PL AYBILL the norman conquests
the norman conquests
TABLE MANNERS, LIVING TOGETHER, ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN ALAN AYCKBOURN }{ a pproxim at e ru n n i ng t im es: Table Ma n ners: 2 hou rs a nd 10 m i nu t es li v i ng toget her: 2 hou rs rou nd a nd rou nd t he ga r den: 2 hou rs each per for m a nce w ill h av e one 20 m i nu t e i n t er m ission
TIDBITS
ARTIST NOTE: ALBERT SCHULTZ Today is Labour Day Monday. First day of week four of The Norman Conquests rehearsals. Everyone else in the city is on holiday, but the actors and the stage managers and the director are hard at it. On the coffee break Derek Boyes and I ran down to the hall to welcome the Farther West gang. They’re working today too. It is their first day. There they are reading the play – together– for the first time. No pressure this day. Just meetings and greetings, and dreams of what might come of it all, and a subtle sizing up of each other… he’s cute… she’s going to be amazing... I should be playing that part (we’re all human).
• T he
Norman Conquests first major revival in Britain came in 2008 at the Old Vic in London. That production transferred to the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York for an acclaimed limited run and won a 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. That same production also garnered Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Ensemble Performance, Revival and Director.
• I n
1977 The Norman Conquests was adapted for television by Ayckbourn. Actress Penelope Keith – who had originated the role – played Sarah and won a BAFTA Television Award.
Back in the Norman hall things are at a different stage. We can feel the pressure of time. After all, we are staging three plays at once! All of the actors made a secret promise to be “off-book” after the day off but, even so, our prompters (stage managers) are hard at it. “Don’t tell me!” (Long Pause) ”OK what is it?” (Prompt)” Damn, I knew that at home!” But we have four weeks left before we see an audience and we have already come so far. We feel really good about this one (these three?). But nobody will say that aloud. We are far too superstitious for that.• Albert Schultz, Norman in The Norman Conquests p roduc t ion s p on sor
CREATIVE TEAM
THE NORMAN CONQUESTS
CAS T Derek Boyes
Sarah Mennell
Reg
Ruth, Reg’s sister
Fiona Reid
Albert Schultz
Sarah, his wife
Norman, her husband
Laura Condlln
Annie, Reg and Ruth’s younger sister
Oliver Dennis
Tom
Production Ted Dykstra Director
Ken MacKenzie
Set Designer
Patrick Clark
Costume Designer
Louise Guinand
Lighting Designer
Creighton Doane
Composer & Sound Designer
Diane Pitblado
Dialect Coach
Nancy Dryden
Production Stage Manager
Janet Gregor
Kelly McEvenue
Alexander Coach
Simon Fon
Fight Director
Jordana Weiss
A pprentice StageManager ( Soulpepper Academy Member)
A ssistant StageManager
SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION Jacqueline Robertson-Cull
Head of Hair & Makeup
Janet Pym
Wardrobe Coordinator
Geoff Hughes
Cutter
TABLE MANNERS
Barbara Nowakowski
First Hand
Lisa Summers
Scenic Painter
Emma Zulkoskey
Dresser
Greg Chambers
Props Builder
LIVING TOGETHER
ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN
Act 1, Scene 1 – Saturday 6 pm Act 1, Scene 2 – Sunday 9 am
Act 1, Scene 1 – Saturday 6:30 pm Act 1, Scene 2 – Saturday 8 pm
Act 1, Scene 1 – Saturday 5:30 pm Act 1, Scene 2 – Saturday 9 pm
Act 2, Scene 1 – Sunday 8 pm Act 2, Scene 2 – Monday 8 am
Act 2, Scene 1 – Sunday 9 pm Act 2, Scene 2 – Monday 8 am
Act 2, Scene 1 – Sunday 11 am Act 2, Scene 2 – Monday 9 am
sou l p e p p e r ac k now l e d ge s t h e ge n e rou s s u p p ort of
s p e c i a l t h a n k s: Dav i d Hoe k s t r a , s i lv i e va ron e
The video and/or audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited. The Norman Conquests is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. i l l u s t r at ion : b r i a n r e a
BACKGROUND NOTES
T
he idea for The Norman Conquests came to Alan Ayckbourn in the spring of 1973, at the height of the so-called sexual revolution. The three ingeniously interlocking plays of this hilarious and tender trilogy follow six characters over the same weekend. Each play is set in a different part of a country house: Table Manners unfolds in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden in... the out of doors. Even Ayckbourn himself admitted that he couldn’t imagine why he’d undertaken “this most ambitious and, frankly, seemingly uncommercial project.” A less resourceful writer would’ve given up before he even started. First of all, for practical reasons, Ayckbourn had to ensure that each play could stand independently while still piquing the audience’s curiosity about – and desire to see – the other plays. The plays had to be able to be seen in any order. He was restricted to six characters and two entrances. Finally, because the actor Ayckbourn wanted to play Norman couldn’t join the company for the first few days of rehearsal, the character of Norman had to have a late entrance in Table Manners.
To say that the playwright thrived under these strictures would be an understatement. He exploded with wit and invention. He created six memorable, beautifully nuanced and detailed characters. He wove the three stories into the theatrical equivalent of a novel. And he wrote all three plays in a week. Perhaps even more remarkably, he wrote them “crosswise”. That is to say I started with Scene One of Round and Round the Garden, then the Scene Ones of the other two plays and so on through the Scene Twos.” The strength – and the thrill of Soulpepper’s staging of all three plays – lies in the accumulation of detail, the way something that happens in one play is echoed or completed in another. What looks at first like a straight farce reveals itself to be not only deeper, richer, and more satisfying but also – amazingly – much funnier too. We get to know this flawed, appealing family so well. We watch them connect and disconnect, behave badly,
desire inappropriately and struggle mightily. Ayckbourn makes their difficulties achingly poignant and absolutely hilarious at the same time: when one character is asked if she’s happy, she answers: “Yes. Mostly. Occasionally. Now and then. I don’t know.” New York Times critic Frank Rich described these plays as “impossibly wise about sex, marriage, love and loneliness.” Take advantage of this rare opportunity to see and savour them all. And remember, you can start anywhere. When Ayckbourn was asked which play one should start with, he replied: “It’s better to see all of them first.”•
Author Biography Sir Alan Ayckbourn – Born on April 12, 1939 in London, Ayckbourn wrote his first play when he was ten years old. After leaving school at 17, he was hired as an acting stage manager by director Stephen Joseph at the Scarborough Library Theatre. Joseph challenged him to write and encouraged him to direct. Ayckbourn did both and his first wild success was Relatively Speaking in 1965, which transferred to the West End. In 1972 Ayckbourn succeeded his late friend and mentor as Artistic Director. The next decade saw the emergence of such well-known titles as The Norman Conquests, Absurd Person Singular, How the Other Half Loves, and A Chorus of Disapproval, among others. Of his 77 full length plays, only 4 did not premiere in Scarborough; all were directed by the playwright. His plays have found worldwide popularity and been translated into 35 languages. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre and is the first British playwright to receive both a Laurence Olivier Special Award and a Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2011.
Tidbits and Background Notes by Paula Wing
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