Temporary Shelter - the End

You will know that all theatres have ghosts. It is something to do with bringing characters to life. An energy goes out into the ether; it clings to the walls and the set, so that even long after the final curtain comes down the characters tend to sit around on stage chatting between themselves. In this case Trist (the ex-actor) Larry (the ex-salesman), Marje (his wife) Jean-Louis (the French poet) and Annette (his Polish muse). When I went down to the theatre last Sunday morning they were all talking avidly - their last breakfast together. This is what I heard.

Trist By the time Larry and Marje emerged blearily from their tents. I'd already been up for a couple of hours, helping with the clearing up from the 'Grand Bal des Roses.' Claus, the baker and badminton freak, was up, too, to bake the bread. Larry, however, seemed different. He went off to buy his baguette without being prompted and nor did he seem to care anymore what JL and Annette were getting up to in their tent.

Marje Nescafé, dear?

Larry Good show, Marje! Last night. Got it right for once.

Marje Good audiences - we were full weren't we? Everynight I'd say.

Larry Almost every night, dear. Unheard of I’d say. My suit, you see, girl. They liked my suit.

Marje I wonder why they did come? I mean, it's not as though we got it all right did we?

Larry They still laughed though Marje. And Trist told me that people came up to him afterwards to say how good they thought it had been.

Marje Do you think it was the play then, dear?

JL and Annette emerge from their tent

Anne Bonjour, Marje! Most excellent breakfasting to you! This after the show day, I mean.

Marje Come and join us, Annette dear! We've got to celebrate.

Jean Did Marje sleep OK, Larry?

Larry As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily of the valley she lay beside me in the dawn.....

Jean Well remembered, Larry. I see you are a changed man. A poet.

Anne (with Polish feeling)It is his inside heart.

Marje Let me pour us some Nescafé.

Jean No, have some of ours. You should learn to drink French coffee, Larry!

Marje So, were they pleased? Do you think?

Larry Who, Marje?

Marje Well the Director, you know, the crew?

Larry Sold a lot of tickets, Marje. Made a lot of money no doubt. So I’d say they were very pleased.

Jean You can’t judge a show by the money it makes, Larry. It’s an artistic endeavour.

Larry Good selling job though. Couldn’t have done better myself.

Marje Who’d have thought so many people wanting to see us? And in an eighties play.

Anne If they are ever doing it again I would be watching it myself, I am telling you.

Larry No accounting for taste, Marje. Mind you it was an eighties sort of audience. Took them back no doubt to their own camping days.

Marje We went wrong occasionally, though didn’t we? Got several pages in the wrong order. Do you think they noticed?

Larry Audiences never notice, Marje.

Marje Lucky for the Director then.

Anne Especially with the very experienced actors.

Trist The Director told me afterwards that Annette had never acted in a production before, though you would never have known it. And as for experience, the lighting engineer was a beginner as were the sound engineer and the stage manager. Moreover, one of the actors only became available three days before the play opened and the director had to play one of the parts; while the position of the tent meant that an actor had to open and close the curtain. They also had only in seven weeks to put the show on.

Marje Oh the poor director!

Larry Salesman's pressures, Marje. Now you know why I smoke.

Anne Sounds worse than Warsaw on a Friday. Why then are they doing it?


Jean Louis They are doing it for love. To renew themselves. To reach new understandings. To begin again.

Larry And do you know Marje, I’m beginning to understand what he means. When we return now to Bressingham St Mary........

Marje Your coffee will be cold, dear.


An stage adaptation of Temporary Shelter, an award winning radio play from 1984, by Rose Tremain, was performed by Cowbridge Amateur Dramatic Society last week. Photo shows Lloyd Lee as Larry

PASSING THE BOOKSHOP

Along the road there's a little red post box that hangs on a telegraph pole. I wander down to it in the afternoons when I have a parcel of labels to post, or other mail for that matter. The parcel has to be small or it won't fit through the narrow slot with its overhang cleverly designed to keep the rain away. So then I have to prolong my posting excursion by walking down to the Post Office in town. I don't mind this at all. The sun shines, the folk are friendly. I can look about and observe. And the folk observe me, I suppose.

I see people I know or even that I don't know. They come up and smile, or wave to me from cars and I wave back to them, return the salute without having very much idea who they are. Still, I am content. It isn't troubling.

I conclude from this that I am becoming 'known,' but haven't altogether made up my mind whether I like this for in truth I am a very private person, content to let the world drift by beyond me. In another life, I might even make a good spirit, for I am happy now, at this stage of my life, just to watch and observe.

One of the advantages of growing old is that one is no longer compelled to rise to every occasion, answer every slight, join every competition, seek the glittering prizes. Sunshine and the dappled light through the trees, a flowing brook, a few friends, a chilled glass of white wine, an entertaining story, plenty of sleep - these are the real prizes with the extra benefit that there isn't any need to reach for them.

Didn't someone say that the past is a foreign country? I believe it was LP Hartley in 'The Go-Between' that lovely, savage book that I must have had in my sub-conscious mind writing the previous paragraph. Or maybe not for I missed the cricket altogether. Thwack. The dull-sharp crack of leather on willow that is inimitable and which seems to say 'don't hurry.' Don't sweat! Or anyway not the small stuff.

Certainly Leslie Poles Hartley knew what he was about when penning his famous quote. The past really is a foreign country. We know it exists, we even have the faded souvenir of our journey - a 'journey without maps,' perhaps. But have we the remotest understanding of what happened, or why, or why we behaved as we did? Do we? I know I don't.

For instance in the past there were plenty of times when I wanted to be 'known,' principally when I used to fight elections, but of course I wasn't, even though my photograph was pushed through everyone's front door. The punters still didn't recognise me or greet me or even want to hear how my party would liberate them from all their travails. It was a source of constant annoyance.

