think about how you create the stage picture of this scene, how would you place Elizabeth and the Son, when Peter enters? What is the effect of the audience seeing him, before the two other characters do?

2. How can you add language? Think about using as few words as possible to

maximum effect.

3. What other events are talked about in the play but not seen? Each group could choose a different episode and re-create it, as it is described in the dialogue.

______________________________________

Writing exercise: Point of View John Mortimer has based the play on his own family and we learn about them from his point of view.

1. Choose the Mother, Elizabeth or the Father and choose a moment from the play, imagine it is that day and they are looking back over their life.

2. Write a monologue, in the first person, about their thoughts at this point.

3. Now choose someone you know. First write about them from your own point

of view. Now, can you place yourselves in their shoes, to create their point of view? You can start to invent things to help the story of the monologue.

4. When writing about memory, include the colours, smell and sound, this will

bring your writing to life.

Discussion Point What is the effect of writing an autobiographical piece on people still alive? Mortimer’s mother was still alive when he wrote the play, how do you think that affects how he writes about her?

SON: Let’s go to the pub…

ELIZABEH: All right. Shall we play bar billiards?

SON: Like that night when Peter walked in. Remember?

ELIZABETH: And said, ‘This is the end of our marriage. I see you have become

entirely trivial.’


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Further Resources www.mousetrap.org.uk www.donmarwarehouse.com www.rnib.org.uk Royal National Institute for Blind People www.tvheaven.ca/rumpole.htm for Rumpole fans news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/353682.stm - discussion on attitudes to disability www.thetimecapsule.co.uk – a site run by Age Concern where all generations can share their memories. Contains images and first-hand accounts of life in the 1930's to 1950's. Bibliography Augusto Boal, Games For Actors and Non-actors, Routledge, 1992 Noel Greig. Playwriting, A Practical Guide, Routledge, 2005 F.E. Halliday, England – A Concise History, Thames and Hudson, 1985 John Mortimer, A Voyage Round My Father, Oberon Books, 2006 (first published by Methuen, 1971) John Mortimer, Rumpole and the Reign of Terror,Viking, 2006


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Feedback Form If you have found this pack useful as an introduction to the production, please take a moment to give us your feedback. What course are your students studying (level/examining body?) Which sections did you use with your students before seeing the play? Which sections did you use with your students after seeing the play? Was the level of this pack appropriate for your students? Is there any other information you would have liked to enhance your students’ experience of seeing this production? Any other comments? Please return this form to: The Mousetrap Foundation, Bedford Chambers, The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8HA or by email to [email protected]

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A Voyage Round My Father education pack

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