FUR COAT AND NO KNICKERS

DirectDr John Soowen writes oj Thurrock Courts Players' p roduc' tIon oJFW- Coal and No Knickers, at the Thameside The atre, Grays, Essex. Thurrock Courts Players were founded In 1955 when the two companies Thurrock Players and Courts Players merged . In the beginning there were a handfu l of teachers, a ll inter­ested In drama and backstage teclm1q u s. Since those early days, Thurrock Courts Players have become the best known local company In Thurrock. They have a ppeared on 1V In a documentary about the Spanish Armada and some of the actors have been asked to assist pro­fessional companies who visit the local Thameslde Theatre. The Company is run on a demo­cratic basis and each year, a Play Selection Committee is elec ted as well as the main Committee. The fonner Is made up of three Directors for the coming year (we only produce three plays a year in February, June and October) and two other members from the Com­pany. A Director will select a play hc/shc feels would suit the

Company, time and audience and submit it to the Play Selec­tion Committee for reading and discussion .

Amateur Stage June 1990

lay Produced 1 decided that "Fur Coat and No Knickers· would be the right play [or Thurrock Courts Play­ers at this time but I may add that I put this play forward on two previous occasions, only to have It turned down on grounds of offending the audience, not having sufficient members to be cast and staging problems. However, this time (third time

luckyI) I managed to convince the Committee otherwise, and the play was selected. The plot centres around thc wedding of Deirdre Olleren­

shawe and Mark Greenhalgh. The fun begins on Mark's Stag Night when, after consuming vast quantitics of alcohol at

many locations, he and his friends, relations and prospec­tive In-laws end up at the Can Can Club, where the stripper Evette appears with a rubber doll . Mark is left, on the way home, tied to a lamp post with the rubber doll when his best man Hamish takes a swing at a police woman. As Mark is the son of Councillor Greenhalgh,

the police Ict him off. The Wedding Day turns out to be rather a disaster, what with blinding hangovers and the Irish Priest. Father Malloy, sttlldrunk from the night before. The Re­ception ends In chaos when Father Malloy, once again para­lytically drunk, stumbles in on the Reception, clad only In his ecclesiastical underwear and brandishes the blow up dolll As you can tell, there are many events that may offend some people but I feel that Mike Hardlng's cleverly written script takes away all offensiveness.

CASTING Directors are also elected on a dcmocratic basis and each indi­vidual Director has his own way of casting. On this occasion I had a daunting task - who was willing to be the stripper?1 Every member of the Company was given an opportunity before the auditions, to read the play and during the previous week, a play

reading evening was appolnteri. After the read through of play, I handed out a Characlc:r list and gave the Company m. Ideas about how 1 thought the parts should be played. EaC!:.

member who wished to audi was asked to tick the parts would like to be considered so that I could produce a chec lis t before auditions. I was afraiC

that no one would audition fe­Evette and I was right! Howe~

when I returned home from I

play reading, I had a telepb call from one of the members say that she would like to p the part of Evette and notht else. Phew, panic overl A lions were called the folloW" week and took all evening there is always an abundan~ -women which have to be giver'!

fair chance. Once the play . cast and the other Jobs CO

such as Costumes, Music, Sot.

and Effects, the play was I'

for rehearsal.

REHEARSALS

hall to rehearse in and large cast play, this is essen' ­I thought that rehearSing .­play would be much more cult than It was. It only took ' rehearsals to plot It, whlc' more than enough time to attention to details. I d . -

