Crescent Theatre Blog

The senior Youth Theatre members are currently hard at work on their production of ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ by Tom Stoppard (directed by Robert Ball). First night is the 24th March - see main site for details.

The Crescent Theatre has been working at full stretch this month; the set is being built for The Indian Boy, Hamlet is in the final month of rehearsals, The Changeling is (nearly) cast and the cast of My Mother Said I Never Should has just started work. To whet your appetite for what’s coming up later in the season here’s an extract from an interview with Charlotte Keatley, the author of My Mother Said… at The West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2005 in which she talks about the origins of the play, how and why she wrote it and its astonishing international success.

Sarah McCaffrey, Matt Banwell, Pete Smith, Andrew Cowie and myself all met at the huge and freshly installed Hamlet billboard this evening to see how it looks. It looks great so after a few quick pictures we retired to The Green Room for a celebration beer and to distribute some more Hamlet flyers.

I think Pete had a second sneaky look on the way home but who can blame him? How many days can you say a huge billboard with your face on it gets put up in Birmingham city centre?

Slightly ahead of schedule the Hamlet billboard poster went up on the morning of Tuesday 16 February and Gary the billposter created a lovely piece of street theatre in the glorious Spring sunshine while he was doing it. In case you can’t place where it is, it’s on the corner between the Birmingham Markets and The Arcadian so go and see the billboard for free and then buy a ticket for the show!

The Indian Boy by Rona Munro will be in The Ron Barber Studio at The Crescent Theatre from the 6th to the 13th March. The play was described as “wonderful” by The Observer and “magical” by The Times when it was first performed at The RSC in Stratford so don’t miss this rarely-performed piece by one of Britain’s most versatile and innovative playwrights.

 

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

‘…the progress of Desire from its first conception is of this kind…it seeks hiding places and keeps itself secret…until throwing off all restraints of shame and fear…it either assumes the mask of some virtue, or sets infamy itself at defiance.’ (Francis Bacon, De Dignitate et Augentis Scientarium, 1623)

The Changeling (8th – 15th May, Crescent Studio) is a play for anyone who, watching the news last year, looked at Amanda Knox being led away in handcuffs and wondered how pretty 22 year old exchange student from Seattle, USA ended up being convicted of the murder and sexual assault of another young woman.

We’ll probably never know exactly what passed between Knox, her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Meredith Kercher. The facts are that Kercher was found dead; she had suffered a crushed windpipe, her throat had been slashed, she had 43 bruises, scratches and knife wounds on her body and she had been sexually assaulted. Amanda Knox, a previously unremarkable, middle-class young woman, is now serving a 26 year sentence in an Italian prison. Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted of murder and sexual assault and jailed for 25 years.

Middleton and Rowley’s play deals with what happens when the animal instincts that lie somewhere within us all are unleashed. It’s a dark, violent and bloody Jacobean tragedy with plenty to say to a modern audience about the fragile line between passion and madness.

The main character, Beatrice, lets her passion for a man she can’t have override her reason. She enters into a sinister pact with a Deflores, a servant who has secretly lusted after her for years. When Deflores changes the terms of their agreement after murder has been done, she agrees to quench his desire for her, rather than risk revealing what they have done. More deceit becomes the only way to cover up their crimes as they spiral into depravity and despair. Beatrice is the ‘changeling’ of the title; changing almost beyond recognition from the beautiful, ordinary young noblewoman at the start of the play.

Jacobeans believed that humans were set apart from animals and plants by their possession of a ‘rational soul’. It was the rational soul that ruled over the animal in Man, elevating people above beasts. If Man’s appetites refused to be controlled by the rational soul, they believed that the animal in Man became dominant, resulting in madness. Madness in Jacobean plays is not only seen as a state of sin, but is frequently represented by the transformation of humans to the state of animals. It is almost as though the animal in man resents being tethered by reason and rationality, so much so that when let loose, it wilfully wreaks havoc.

Francis Bacon, a prominent Jacobean thinker, used the image of ‘the tiger in the chariot’ to describe this phenomenon; ‘Tigers likewise are kept in the stables of the passions, and at times yoked to their chariot; for when passion ceases to go on foot and comes to ride in its chariot, as in celebration of its victory and triumph over reason, then is it cruel, savage, and pitiless towards all that withstand or oppose it.’ (De Dignitate et Augentis Scientarium, 1623).

The Changeling is a play about what happens if we let our basest desires ride roughshod over our reason and humanity. A glance at some of the more salacious stories in the news, nearly 400 years after the play was first performed, suggests that the plot is as relevant today as it was in Jacobean times.

Intent on giving people a “lovely, happy night in the theatre” Victoria Wood revived her 1980s soap opera Acorn Antiques with a musical of the same name staged for the first time in 2005. Massively popular in the late eighties, this revival became an Olivier award-winning show with a tremendous cast including Julie Walters and Celia Imrie.

It is with great pleasure to announce that The Crescent has now got the rights to perform this classic comical satire…that you can audition for! We are the only non- professional theatre in the Midlands and the one of two in the UK to have ever got the rights to this show. And personally, it means so much more because Celia Imrie opened The Crescent Theatre fifteen years ago in it’s current location in Sheepcote Street.

Auditions for this will be taking place within the next month or so. If you want to get involved keep an eye out on the Crescent website auditions page which will detail when and where to come!

Are you a designer (past, present OR future)?

Ever thought you’d like to learn design skills?

Would you like to help a director/designer realise their vision?

There will be an informal meeting for all those involved with, or interested in, production design on Friday, 12 February from 7.30pm at the theatre. Please come along.

This will be an opportunity to learn a little more about what’s involved, maybe sign up to work on a forthcoming production, or buddy-up with a designer and learn some skills before going solo.

Hope to see you there (and don’t be put off if you’re at the ‘thinking about it’ stage – this meeting’s for everyone).

Robert F. Ball

Arts Manager