UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Changing Scenes
B)' GODFREY BULLARD (Balliol College, Oxford) «j j OW chances it they travel ? " asked the wondering Hamlet, " their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways." And indeed we should be more hard put to it than Rosencrantz was to supply a motive for the mid- summer movements of the Balliol Players. Perhaps it was just a desire to transmit the glory of classical drama to as wide a section of the English public as possible which, in 1923, prompted the forming of this nebulous organisation. It has no independent existence ; its membership is irregular and fluctuating ; its funds, when it has any, are destined for the defraying of running expenses rather than for the strong-box. It boasts a producer, chosen by circumstance, and a business manager, chosen by the producer: nothing more. There is no qualification required for entrance. Even some of the casting remains an open question until about a week before the dress rehearsal.
These factors were kept clearly in mind by the 1950 producer when, one January morning, he announced his intention of doing Aeschylus's Aganzemnon in the translation of Mr. Louis Macneice. His friends expressed their scepticism, but he was not shaken. For one thing, although for many years Aristophanes had been the rule, it was in accordance with even older tradition to attempt this par- ticular play, which had been the Players' maiden production. A little odd, perhaps, to choose a piece in which two of the three main characters are female and must of necessity be played by men, but even this finds a present-day parallel at Bradfield as well as earlier precedents in both Athens and the Globe Theatre.
When questions of casting had been disposed of there still remained those of scenery and stagecraft ; in fact, when the set is a different one every day, problems of site can only be solved on the spot. In most cases either cast or audience (and usually both) have to endure some discomfort throughout the play. This year the performance at Corfe Castle was especially beset with hazards ; burrs and caltrops sprouted knee-high among the ill-balanced seats of the auditorium, and during the Beacon speech a huge dog bounded through the ranks of the chorus. Still, these could always be relied upon to deploy intelligently wherever they had room. And what matter if, on the summit of Old Sarum, the House of Atreus buckets about like a mad thing, and Clytemnestra, after assuring Aegisthus that she and he " from now shall order all things well," makes an inauspicious start to her new married life by putting her foot through the palace doorstep ? It's all in the day's work— even if it does take about that long to repair the damage.
There were the usual mountains that became molehills in the length of time ; for instance, in the matter of a turret for the watch- man to stand on. One was actually prefabricated and its component parts stowed away in the company's pantechnicon, but as the complex mechanism of the thing demanded a full hour to put it together the only time it was used, and then it resembled an isolated piece of construction for the Festival of Britain, it was for ever afterwards abandoned. For the most part we used nearby buildings and walls. A chariot, however, we could not do without, and very handsome the finished article was, too, with its sable markings and solid wheels. It looked something like a glorified go- cart, but, given adroit propulsion by a couple of slaves, it could always be counted on to run lightly over the greensward at open-air performances or grate less easily along polished gangways whenever the weather forced us indoors. Only once did it provoke laughter rather than admiration, when, after some feverish eleventh-hour repairs, the over-zealous slaves, in terror at missing their cue, pushed it on its way so that it hurtled down the slope to the stage with Agamemnon and Cassandra hanging desperately on to the cardboard side-pieces as though they had just caught the last 'bus from Troy.
Yet without these slaves the easy flow of production would have been unattainable. At least two were required ; one to spread the Purple carpet (and roll it up afterwards with the alacrity of a broker's man) and another to fumble at the King's intractable buskins. In the interests of economy they changed sides and made a second appearance (rather oddly) as Aegisthus's retinue. But, apart from these, local colour was so non-existent that Clytemnestra may be excused for exploiting the surroundings at a coastal school, by pointing to a faint haze on the horizon and exclaiming triumphantly, " There is the sea! (and who shall drain it dry ?)." But perhaps it is a little unfair to have the chorus-leader saying, " Look ! I see a herald coming from the beach " when the man in question is still completely obscured by an impenetrable box-hedge.
Travelling companies nowadays seem to arouse sympathy, and not hostile, or even idle, curiosity. Certainly we were met on every side with expressions of tender and unflagging hospitality. In clerical circles this interest was particularly marked : for all our repertory of pagan productions there is not a dramatis persona who is not immediately persona grata where the clergy are concerned. Perhaps this is just the natural outcome of performing so regularly in bishops' palaces We showed our gratitude by paying sightseers' homage to every cathedral, church or abbey we came across. Yet there were times when we felt our profane tragedy to be truly kindling divine wrath, as at Corfe Castle when, one Sunday morning, the downpouring from a guilelessly clear sky of a colossal thunder- storm (" particularly heavy in parts of Dorset " said the Press) sent seven sleepers-out scurrying for what protection the ruins might afford. Bad weather has an extraordinarily powerful effect when one has no fixed abode. At breakfast, while the victims, attired in bathing-dresses, salvaged their sodden blankets, we eyed the stream- ing skies and dispiritedly exchanged pages of the Observer. Even the suggestion that our unhallowed bedding had rested upon the killing-place of Edward the Martyr went unchallenged.
But the rain passed away unrepeated, and we came to Winchester excited by the prospect of a new treat, the producer having promised us that here we might enliven the play by giving cries, exclamations and words of abuse in the original. This suited Agamemnon, who found that all languages sound much the same when shouted in agony at the top of one's voice. But Cassandra, in private life a chemist, had to learn her funereal invocations to Apollo phonetically, and dreaded lest some classicist in the audience should give vent to an ironical titter when she reached the wistful line, " And yet too well I know the speech of Greek."
For the most part, however, this year's weather did not tempt us to sleep outside. The normal allocation of a village hall proved adequate, if uninspiring. But against the sylvan background of a scout but at Dauntsey's, how attractive seemed the idea of visiting Stonehenge in the following sunrise of June 24th! In the rosy foreglow of a camp-fire, which we had been unable to resist lighting, the suggestion gained enthusiastic support. Alas! the midsummer sun dawned next day upon a good three-quarters of the company still hoggishly asleep.
To amateur actors, coming straight from a Trinity term, the country seems enchantingly new, the climate is as like as not benign, and the hours pass pleasantly enough: bathing in exquisite private pools or amid the pounding surf of channel shores ; wandering, with a basket of cherries, through undiscovered market-towns ; driving endlessly along country lanes ; drinking out the day in remote taverns until the call of " Time, gentlemen, please," sends us shambling to our billets. " How to travel, including how not to "—here it all is in black and white. Such trips require, indeed, a rapid change of scenery for the players to be constantly revived and the freshness of a 2,000-year-old tragedy preserved.
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