PAG E

that because rehearsals were going fairly well and everyone was gett1ng down to learning their lines, I would set aside one evening for Wedding Photo­graphs which would be put up In the Theatre Foyer during the week of the play, so that the au­

dience could havc a glimpse of what was to come, upon en­trance. This gave a little light relief from rehearsals and the cast a chance to try on their cos­tumes. Sometimes a play can be over rehearsed and become bor­ing for the cast. As It was, I had stopped laughing at the play because I had seen It several times and It was now ready for an audience. The Company Is very lucky In that we can move into the Theatre on the preced­Ing Sunday of production week, to erect the set and have some kind of rehearsal. B.DOam I got ready to go down to our Scenery Store. The whole Company get involved in helping to erect the set. 9.30am I was at the store and loading up the van to move the Scenery to the Theatre. We arrived at the Theatre In good time and everyone got Into the spirit of the play. The set was not very difficult, but once It was up, It was more difficult to ma­noeuvre than I had anticipated. The afternoon left us time to tackle moving the trucks and scenery. We did not get a proper rehearsal until the Monday eve­ning, when everyone was hap­pier that they had finally got on stage and were able to rehearse whole scenes. With Public Per­formance one day away, every­one felt that the production would be a success.

SETrINGS The more I think about Thur­rock Courts Players, I see how fortunate we are In many re­spects. One of our members

works as a professional Scenic Designe r and In hJs "spare" time, helps us . This gives us many ad­van tages over other societies as Paul can see things others can'L

He can construct a set out of nothing and advise on full utllJ­sation ofthe s tage. I had already

given s ome thought to the stag­Ing of "Fur Coat and No Knick­ers' and my feeling was Lo make the set s imple and movable. With the help of Paul, we went ahead and deSigned a set suit­able for the s tage as you can appreciate that there are many scenes in this play and therefore the action had to flow from one scene to the next. We decided to use the black curtaJns on all oc­

casions so tha t we did nol have several box sets to erecL. The 'Bars' for the four scenes were backed to each other In pairs, which gave s implicity, and o ther scencs were more by s uggestion. I felt the script was trong enough to detrac t fro m each of the sets.

LIGHTING AND SOUND The Thameslde Theatre has superb lighting and sound fi ­cllities and a Lighting Techni­cian Is on hand when the The ­atre is hired. I s pent most of the Monday morning in the Theatre with the Lighting Technician

and our Stage Manager, going througb the lighting sequences and discussing ways In whJch to accommodate a slide projector for the Colour SUdes I wanted to use, durin8 the Church Scene. The sound system was set up and ready for our own techni­cian to pull and push knobs, to gel the correct sound from our pre-recorded tape of effects .

MUSIC This was all-Jrnportant as wanted to create the atmos­phere of the Liverpool area and the year 1979. One ofour mem­bers Is a musi enthusiast and he had the task of collecting together the sounds 1 required. It was left completely in his hands to come up with the goods, which he did most effec­dvely.

EFFECTS As I mentioned before, the only special effect that was needed, was so mewhere 0 project the sUdes of the Wedding as the Chu rch Scene proceeded . Thls was done by the Ughting Box providing the sl1de projector and the Theatre providing a large cardboard cut ou t of a crecn , which was suspended cen tre stage, high above the acUon , but

low enough for the a udience to see. Props were not very difficult to collect. We usually appoint members of the Company to undertake thJs task. who beg and borrow from the other members. I suppose the hardest Props were the amount of bottles that were needed for the Bars, although s ome members thought It a good opportunity to drink a couple of botlies of scotch. One member made a IJghted Can Can Club sign, which was erected and most effective.

COSTUMES Costumes are always difficult when there are quJte a few to hire and no one wants to provide their true meas urements. I heard comments like ·Oh , I'll be s 1Jmmer by then so make It a size sU1aller", or "I'm going on a diet", so I instructed the Wardrobe Mistress to add a couple of Inches on to tho people's measurem ents, to ensure they would be big enough! The only costumes whJch had to be h ired were the Wedding outfits so It was not too d tillcult excep t that our Costume HIre Com pany did not have any Wedding dresses or Bridesmaids dresses of that period, on ly the Mcn's Morning Suits, but help was at hand. One of our members knew someone from a Wedding Outfitters, who was willing for us to have them,. free o f charge. I need.ed. the cos ·

tumes two weeks before the produ ction fo r the Photograph Session . Th Costumiers were marvellous as they let us have their cos tumes early, and we were ab le to keep them until a fter the productlon at no extra charge. It was a good job we did have them early, as some of them needed altering and each member was able to attend to their own. D

Amateur Stage June1990 PAGE 15 .