Audience With Murder - April 2009

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THE MUSICAL PRODUCED AS MAGAZINE | MARCH 2009 14 AUDIENCE WITH MURDER Elizabeth Delahunty talks about her recent production of Audience With Murder by Colin Wakefield with Redbridge Stage Company.

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Elizabeth Delahunty talks about her recent production of Audience with Murder by Colin Wakefield with Redbridge Stage Company

Transcript of Audience With Murder - April 2009

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THE MUSICAL PRODUCED

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AUDIENCE WITH MURDER

Elizabeth Delahunty talks about her recent production of Audience With Murder by Colin Wakefield with Redbridge Stage Company.

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“It’s got murder in the title. Let’s have a look,” we said, some eighteen months ago during a planning meeting. Redbridge Stage Company, with whom I work, is an old-established group which now stages 3, or occasionally 4, plays each year. We fight rising costs and falling audiences, as do most amateurs these days. Rehearsals take place at a local school and we perform at the Ken-neth More Theatre, Ilford, Essex. This is a purpose-built theatre which opened in 1975. It seats about 360 in a conven-tional raked auditorium and enjoys all the facilities of a “real” theatre. Companies provide actors, crew and board opera-tors while the theatre handles box office, publicity, front of house and technical support, which includes lighting design if required. Our (increasingly aging) audiences enjoy a thriller and we try to provide one, if not every year, then on a regular basis. “Au-dience With Murder” by Roger Leach and Colin Wakefield, looked a good proposi-tion: small cast (2m 2f), present day and one set – always useful.

THE PLOTThe play appealed immediately though I AUDIENCE WITH MURDER

have to admit I was very lost after the first reading. The plot is enormously complex, consisting of a play-reading within a play within a play… if you get my drift. People get murdered but then they aren’t…pre-tend to die and then really do. The script publicity calls it,” A Russian doll of a play,” and it isn’t wrong. Ultimately everything is revealed as a play but you really do need to read the script to get the full ingenuity of the plot. The characters have surprising depth and present interesting challenges to the actors. Characters have to change by voice and personality rather than by costume. The whole concept was very unusual and looked as if it would play well, so it duly went on the calendar for February 09.

CASTINGPreparations began towards the end of last year. I was extremely fortunate that the first actors I approached said yes and we assembled for a read-through just before Christmas. It all looked promis-ing then, over the holiday, came the nightmare phone call, “I’m sorry Liz but I can’t…” and one of the actors had to drop out. But luck was still with me and I was able to re-cast with one phone call and all

was well.

REHEARSALSRehearsals started at the beginning of January on a twice weekly basis, which gave us roughly 7 weeks till the show. A small cast is either a dream (if everybody is there) or a nightmare (one absentee and you might as well cancel) but our luck held.Blocking proved interesting: I gave up on the characters’ names because eve-rybody played between 3 and 5 roles so I simply used my actors’ names and trusted that, between us, we knew who everybody was at a particular moment. This was where directing an experienced cast who had all previously worked to-gether was both a blessing and a delight. We could discuss, play about with ideas and cheerfully disagree with each other. “Let’s give it a go,” became our watch-word.

THE SETThe set proved interesting. Our audi-ences tend to expect a thriller to be played in a conventional box set with as much dressing as possible but this play didn’t conform. It may appear to be

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set in a living room but eventually the audience realise they are watching a play on a stage so the text’s production note recommends that the set should be “as simple and uncluttered as possible.” To that end I decided on a back wall of flats containing 2 doorways with backing behind and the minimum of furniture and dressing. In fact our set designer didn’t even submit a bill as he said he didn’t have to buy anything and, since one of the appeals of the play was the prospect of an inexpensive set, this was a real bonus. The set, after the hire of the thea-tre, is always our biggest expense. Mind you, that is not to say I didn’t panic when I arrived at the theatre and saw exactly how bare my minimalism was in reality! It did, however, mean that the integral plot action involving off-stage lights could be played to great effect.There were a number of technical problems to be solved: 2 shots require firing close together on stage. The gun belonging to the theatre is notoriously unreliable. The last time we used it, I believe it failed 5 times out of 7, so I was understandably concerned. Nothing dam-ages a production as much as a techni-cal failure especially at a moment of high tension. Consequently, I investigated hir-ing a weapon but, cost apart, there were delivery problems – it couldn’t be sent to

the theatre but had to go to a business address and that isn’t something that is always possible to arrange. New legisla-tion has caused difficulties in a number of areas. Eventually I decided to use the theatre’s gun unloaded and trust to the quick responses of the technical operator. It worked every time, enhanced by the victim’s ability to throw herself headlong to the ground. The audience found it impressive. (So did I!)Then there was the knife. It had to be pocket-sized and used to slash twice across a face, leaving blood. While it was possible to find a knife which would deliver blood, its over-large size ruled it out. Consequently one of the cast made a small wooden knife with a hollow handle to contain a pipette of blood which, when pressure was applied through an open-ing in the handle, delivered a creditable smear of gore to the face. Trial and error proved that the really liquid blood worked best.The play also requires mobile phones – which go off – at the right time. Oddly enough, we found that programming real phones was the easiest thing to do. If I hadn’t seen it done, I would never have believed it.As if this wasn’t enough, “Audience With Murder” provides body problems. Two characters are dead on stage at the end

of Act 1 – and they remain there through-out the rest of the play. Positioning problems are obvious here: one person may die behind a piece of furniture but two looks ridiculous. I solved the difficulty by using throws on an armchair and set-tee (neatly hiding our shabby furniture) and having the first victim expire on the armchair, where he could be wrapped in one throw and having the other die down-stage and be covered by a throw from the settee. There were good audience reac-tions to be gained in Act 2 by one actor sitting on the arm of the chair containing “his” body, while another stepped over “his”.My original idea of using shop manne-quins for the bodies proved unworkable – too hard and un-yielding - so pillows, towels, wig stands and clothes came in to service and were extremely success-ful. On stage, the actors would carefully remove their shoes in the interval and the dummies would be manoeuvred into them and set up.

SOUND EFFECTSWe try to do sound effects live where possible: doors slams are much tighter when done by the actor so we kept to that. This play also requires an actor to speak on an off-stage microphone which was rigged to come through one speaker

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only and was delightfully creepyI also took liberties with aspects of the script. The “Hippodrome” theatre became the Kenneth More theatre, the stage door keeper was given the name of our real doorman while the theatre manager, who speaks from the auditorium on the last page, was played by the real theatre manager. The local audiences seemed to appreciate these touches!It was also necessary to tone down some of the language: the “f” word doesn’t go down well in Ilford but, I think, milder alternatives delivered with venom were equally successful.

CONCLUSIONOur audiences may be regarded as con-noisseurs of the genre and this play did not disappoint them. Without exception, they were attentive and focussed – even, at times, thinking they were ahead of the plot. (Not possible!) They saw something different, enjoyed it and, with a running time of 45 minutes each act, did not face too late an evening.“Audience With Murder” is challenging for actors and director alike. Its plotting is fiendishly clever and its success in performance makes all the effort worth-while. As our local paper commented, “An evening of taut and suspenseful enter-tainment.”

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