The Maid's Tale

My name is Janine O’Callaghan and I’m playing the part of Edna in Inspector Calls. It’s only my second time on stage and must say this is a totally different experience to my first which was Panto.

Although ‘Edna’ has a small part she is very symbolic and represents the anonymous people that the Inspector talks about in his final speech. Edna and Eva represent women, who suffer at the hands of poverty and neglect and both characters are the victims of the unjust nature of the social system. To those better than them they are invisible.

Inspector Goole

I’ve enjoyed watching all the cast perform as they are all very different and have HUGE!!! scripts to learn. I love listening to Peta Maidman’s voice (Mrs Birling) and watching Peter Musto (Mr Birling) so natural and charismatic.  It’s also been very interesting seeing Neil Maidman (Director) bring this together, his ideas and the set are great and really effective.

JB Priestley

As an experience this has been great but different and I have realised that this in comparison to Panto is a very different discipline..........I have a lot to learn I think!!!! 

What Does Gerald Bring to the Table?

What to talk about without giving out spoilers? The butler did it, well house maid anyway. Alright we all did it ……………..or did we? Did anyone do it?

Gareth Baskerville - rehearsing the role of Gerald Croft

How do I feel about playing Gerald? Well, first things first, the language used in An Inspector Calls is definitely not in my normal day to day vocabulary. So to anyone coming to watch I apologise for any lapses. I am learning the lines but I am finding it very difficult. Especially as I’ve never been very keen on doing it. Even twenty five plus years of learning lines doesn’t make it any easier. So I have to knuckle down and make sure I do. Also I’m not a person that likes to deal with or dwell on the darker side of human nature, or to think too much when watching a play. I much prefer to laugh during my entertainment and there ain’t many gags in this one.

Gerald is a hypocrite in this tale of the fall of Victorian middle class moral values. His part in all of this is a small one. But, his part shows the greatest swing and reversal of moralities. Born into an upper class family, he is bred with their beliefs and lives by them……..when it suits him. His early simpering towards Mr Birling is testament to this – he wishes to marry his daughter. Then we believe at the time of his ‘tale’ that he did feel for the unfortunate Eva/Daisy and perhaps recognise that he sympathises with the Inspector's views. But his return to the Middle/Upper class views at the end is hideous and shows his true character.

The more I rehearse this part, the less I like the character. It makes me feel - like a politician – dirty. The play challenges views and preconceptions. It may well be set in Victorian times where people’s views were perhaps a little more blunt, but the story still holds today and holds against myriad types of oppression. As society moves on, so must we.

Gareth Baskerville

'I Consider I Did My Duty'......A Woman of Principle?

Hello there – I am Peta Maidman and I will be playing Sybil Birling in Blackwood Little Theatre's production of 'An Inspector Calls'. It’s the second time I’ve played this part (not that I remembered many lines to begin with!) and I think she is a wonderful character to portray. Out of all of the characters you will meet in the play, she is the only one who unwaveringly believes that she has done the right thing - as she tells the Inspector, “I consider I did my duty”.

Peta Maidman rehearsing the role of Mrs Birling

Mrs Birling is very much a product of her time and breeding where values were so very entrenched and issues were black and white, right or wrong and there was no middle ground. It’s a concept which can be quite hard to understand in our modern day so when taking on the role of Mrs Birling, it’s important not to judge her for her opinions as they are deeply and sincerely held. My job is to play her as she is and leave the judgement to the Inspector - and the audience. In some ways, it’s admirable to have principles that you adhere to, no matter what, yet her inflexibility regarding her actions remains unshakeable, even when she realises Eric’s involvement. She declares that she is “absolutely ashamed” of him and yet previously, in reply to Eric’s outburst, we hear her say, in some distress, “Eric, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand.” Perhaps this is an indication of how deeply set her true feelings are, propriety being everything to someone in her position so that even when her son is the transgressor, she cannot go against her nature. There is some evidence of this, too, in her relationship with Sheila. At the beginning of the play, in response to Sheila calling Eric “squiffy”, Mrs Birling says “What an expression, Sheila! Really, the things you girls pick up these days.” Sheila’s more “modern” attitude, especially as we see it develop during the course of the play is quite alien to Mrs Birling’s nature and there lies the inherent difference between the two – the classic generation gap, perhaps?

