Little Gem - Coming Soon!

Three generations of women and one year of comedy, courage and romance, combine in the Edinburgh Fringe award-winning play 'Little Gem' - next up at the Apollo Theatre in Newport.  
Amber has bad indigestion and the Sambucas aren’t getting rid of it.  Lorraine attacks a customer at work and her boss wants her to see a psychiatrist.  Kay’s got an itch that Gem can’t scratch (but maybe Kermit can).  Paul is just using Amber until he can get to Australia.  The Hairy Man fancies Lorraine but fails to rise to the occasion.  And Gem doesn’t like the neighbours coming in to ‘mind’ him.  And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Little Gem makes his presence felt and life is never the same again.

The cast  includes the Apollo's theatre director and lifelong member, Amy Burns.

Maggie Cardew, director, who is also the Apollo's artistic director this season, said: "I have five very special people in this play: the three generations of women, along with two ‘living props’. Doing this play has put me on a great adventure, and if we get this  right the audience will come along with us too, and join a roller coaster ride that will make them laugh, squirm and cry in rapid succession through the whole evening!"

Little Gem, written by Elaine Murphy, is on at the Apollo on May 20 and 21, and from May 24 to 28.

For more information and online booking, go to www.apollo-theatre.org.uk

The cast in rehearsal with Maggie Cardew (right)

Front Row L to R: Amy Burns, Britney Kent, and Helen Clinton Pacey
Back Row L to R: Eve Fradgley and Carole Crow

Setting the Scene for Little Gem.

This piece has been written by one of our very experienced set design team, Louis Lawrence, explaining how he has taken on the challenge of designing a stage for Little Gem...a play without staging.....

I asked Maggie for an opportunity to design a stage set in the current season. She asked me to work on ‘Little Gem’. When I got the script I was surprised to find there were no stage directions and there was no previous set design illustrated.

This is very unusual as, in normal circumstances, the playwright is very specific about how they see the play and the settings, leaving little room for anything but surfaces and ambience of décor.  

Shakespeare specifies settings and activity, and George Bernard Shaw was notorious for his meticulous notes about how his plays should be staged. It's not often a set-designer works without any kind of parameter. It is a challenge. The only previous experience I had of this situation was at Toynbee Hall in the 1950’s when a friend of mine authored two plays both of which sank without trace.   

Having read the script twice, I began to get an impression of how the actors might be moving about, and when research produced a critique published after the original show in Dublin, it became clear that the action would revolve around some chairs.

Indeed the critic seemed obsessed by the chairs and assumed because they were an ill assorted lot, that there was some meaning to them, which it turns out there is not other than as seating.  

It bears out the understanding that everything appearing on stage however small the detail is attributed some significance by the onlooker.   

The action of the play could be taking place in a number of locations as the actors speak about their lives and times. It was manifestly impossible to provide all these on the Apollo stage. Also It would have been a distraction from the continuity of the action were there lots of scene changes.  

When I discussed this with Maggie she agreed with me that a neutral setting would be best and she asked only for one simple piece of furniture to be available for multiple uses: a raised dais as an acting area, and a prop bed to be brought on (apart from those pesky chairs!)

But how neutral? The ethos of this play lies entirely in the individual actors’ monologues and the mental pictures they create for the audience. The stage set could not impinge on or distract. It needed to be totally neutral, undecorated, leaving the audiences eyes to focus on the actors only. Technically, allowance has to be made for getting on and off but apart from that It could be all black ….we chose white.

In the actual production I hope the audience will be totally unaware of the stage set– just the players, that’s how it should be!

Louis Lawrence

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter.

Taking on a Pinter play, let alone one of his most famous works, is an ambitious prospect  for any theatre company, and the director, cast and crew of this Apollo production have risen to the challenge admirably, capturing the essence and nuances of the work.

The decision to have an open set immediately presents the audience with the facade of an ordinary domestic living room and kitchen, which we learn is a boarding house somewhere on the coast.

The initial conversation between owner Meg and her husband Petey appears equally conventional, yet beneath the bland comments about the ‘nice’ breakfast and what’s in the paper, we sense a lack of real communication between the couple. Sue Edwards skilfully brings out Meg’s simplicity and delusions as she clings to familiarity, while Simon Cardew deftly shows Petey as apparently just as apathetic yet clearly more aware than his wife.

The appearance of their sole boarder, Stanley takes the atmosphere further into unconventional and confusing territory. In front of her husband Meg treats Stanley like a son, yet as soon as Petey leaves she becomes flirtatious. Stanley treats her by turns with teasing, cruelty and flattery. 

The audience starts to wonder who he is. He seems to want to leave, yet refuses the offer of Lulu, a flirty young neighbour played by Ellie Warren, to do so. Pete Harris adeptly captures the conflicts and confusions of the main character.

The arrival of two more ‘guests’, Goldberg and McCann, throws the situation further into confusion with unexpected consequences. As Goldberg, Michael Arnell is by turns charming, sinister and menacing, in stark contrast to the open violence displayed by his ‘sidekick’, played by Colin Ford.

The limitations of human communication; the comfort we find in the mundane and our fear of change are explored; however, there are moments of comedy and warmth which serve as a foil to the inherent violence, uncertainty and chaos.  

The ‘truth’ of The Birthday Party is that there is no truth, only chaos and confusion from which we make order if we choose: and the other truth is that the Apollo Players have presented us with a highly entertaining production of this play.

The Birthday Party is on from Tuesday to Saturday 5-9 April at 7.30 pm.

Tickets from: http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/the-birthday-party/