Tuesday 28 May 2013

Frankfurt Calling

Well it's taken a flipping age but here I am again but this time skulking about in the fine Southwestern part of Germany called Hesse and Frankfurt in particular, plying the old trade once more of board-treading and larking about in the name of theatre.
Just about two months ago, a group of us met in a church hall basement on a sunny Monday morning to begin rehearsals on a play called Good People by a writer called David Lindsay-Abaire. I am not proud to say that I had never heard of either. I wish I was one of those actors who hunts around diligently week after week for new plays and new writers, but like many I find this task too overwhelming and give up too easily. It's also very expensive buying these texts, even if it is a business expense. My bad. David Lindsay-Abaire was born and raised in a very tough and neglected part of South Boston in the 1960's. Almost exclusively white and Irish by origin, the community there soon found itself after the Second World War ignored by the police and social services and as a result, criminal gangs and bleak self-preservation took over. For the young boys that meant learning to handle yourself in a fight and then trying your best to keep out of the path of any rivals who might want to take you on. For girls, it meant being raised by the women folk and learning to become the next generation of single parents, as the men soon left or became itinerant drunks. This cheering prospect is what lies behind David's play which he opened on Broadway in 2011 to rave reviews. At it's centre is Margie, a middle-aged single mum whose adult daughter has severe learning disabilities. Plodding from dead-end job to dead-end job, we join her as she is sacked from her latest lousy employment; a check-out assistant at a Dollar Store. From here, her friend Jean and neighbour Dotty step up to try to help her find a new place to work; anything but go to the big factory down the road where line work is too much for anyone who can't move fast enough. Now. You are probably losing the will to live at this point, right? Thinking, 'I just want to be entertained! I don't want to think about all this depressing stuff!' Well, dear reader if so, then I cannot help you! Except to say that in order to survive this awful life, these people have developed the most extraordinary sense of humour. It's dark to say the least! But it is very much a key part of this wonderful play. David has drawn a slice of his own life in this story about a woman's journey back to her youth to try to save her current strife, and in doing so he has filled the characters with a real warmth and depth and the naughty humor needed for anyone to get through difficult times.
 Michael our splendid director, plunged us in to the world of South Boston with books and film, website blogs etc and loads of pictures of the neighbourhood we were going to recreate. We also got lots of help with our very particular accent from a top dialect coach, as well as identifying those American actors whose roots are in South Boston, like Mark Whalberg and Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin. No offence, but avoid Jack Nicholson if anyone mentions accents.. you seen the Departed?? Interesting. That was my  personal source material of choice because everyone is so damn good, aside from Mr. Nicholson's accent. Some may wonder why we are working so hard to be accurate about a neighbourhood in America when performing in Germany. Well I say poo to you for that thought! We're paid to do this stuff and to do it as well as possible. Getting the feel of a place and the sound of a place is really what we should do wherever and whatever that may be. Daniel Nikolai who runs the English Theatre in Frankfurt is very good at checking that the accents are not too much for people who are watching a play in their second language. The people who come are of course embarrassingly brilliant at English as are many locals here, putting us Brits to shame once again. We really ought to care a little more about learning a second language when we're kids instead of expecting everyone else to learn ours.
So back to the play and our rehearsals, which flew by in no time and soon we were all met at the airport, bags packed and ready to fly. One week of final rehearsals then our tech and dress rehearsals and our introduction to the wonderful set designed by Morgan Large and lit by Richard G. Jones. This was very special. Some designs are clear as can be from the beginning of rehearsals,  but this was a tricky one to reproduce in the rehearsal room, being a compact but complex revolve of rooms. So finally finding this in three dimensions at last was an amazing moment and the final character in our play, giving us that all-important real-looking world to bring South Boston to Frankfurt. We also had great fun getting in to our costumes, a mix of second-hand and Primark-like stuff and genuine American gear for authenticity. Audiences like to see the attention to detail like that- like Morgans' own handiwork adding little weeds growing out of the walls of the alley way where scene 1 takes place and my character's Boston Bruin's hockey shirt.
 We had two previews to get used to our new audience and our mammoth story-  the actress who plays Margie, Jan greaves doesn't leave the stage once through the show, going from drama to drama without a breath- then our opening Gala night where the many sponsors and supporters came to cheer us on. A standing ovation no less and a lovely reception in the theatre bar after. A success is on our hands.