 Even as a mother, she cannot empathise with Eva Smith or perhaps that ought to be “will not” empathise since Eva had made the terrible error of calling herself “Mrs Birling” at the interview with the committee of the Brumley Women’s Charity Organisation and the thought that a girl of “that sort” could have any decent feelings or morals seems to have enraged Mrs Birling even more causing her to recommend refusal of the girl’s application. The revelations that the Inspector wasn’t real and that there had been no suicide admitted to hospital that day were just confirmation of her deep-rooted beliefs all along: people had to behave in a certain manner, the Inspector spoke rudely to her and Mr Birling “quite extraordinary”, Eva Smith had given herself “ridiculous airs … claiming fine feelings” so these two couldn’t possibly be real.

The cast rehearsing for An Inspector Calls

This is a part that provides a complex character to present to an audience. It is unlikely to be a character with whom one can sympathise but, if I have done my job properly, perhaps you will understand her motives a bit better. I sincerely hope you will all enjoy the play as much as I have enjoyed participating in it.

Who Killed Eva Smith??? It wasn't the Lighting Designer!!

A few words about BLT’s 2013 production of ‘An Inspector Calls’ from a lighting point of view.  This is not a new play for me, having studied it myself whilst at school (a while ago now!) and having also lit the 2006 production.

The actual design process for me will start towards the back end of the rehearsal process; by this point the majority of the blocking is done  (The process where the Director will move the actors around the set).

www.blackwoodlt.org.uk/tickets

To begin I will attend rehearsals and just sit there watching the actors and the positions they assume and how they move around the stage. I will look at the key acting areas  - for example in this production you will notice that a lot of the lines are spoken ‘front on’ straight out to the fourth wall, which impacts on how I light those parts of the stage. As I attend more and more rehearsals I start to build a picture of how the final lighting design will look. 

I am very used to working with Neil in his capacity as Director; we understand each other and often don’t have to talk to each other about certain things. He is normally sat at my side operating sound for his productions (he hates watching his own plays and prefers to have something to do!!)  Neil will have his own ideas on the look and feel of the play and then I’ll add my bits in and we arrive at the overall design for the show, although the bulk of decisions will be made in good time the best ideas often come at the eleventh hour!

It’s not very often that I (or any other Technician for that matter) will follow the stage directions when lighting a play but with ‘An Inspector Calls’ that’s exactly what I’m going to do.  In the text Priestly calls for “The lighting should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then it should be brighter and harder.”  This is a fairly broad description but is essentially what is needed in this play and is achieved fairly easily by having two contrasting general lighting states, which is what we have in this production.  The first state is a warm wheat coloured wash and the second a colder more neutral wash which is used following the Inspectors entrance.

In this production of ‘An Inspector Calls’ Neil has decided to adopt a Brechtian approach which I hope will also translate to the final lighting design. The lighting is very much ‘in vision’ throughout with bits of rigging etc obvious from the auditorium. The pointing / highlighting of certain scenes and passages will see an obvious change in lighting state. As I mentioned earlier, colour will play an important part of the lighting design with a mixture of conventional tungsten lanterns and more modern LED fixtures being used to create the overall lighting design. 

 I will be making use of side lighting from boom stands and lighting from very severe low and high angles. These methods of lighting are not always comfortable for an audience to look at as they create shadows and hotspots on the faces of actors. Those of you who are familiar with the text will see where I am going with this...

I hope you enjoy the production and come a little bit closer to understanding “Who Killed Eva Smith ?”

Aneurin Brown...

Frances, Sheila, The Inspector and learning those lines!

Hi my name is Frances and I play the part of Sheila Birling. I have acted with Blackwood Little
Theatre once before with the original cast of Godfather Death and after a fair old break, I have been welcomed back with open arms by the theatre and its members, to act with them again. I’m a
teacher by profession, originally coming from a performing arts background, my degree is in Drama
and I am also a classically trained singer. However as I no longer teach these subjects I felt it was
important to keep my skills and love of acting going, and Blackwood Little Theatre’s experienced
members and high standards has drawn me back to be a part of it once more.

