No 8 — November 1977 Edited by Michael Walters
I.C.O.S. The Yeomen of the Guard, Public Hall, Budleigh Salterton 4–5 August 1977.
As a result of seeing a few brief snippets of rehearsals I had certain misgivings about this production, but they were dispelled when I saw it. Even so, I felt that in some respects the music and the production were slightly uneasy bedfellows and that, in spite of their obvious hard work and close collaboration, the Producer and Musical Director were to some extent pulling the opera in two different directions. This, however, is not necessarily a bad thing, as Gilbert & Sullivan often tended to pull in opposite directions, and the result works. The thing that one had to realise about this production was that it was not a realistic production. The characters we saw on stage were not real people with depth, but stagy characters, acting in a stylised, almost Vaudeville idiom. By contrast, the Musical Director was concentrating on depth and feeling, and it was interesting that several members of the cast, particularly Meryll and Fairfax, seemed to be aware of this contrast, and were (consciously or subconsciously) trying to take their parts away from the Producer's "style" and into line with the M.D. Several characters, therefore, who seemed initially to be "wrong", were nevertheless "right", when considered not in real terms, but in terms of the pattern of the production. Shadbolt, Point and Dame Carruthers were all dramatically "wrong" in the real sense: where was the pathos in Roger Nicholls' Point which Gilbert clearly wrote into the part all the way through? Why should Phoebe have hesitated for a moment at marrying such a bright frollicksome, friendly fellow as Tim Johnson's Shadbolt? How could such a decrepit old lady as Dame Carruthers become so agile in the "Rapture rapture" duet? However, when I stopped thinking of the characters as real people these points ceased to jar. Even Point's incredibly absurd business with the laying on and taking off of hands, manipulating the citizen as though he were a puppet, worked in context (the audience obviously thought so too, as they applauded it at all the three performances I attended), though in real terms, would Point have had the courage to behave like that, having just been roughed up by the mob, and would Tony Moorby's earthy citizen have been one to take it so submissively? I didn't understand the reason for Point to appear in a pair of rams horns at the end ("Ye thoughtless crew"), if they were meant to be cuckold's horns surely this was a rather sick joke? I am still not convinced that producer Wilf Judd's style was the correct way (if there is such a thing) to do Yeomen. I feel that the opera we saw and the characters he chose to present to us were not Gilbert's, but they were delightful characters all the same, and the atmosphere in the theatre was so electric that no–one but a Philistine could have dared to say that the whole thing did not succeed brilliantly. As a spontaneous piece of musical theatre it surpassed almost anything I have ever seen before. A private Society joke was perpetrated by painting ravens on the backdrop, an extra raven being added at each performance; in fact however, the "ravens'' were not ravens at all, being painted incorrectly with pale yellow instead of black bills and legs, which made them into Alpine Choughs! Other points in the production which I particularly noted were as follows. At the beginning of Act 2 a yeoman (Mike Tripp I think?) hung a moon on the backdrop. This was rather funny and in keeping with the unrealistic tone of the rest of the production. At Dame Carruthers' first entrance she went along the line of Yeomen touching them all up, and was then asked by the second Yeoman if she was busy today. This, I found absolutely hilarious, though nobody else in the audience seemed to think so. One Yeoman (predictably Steve Bodle) was asleep on his feet. The Headsman was one of the yeomen who was dressed in a black robe and cowl on stage. This, I felt, was a mistake, as his appearance when dressed was so ominous, but the effect was spoiled by our having seen him just previously as a rather jolly yeoman, the impact would have been far greater had he entered thus. The music moved with majestic dignity and honeyed sweetness; even in the tranquil passages it pulsed with a dynamic energy which seemed clearly to be coming from the whizz–kid on the rostrum, Michael Withers. My admiration for this conductor grows every time I hear him conduct, for he seems to embody all my ideals as to how Sullivan's music ought to sound. The only thing he needs to learn is how to keep his orchestra quiet, there were places where they drowned the singers.
Andy Potter had designed a traditional ICOS set of good old English stone, meticulously executed. I cannot praise the make–up which was much too heavy, and that for Dame Carruthers in particular, was embarrassingly bad. Roger Nicholls scored a personal triumph as Jack Point. It was probably not everybody's idea of the character, but it was the most humorous and loveable that I have ever seen. I suspect it may have been the Grossmith (rather than the Lytton) version. It was undoubtedly the best way (and possibly the only way) in which a natural clown like Roger could have played it. The idea for him to read from "The Marry Jests of Hugh Ambrose" in a flat bad–reading voice was delightful. There were some places where his delivery seemed to contradict the actual words he was speaking, if he never seemed really broken–hearted, perhaps it was because such a happy fellow as Roger does a good job of hiding his inner feelings. Certainly it made the change in his manner in the final scene seem all the more dramatic. On the last night his "death" really was moving. Tim Johnson romped through Shadbolt with an irrepressible "joie–de–vive", scuttling in and out of doorways like a large Water–Rat, always with a glint in his eyes. Brian Parsons (Fairfax) was at his most moving, reaching a depth of sincerity I have seldom heard him reach before, and his voice was at its most sumptuous at the evening performances (a trifle throaty at the matinee). In Brian's hands Fairfax did not seem the usual cad, but retained his noble bearing throughout. Dick Stockton tended to underplay Meryll, but it was a very pleasing, soft–grained and mellow performance with middle–aged sincerity. Steve Chaytow, as Leonard, produced some excellent sound, but his voice is still a bit uncontrolled. David Pollard had a very bad throat, but managed to sing the Lieutenant sotto voce at the two evening performances. Ian Gledhill, learning the part at two hours notice, sang the matinee. Sally Heslop brought an enormous voice with devastatingly beautiful tone to the role of Elsie. Debbie Kemp was (inevitably) magnificent histrionically as Phoebe, but her singing, while beautiful, was very low in volume – presumably because the role was too high for her. Her wooing of Shadbolt, particularly, was wonderful; especially as Dick Stockton entered into the spirit of the setting with a very wry sense of humour, stroking his arm while replacing the keys. MICHAEL WALTERS
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