The Producer
ACTOR and director Tom Roberts is approaching his fifth year as Producer of the Lichfield Garrick Rep, five years which have seen both the reputation and status of the productions grow year on year.
Last autumn saw Matthew Kelly star in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which earned rave reviews at the Garrick and then repeated the feat when it transferred to the West End for a season last spring.
This autumn the Rep has gone for John Osborne's The Entertainer which has been placed once again in the capable hands of director Andrew Hall.
Roberts said: “We do two styles of production. We do a lighter comedy in
the spring and more classic works in the autumn, so this fits in with
that pattern. It is trying to give a contrasting piece. It is generally
more modern stuff in the spring – we just did
Ladies' Day and things like
Shirley Valentine, Jim
Cartwright (Two) were in that
slot and then we have the classic pieces like
The Entertainer.
“This
is the second one with Andrew Hall who directed
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
so it is great to have that same team back again – and it is the same
team – we have the same backstage crew as well. It is exciting and we
want to recreate that quality. At the end of the day though it is about
getting an audience in.”
LANDMARK THEATRE
That is the rub for Lichfield Garrick Rep, balancing productions of
landmark theatre against the more down to earth requirement of earning
their keep. The works of the likes of August Strindberg may be worthy
but are hardly going to have audiences packed in to the rafters.
Roberts said: “It has to be classically popular. We are not the Royal
Court, we cannot be experimental. We have got to know the audience as
much as we can and we do things which are still seen as entertaining.”
The Rep has had some surprises though. Roberts said: “We did
Waiting for Godot and I was a
little worried about getting audiences and how that would do but it went
really well. Sometimes I am surprised by audiences and what they do want
to see so we are trying to find a middle ground. You cannot go too heavy
or too experimental.”
Ironically The Entertainer
when it was first produced in 1957 at the Royal Court was itself
regarded as experimental. Roberts said: “The
Entertainer has elements of everything. Everyone knows about it.
Even if they haven't seen it they know Olivier did it at some point. It
is funny, it has comedy and it has a good title.
“You have to look at the names of plays and how they would look on the
poster and it is a good title – it is even things as simple as that. It
has a lot of ingredients which work within a play. It has got sadness,
it has events which some people in the audience may remember, it is
pertinent to the modern age and I think it has a broad appeal. While
being historical it is relevant.
“Osborne started off the whole of the kitchen sink dramas; he is
responsible in some ways for Coronation Street and EastEnders, that form
of naturalistic acting. We have done Look Back in Anger here as well,
another Osborne play. It is something which has been shown here which
people seem to like.
The Rep is already mapping out its programme for next year and Roberts
said: “Next spring we are doing
The Things We Do for Love by Alan Ayckbourn, again fitting in with
that lighter sort of play. We haven't done an Ayckbourn here so I think
it is time we did one. We always have to find something that will fit in
the Studio and this is a clever piece. It is set in an apartment and you
see two thirds of one apartment and a third of the apartment above it,
so you see people from the knee down until they come downstairs so it is
quite a clever set.
“We are still looking at the classic piece for next year.”
The Rep is happy in the Studio at the moment. Roberts accepts that a
move to the main house with three times the seats could have some
benefits. “It would be nice to sell more seats in a bigger area of
course but I am really happy with the way the Studio works and I am not
sure we could sell a month in the main house with anything - it is very
difficult to sell a month in theatres these days. With the Studio we
should manage it.
“The Studio is a great space and the key is finding the right play which
is often a room. In Virginia
Woolf the whole play was in the apartment of George and Martha, it
was a journey of three hours, a painful journey, in that room and it was
perfect for the audience to be part of the room.
“You are not going to do Aida in there but there are plenty of plays
with three or four people. We have come a long way. We started with
Bouncers, the John Godber
play, and we started with four actors, four chairs and the costumes were
four handbags the actors had for when they played women and that was it
with some lighting.
“It has gone from that to the set on the entertainer which has a first floor, which has a piano, which has a theatre built into it with footlights and spotlights. It is a real journey. Either works but as a producer I prefer the first option though – it is a lot cheaper.”