But today I have no understanding as to why I ever became involved in politics at all, gave up a good civil service job even, to chase a will 'o' the wisp. "And I say again to you today, that the future lies, not in the past, but in the present. In the strength of our families, our friends, our colleagues, which we must draw upon if we are to be bold and deliver a better life for all in the next millennium." Such vacuity! I didn't really believe it all even then.

The things one does in one's youth! A far away foreign country indeed of which we know little no matter how much of it we may remember. The idea of fighting an election today is such anathema that I'm not sure I wouldn't really rather buy a single ticket to Zurich. If ever there were an activity 'full of sound and fury signifying nothing,' it is fighting elections. We should perhaps be more grateful to those who do it for a living.

But now, as I have said, when I walk to the Post Office people I don't know wave and greet me. I suppose the reason is the theatre; or it may be the talks I have given; or it may even be the politics of long ago. Of course, others are far better known - and better liked. But I just find it remarkable that the public, even in this small, forgotten town, should notice me at all.

In truth the reason that people are coming up to me just now is because of the theatre and the play I am directing and when the curtain goes up tomorrow night it will be like the opening of a ballot box. How many votes? How many punters? Since last night another dozen tickets have gone. It's looking good. Had there been this level of response thirty of forty years ago I might even have been elected!

So I muse as I saunter along, my parcels in a big leather bag. I am passing the bookshop where sometimes I buy books and I wave at the proprietor inside. He waves back. He has our poster in his window. The sun is shining. I am content.

LETTER TO AMERICA

My dear blogging friend, Frances, from New York, commented recently on a theatre production that I had just directed. What she wrote was: “I am curious to learn more about how your group arose, how long it's been going, whatever you'd like to tell, actually. It amazes me that folks are willing to give their time to such an activity...not just for one production, but for season after season.”

Well, let me try to respond to that. But before I do I have to say that I am astonished that a city like New York shouldn’t be teeming with amateur drama, opera, dance and circus groups of every kind, catering to every possible taste. While amateur theatre here in Britain may not be thriving quite so vibrantly as it did thirty or forty years ago, there is still a strong tradition of theatre over here.

As you know we Brits tend to be rather more formal, more constrained, less expressive of sentiment than many folk. We still try not to cry and to keep a stiff upper lip. Yet despite this stereotype - or maybe even because of it - we seize any opportunity to ‘let our hair down.’ Charades are played with vigour in elegant drawing rooms, regiments in the field hold concert parties, prisoners put on plays and pantomimes in jail, out of work actors ply for coins in the streets. (You can still see London people busking in Covent Garden, for example, by reciting Shakespeare).

Wanting to perform seems to me to be a basic human instinct. And acting when you can step for a moment out of your personality that everyone knows and metamorphose into a charmer or a villain is truly liberating. The shy person becomes the extrovert and the extrovert, fretful and shy. The young become old, the rich poor. In some bizarre sense which has to be experienced, the stage is a runway from which people can take off and remain airborne so long as the 650 watt spots play upon them. As a therapy for the wayward and for the deprived, the theatre is rightly acknowledged.

So that’s one reason why we do it. Another is the magnificent camaraderie. There are often fierce and spiteful battles too, but camaraderie wins each time. Not for nothing do theatre people call themselves ‘luvvies.’ You may think that calling people ‘darling’ all the time is repulsive - and it is a little - but a company in front of an audience does experience a feeling of togetherness, of experience shared, of genuine happiness that binds them together in such a way that they do feel like a family.

As the old song has it ‘there’s no business like show business’ - and that is true no matter on how humble a level the show may appear.

Our own theatre and our own little group started right after the Second World War ended. I am not familiar with the details but after the trauma of that experience folk rebuilt their communities after years of austerity and began to have fun again. At someone’s initiation a group came together here to put on plays.

You may think that is a difficult thing - but it isn’t. Just a few people can sit in a room or in the park with a theatre script and just read a play. That’s a start. From there you can go on - learning the lines, finding somewhere to rehearse and perform, somebody volunteering to build the set and make costumes - little by little you move forward. It is not actually difficult.

Our group managed to acquire a couple of ‘portacabins’ - imagine trailers without wheels perhaps - and leased from the council some land on which to install them. In these they used to store costumes and build sets and rehearse. Performances took place on the grand stage of the Town Hall.

But then luck came our way and we got a grant from the National Lottery to put permanent walls in place of the ‘portacabins’ and so our little 70 seat theatre was built. And it was built largely by volunteers, laying bricks and pouring concrete. Much equipment, seating and so on was obtained secondhand and bit by bit the theatre developed into what we have today. This, sadly, all took place way before my time.

Now we have to keep the theatre going, which is less easy than putting on plays. In the old days the company had 60 or 70 members. It was hard to win a part in a play so great was the competition. Now we have about a third of that number and far fewer patrons prepared to be generous with their funds.

Partly this is due to people working longer and harder; it is not just our society, voluntary societies everywhere have seen a fall in their numbers. As the older folk retire, there are insufficient new and young recruits these days coming along to replace them.

I do my best to encourage them! There really is no better place to get a buzz. I think of Sammy Davies Junior and his remark “ I’m a ham - I really am. When I open the refrigerator, the light goes on. I do twenty minutes!” And yes, when the lights go on it is as if a part of that electricity goes not into the light but into your very soul.

Let me leave you with the Little Prince - star of our last show - and who says “You can only truly see things clearly with the heart. What is essential remains invisible to the eyes.” he could have been speaking of the theatre.

And that’s why, there really is ‘no business like show business.’