DON'T DRESS FO'R DINNER by Marc Camoietti, adapted by Robin Hawdon

Cyril Bennett discusses his production for Mow Cop Players, Milton , Stoke-an-Trent

The policy our company is to produce comedies or farces for our audiences and for this we are known. VI/e are always interes ted in the latest releases li nd on this occasion Samuel French, as usual, had notified us that DO T DRESS FOR 0 11 NER was to be released at the beginning of September lil s t year. We obtained copies of the play and decided "yes" this was for us. Although the front cover of the ac ting ed ition calls it comedy, believe me this is a farce, but not a tearin g MOLlIld the stage farce, this is sophistica ted farce relying on the speed of the words rather than the speed of the feet. You need pace, timing, cue-bite and style. Put these toge ther and you ha ve the a udience rolling in the aisles.

Jacqueline his wife have converted a small French farmhouse that is ideil l for weekends and has the added a ttraction of being less than two hours from Paris . Bernard this particular weekend is hoping to entertain his chic Parisian girlfriend Suzy. He has arranged for a Cordon Ble u cook to furn ish the gourmet delights and is in the process of packing his wife off to her mother's. He has also invited his best friend Robert as a suitable alibi; it's perfect, what could go wrong? Suppose Robert and Jacqueline are secret lovers? Or how about the cook being mistaken for the mistress and the

mistress, who can't cook, mistaken for the cook? Mix a II these ingredients and you come up with a perfect recipe for a hilarious evening of entertainment.

There Jre truee male and three female characters in this play. Although the action of the play

need for "bogus" French accents for any of the cast, but some Gaelic hand and arm ges tures helped to establish the French chM actE'ris tics.

First we have Bernard, husband of Jacqueline, who has the uncanny knack of turning a simple trys t into a giant cock-up and all the lime skilfully ma nipulating the

Jacqueline needs to be attractive and wholly capable of w orking out the most complicated situations, at the samE' time covering up the fa ct that s he and Robert were lovers! Next we have Robert, Jacqueline 's lover prior to his sojourn in Hong Kong. vVhat is required here is an actor who ca n maintain a comic panic throughout, together with the ability to handle complicated situations quickly together with, on occasions, the longish speeches that go with them. Suzette is the Cordon Bleu cook who gets mistaken by Robert for Bernard's mistress. She needs to switch her movements and demeanour in accordance with the cha racter she has to assume at any given time. Her poses, as a model, and her exaggerated walks all add to this part. Next we come to Suzanne, Bernard's mistress, complete with Chanel coat! She must retain her Parisian mode throughout all the disasters which await her. Lastly we have George who is Suzette's husband. He, a burly chef complete with Tyson punch, has arrived to

take Suzette home, only to find everybody in a s tate of undress together with the confusion as to which Suzie everybody is talking about. This is a comparatively small part but essential to the plot.

We rehearse in a Youth and Adult Centre where there is a small hall

takes place in France we saw no situations to his advantage.

16 FEBRUARY

-". in fa ct, slightly bigger than \ Iitchell Me morial Thea tre

e. where we produce our WS . This means that we can set

• Ihe hall to give us virtually the m positions as we will have on

" ge. As this farce has only six racters and there is only one

'in t when all six are on stage, we und that we could have a

,ma iler set than usual to give that ' ar m intima te feeling to the

a.:: tion. After all this is all about :omance!

\ s we rehea rse twi ce a week we were "ble to take one "ct each " \'t'ning, thus allowing George to lave a night off until a week or so before the actual production week.

1 This is also a play which can be broken down to allow for holidays

1 by members of the cas t. Producers are not allowed "time off" from rehears<1 ls as fellow producers (at this moment nodding their heads) will know!

Ci,UI'Mi!'!) There is one major costuole chilllge which happens on stage in full view of the audience dnd must be very slick. Suzette must change from a maid"s costume into a very tight, black mini-skirted dressr leav ing her arms and shoulders bare. The maid 's cuffs and apron are easily dt, tached by Robert and Bernard, they turn hEe' r back to the

e audience and rip off her blouse, which was black in colour with velc ro up the back. The skirt part o f her costume was a black e la s tica ted tube which when pulled under the arms formed the dress. The actress wore iI black bra, whose straps finished off the dress. Our production was adjudicated for a local festival and I quote the adjudicator's remilrks regarding the change: ""Costumes were always in character, sometimes inspiredly so, but

)

"t e Suzette"s transformation was the

wardrobe's 'coup de theatre""'.

I Bernard requires several changes

f of shirts which are constantly getting covered by various forms

D of d rink, sa LIce etc. We borrowed a i fur coat for the Chanel coat and

the only other major requirement 11 is for a nightdress which allows " Jacqueline to "hang out"! All the ~

\' other costumes need to be in line t. with the characters portrayed.

With regard to the fi xed props, I

.t d id at first toy with the idea of having 0 fireplace but found thatII this did not suit the positioning of

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the furniture, so a radiato r was substituted for this. After all, all houses are made warm by some form of heating. We were lucky to be able to borrow a low-bo cked settee which gave us a nice acting space behind this without cutting off half the actors' bodies. Apa.rt from this there were nO complicated props unless yo u count a constipated soda syphon on our firs t night. This was put right before performance number two and gushed merrily away after tha t! There is a considerab le amount of French currency but in the form of twenty franc notes.

One other prop which we found to be very usefu l indeed was it bent baguette. On re turning from shopping with his wi fe, Be rnard is about to ente r the front door, ca rry ing shopping bags from which a s tick of bread protrudes, when the door is shut in his face, leaving us with the drooping baguette which is then lIsed to advantage by BernClrd.

UGH We had. floods behind the window and front door el t the rea r of the' se t and floods through the two archways left and right. As the bedrooms were at the very front of the stage we found that Wt' did not ha ve to light these from behind. Otherwise the se t was wdl lit to give inte rior lighting a nd the re was no chan ge to this until the end of the pla y when the re was a blackout of the main act ing area leaving just the floods lit. This gave a dim but visible and romantic end to the play.

seE ERY. As will be seen from the photographs, we placed the front door and window to the rear of the se t. I found that to allow the smooth rlU1J1ing of the play it was better to have two archways back stage left and right, than two doors. There are m,lny quick entrances and exits via these two areas. The flats were painted with a warm terraco tta emulsion paint with wood beams added to give a farmhou se appear<lnce.

If you are a company that likes to do a good farce trom time to time then I can recommend this play both from a production point of view and from an audience point of view. We know from consulting

:_ THE PtAY PRODUCED

with members of the audience that they thoroughly enjoyed this play. A word of warning: p rompters beware, there are pages of one and two word speeches coming in rapid succession, often repeating the same words again and again. As they say, "Follow tha t!"'. We used the song '"If you knew Suzie, like I know Suzie"' as our opening music with ""Little White Lies" to open the second half.

For the first time ever, our company had a matinee on the Saturday starting at 4.00 pm and foll ow in g the trend of supermarkets, we o ffered to pensioners and unemployed people two concessionary priced seats for the pri ce of one. It worked. We had a good audience

for the matinee.

As 1 said at the beginning, this is a

farce on words not feet. Enjoy it as

we did.

TEL: 0171-837-5655 FAX: 0171-833-0609

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