Frances Jarman rehearsing 

It is a big commitment but once you are in rehearsals,  the energy and involvement that everyone has with their characters and with the process is obvious. I personally take the approach of concentrating on ‘how’ I deliver lines; its pace, tone and volume are things I experiment with during the rehearsal process as I want to get the emotion conveyed and even felt by the audience just right. Practising accents, mannerisms and movement then seem to flow a little easier as I feel I have better established the motivation behind my character. Lines are something that I learn without the use of script in the latter stages, as for one they are already fairly fluid and secondly, the rehearsal process has already helped with the repetition of lines and learning where my cues are.

I usually learn my lines by pacing up and down a corridor back and forth; a habit I’ve adopted since my school days in ‘A’ level Drama. Some habits die hard
but this one I don’t think is necessarily a bad one! The cast for ‘An Inspector Calls’ are professional,
experienced, fun, energetic and it is a pleasure to work with you all once more!

Not a Real Inspector at All

We are nearing the end of rehearsing An Inspector Calls and performances will begin on 11th March. Books are pretty much down and the task of real acting is beginning. The characters and the ideas of the play have been discussed and shaped and are now being absorbed and, hopefully realised(brought to life) by actors and a director who share a vision of this old, somewhat dated, and much performed play.  We are beginning to really see if we have found a way to bring the thing to life again, for a new audience; this time of predominantly 15-16 year olds students, over a thousand of whom will see the play in its run.

On the page, it is a very conventional piece of theatre: it works like the 'well-made play'.  It has one interior setting and takes place in real time: the writing is, in places, clunky and unconvincing - particularly in the character of Sheila - so there are challenges to overcome.

At a time when the play really did seem to have passed its sell-by date, in the late eighties/ early nineties, it was brought back to life in a stunning, award winning production by the National Theatre, which has run ever since. This is a mixed blessing, as now all productions of this play can seem over- informed by that ground- breaking production.

Vic Mills in rehearsal as Inspector Goole

Our challenge is to bring this play to life in a way which is neither dependant on a conventional staging or on the more recently dominating ones.
We see the play as overtly political as well as social in its message: it makes a plea for society to mean something in world where it means a great deal less than it did when Priestley wrote the play.

We have the table at the centre, as a hub, around which the characters circle and circle like caged animals at times, like gladiators fighting for the entertainment of an audience at times, too.  Our staging is representational not realist - the room is not a room but a stage, the drink are props and the doors and walls are not intended to look real.  Some of them can be seen through.  Colours and lighting change to reflect mood and ideas.  The action pauses and characters move to new positions.  We are giving the play a Brechtian treatment - in keeping with its ideas, if not with Priestley's approach to theatricality.

JB Priestley

The language and manners of the characters is artificial in places, particularly that of Sheila, Gerald, Eric and Mrs Birling: Birling himself is more visceral and real.  I am struggling to make the language and character of the Inspector real.  I see him, not as a ghostly conscience of the people, but as a Marxist agitator, who has burst into this family as part of a plot to expose them- I doubt that is what Priestley had in mind, but it helps me make sense of what I am doing there.

In performance, I am trying to deliver a man with an appalled and outraged sense of justice, who is sickened and angered by these people with their privilege, selfishness and casual cruelty.  He is suppressing this anger for most of his time on stage, just letting it burst out at points.  I am trying to show his indifference to the manners and social expectations of the Birlings in every move and gesture.

Gareth Baskerville as Gerald with Vic Mills as Goole

This is my third time playing the role and each time I see it differently to an extent. Just over two weeks to go to get this man right, and to bring this whole vision of ours to life. With so many youngsters seeing live, serious theatre for the first time- it feels like a hell of a responsibility.

Vic Mills

The Rehearsal Process - Part 1

The rehearsal process in full swing 

My apologies for not posting sooner - you can blame the snow for that one!!  Here is a few thoughts on the rehearsals for this great play.  

The rehearsal process can be a very difficult one for all concerned.  Actors trying to learn their lines, remembering their moves, and getting to grips with their characters.  The phrase 'Walking, talking and chewing gum' is one often used in acting circles.  The ability to do three things at once - multi tasking, is a skill that has to be practiced and developed over years as an actor.  Actors in community theatre have it tough - well they do at BLT!  Most have other jobs and all have lives, families, friends and commitments that they have to weave around a tough rehearsal schedule.  We are currently rehearsing twice a week for a couple of hours at time (this will become much more as we approach the performances).  At the time of writing, (29th Jan), we have just about covered all of the play, apart from one element of the story.  All the blocking has been done (working out where to move actors), hopefully in such a way that the audience won't even notice it.  There is nothing worse than either a too static  a play or one where the actors are continually moving about - often for no reason at all.

