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A Servant of
Two Masters – A BRGS Theatre
Production.
Performing farce
is a bit like tightrope walking – you’re
either very good at it indeed or you come a cropper!
It’s therefore probably just as well that the BRGS
students that presented Goldoni’s “A Servant
of Two Masters” on the evenings of December 3rd,
4th and 5th 2003 were very good at it indeed.
The play itself has an unusual history. Traditionally
the actors in Commedia del Arte were given only storylines,
that wove together outrageous plotlines with a set of
stock characters. Goldoni, who actually saw himself as
a bit of a tragedian and considered comedies somewhat
beneath him, eked out a living providing actors with
such storylines. However he was so appalled by what a
particular group of actors did to the “Servant” storyline
that he broke with tradition and gave them the actual
lines. Given the nature of the Commedia tradition and
the perversity of actors, this probably made very little
difference, but none the less it was a first! |
Commedia was a very rough
and ready theatre, a sort of controlled anarchy. A group
of actors would turn up in the town square, erect a high
platform and deliver. How much they earned depended upon
how much they pleased the crowd. And people being who
they are, that meant broad farce, satire of local and
national officials and institutions and as many sexual
references as you can reasonably fit into a couple of
hours of theatre. It was our challenge to recreate that
formula for a modern and what we sometimes consider a
more sophisticated audience.
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We updated
the original text, applied contemporary references – there
are times when Tony Blair is a godsend! – and
gave free reign to our collective dirty mind. The result
was a sort of Carry On Renaissance Italy crossed with
the two most unbelievable love stories ever put on
the stage and spiced with just a bit of Graham Norton.
And it went down a treat!
It is, of course invidious to name individuals in
what is such a collective effort, so I will. Although
the cast was made up mainly of Sixth Formers, our
production was also graced by performances of two
Year 10 students, Robert Cowan & Simon Kroll,
who are now veterans of school productions. They
both gave confident, well rehearsed performances
and occasionally got their lines in the right order!
The thankless task of playing the lovers fell to
Poppy Cooper and Stephen Claxon who breathed both
life and humour into two very dull characters and
charm less characters. Amanda Harris, ably assisted
by Simon Kroll, was a masterpiece of timing as the
waiter in a scene that begins in madness and then
spirals even further out of control. Saswata Sen
brought an erudite dignity to the role of Dr Lombardi
and Smeraldina, the servant woman, was seductively
brought to delightful life by Roxanne Edworthy.
Kayleigh Mills dressed herself as a man and became
Beatrice, pretending to be her brother, who had actually
been killed by her lover, who had fled from Turin
and was now looking unsuccessfully for Beatrice in
Venice not knowing she was disguised as a man, whilst
staying at the same hotel and sharing the same servant – or
something like that! She
trod the line between being a woman pretending to be a man with
aplomb, letting the audience know whilst keeping the characters
in the dark and she revealed herself as a woman in a manner more
befitting page three of the Sun than classic theatre! |
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It would be impossible to talk about
this production without singling out the work of Roger Beale
and Graham Butler – two members of my Year 13 Theatre Studies
group. If the pair of them can turn in this level of work, at
this age, without formal training (mind you, they have a wonderful
teacher!) I can only guess the standard of which they are potentially
capable. Theatre is hard work for the practitioners, great theatre
doubly so. Yet they managed to commit themselves fully to this
production, turning out performances that would be considered
excellent in the professional theatre whilst maintaining their
academic careers in school. Roger built the character of Florindo
from few textual clues into the personification of comic pomposity.
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He completely inhabited
that character, to whom he brought a physicality and a voice
that perfectly fitted the production. He has a presence and comic
timing way beyond his years that he used to excellent effect.
Graham Butler bravely took on the very difficult title role – the
servant who realises that having two masters means twice the
money and twice the food. He seems to forget that it also means
twice the work and – when both masters happen to end up
staying at the same inn and are actually lovers (don’t
ask!) – twice the confusion. The part depends entirely
upon the character’s relationship with the audience to
whom he frequently speaks, interrupting the play’s plot.
To build such a relationship into a performance whilst coping
the other rigours of acting is difficult enough, To do it with
the skill, intelligence and stagecraft displayed by Graham is
astonishing. The play stands or falls on the actor’s ability
to bring Truffaldino to life and make him the audience’s
friend. The script demands a consummate comic timing, an ability
to respond to a different audience every night and incredible
physical control. If we add to that the complexity and sheer
number of the lines – most of which he managed to get in
at some, though not necessarily the right, point – it
is a role that would tax the most experienced of actors. That
he
made it all look so easy is a testament to a great talent and
a lot of hard work.
School plays are often embarrassing occasions, beloved of the
cast and their families and endured by the rest. We didn’t
do “school play”. The young people with whom I
was privileged to work did something far more difficult; they
committed
an act of theatre. I can offer them no greater praise.
Oh, and they had a stunning director!
Paul Patrick.
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