Peter Musto as Arthur Birling

Line learning is a massive task for a play like this (Can you learn 70 pages of dialogue?).  How do actors do it?  An interesting question, and one which our actors will tell you about in future posts.  Suffice it to say that each will do it differently.  As well as being a director, I have acted in plays for over 25 years, and I tend to learn my lines via rehearsals (repetition)  and one long line learning session (usually whilst in a bath!).  Each will have their own methods - some learn their lines very early on, some leave it until the last week or so.  I am glad to say that our actors are a talented and experienced bunch, who learn their lines quickly.   There is a school of thought (which I subscribe to) that you can't really act until you have your book down and you feel comfortable with the character, your lines, moves and what the play is all about.  The earlier that you achieve all these things, the more rewarding the rehearsal process can be.  Three of the cast have played their roles previously.  Two of them have been  in the two previous productions of this play - in 1999 and 2006.  For them its all about revisiting characters that they know very well - for me as the director, its about making sure that we can bring something new to the stage. I too am very familiar with this play, having been in those two previous productions - as Gerald Croft.  Being the director this time, there is a different sort of pressure on me - to marshall the troops, to get them into the right places but also to help them understand the complexities of the story and that of their characters.  

As a director, I approach the rehearsal process with a lot of enthusiasm, drive and absolutely no plan!  The only thoughts that I have are about artistic vision -  how to get my view and vision of the play onto the stage.  To get the actors, that I have assembled, to play out the script in the manner which I would like them to. That is some trick!  I have been reasonably successful over the years in doing this, but it is a constant challenge.  Some directors are very well planned - have every minor detail written on a little pad, and stick very rigidly to thst plan.  This I find can inhibit the development process of the play and not allow the actors any real input.  Direction is all about persuasion - not dictation! Allowing the actors freedom to express how they think the character should be portrayed and then moulding those thoughts to become a collective vision.  Do you have to be an actor to be a good director? In my opinion it helps, but the important element is that the better communicator you are, the easier the directorial experience is.   You have to know and understand the play, the actors and their motives in order to shape the production.  

Vic Mills as Inspector Goole

In my next blog, I will talk more about directing this play and the characters and main themes.  Any school pupils reading this, please feel free to post questions on here, and we will attempt to answer them as best we can.  (Not just school pupils though!). 

Neil Maidman  

To Begin at the Beginning......

"To Begin at the Beginning" is the famous line that starts Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. It seems fitting that when starting a brand new blog I use something literary to kick it all off! As the very first line in An Inspector Calls is "Giving us the port, Edna?"  I didn't feel this was really appropriate as a dynamic sentence to start the blogging process!

So, what to say about "An Inspector Calls" and where are we currently going with it? Firstly, let me introduce myself - I am Neil Maidman, the director of the play. I have a great connection with "An Inspector Calls" as I previously played Gerald Croft (of Croft's Limited) in two previous productions. This time I am leaving the acting to my talented band of players and hoping to concentrate on bringing something new to this popular play.

When I'm directing, my process starts by reading the play - it seems a silly thing to say, and I once directed a play having read only the first act prior to it being selected for production. Fortunately, it turned out a success but that was more by luck than judgement! So reading the entire play is important and for a number of reasons: to familiarize yourself with the themes and characters; to develop your ideas for production (costume, set, etc) and to think about the casting process - who might fit well into which role.  For me, however, the most important element of that initial reading is to begin to work out how you get the play from the page to the stage. All the other elements that I have mentioned matter a great deal but essentially the key for me is how to convey this story from a book and make it come to life on the stage for the audience.

Over the coming weeks, this blog will explore the various elements of the production and you will be able to read my thoughts on it all and about the challenges that we face, choices we have to make and some of the mistakes we will no doubt make along the way. You will also be able to connect with the actors and technical crew about their experiences and, as it is also our intention to do some video blogging, you can "meet the actors" before coming to see the production.

"An Inspector Calls" by JB Priestley will run from 11th March 2013.  It is our hope that prior to this lots of people will log on to this page and find the information insightful before coming to see the production.