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The Huron Expositor, 1978-07-06, Page 36GOliDONMcgAiLL . Best Wishes 'The Blyth Summer Theatre Canadiin Handicrafts `Pottery, stained• glass work, quilting materials and much more 66 Hamilton St, Goderich- SAVE Lm EATogHER COATS' THE TANNER in the heart of 131gth • This is-the ,NEW PI-ACE with the • loW -Overhead ADDITIONAL SAVINGS ON LUGGAGE handbags, socks and leather cushions etc. r " :,;16 —THE RidYTH SUMMER FESTIVAL ISSUE, JULY 5, 1978 a r • [By Alice Gibb] When Gordon McCall talks of finding a play. he isn't talking about the physcial process of locating a script he wants to stage. , . Finding a play is that peculiar process which goes on for weeks before the audience ever sees a play on stage. It's the. process, when actors, se t designers:, . the director and sometimes the author take the flat wora andinstructionsfrom the printed. page and transform them into -a beffevable drama for the. plays audience's. If the director and cast are successful.fnfinding the play. the • audience will never be aware of the process. If the Airector and . cast aren't successful, then the audience will be puinfully aware and-ernbar-ra-ssed,or- bored-or angered-by-the-unfinished-produet!---- - • they've seen on stage. They!May,like many already have, give' up live theatre for the predictable Monotony ofthe television se t , • • in their living room: !-.. Gorden McCall, the director of !His_Owir Boss, the second . preSentation of the Blyth Festival of; theArts, and the. cast of the • - '.play, have been • spending the last week in the gymnasium of Clinton High Sehectl,- going through the painstaking process of finding the comedy - understanding the lines, clikovering what dialogue works and what doesn't,. gradually shading in interpretations of the charactc.s. and' then finally starting to block out the play - practising. movements on stage and getting afeel for how the play will run in front:of an., audience: The director has worked with established scripts when he directed plays by Bertolt Brecht, children'S 16th, century! comedy, The Three .Ctick,OldS- for theatre • companies in VancouVer.. Hc's.also worked with new scripts - like The Collected Works of Billy The Kid, by the former London poet, Miehad Ondatitje. !!! . director arid •cast.,.. McCall met with Rotilston earlier in the _spritt4 for the . first • . However, with an.."old" script, a play, by George. Bernard . time, read the script d'His OWn Boss quieklylind -thedSat down • Shaw, .fOr exam ple,-the director !doesn't have ;to . worry about to discuss questions and problems he could about the play. . re-Writing, and can spend extra time on finding a different . the final say Abut. how the play will be staged . interpretation-of the play. . •rests with the -director, but 'on the understanding that he won't McCall who!teaCheS in. the drama department Of Queens do anything. against the intent of the writer. UniVerSity, has worked .with, both "old" and "new" scripts, After sitting in on the play for a few more days, Roulston will. stay out of the rehearSals the cast are doing full run problem with one of the play's Six characters. Although McCall throughs of the play. - . • , hopes to have coMpleted all the changes in the play's script fonr • Last year, Roulston .foind by the time opening night finally days before the curtain goes up on opening night, as director,' his actual deadline for scriptcha.ngestan boas tight as five minutes •. • before the curtain goes up. • In writing his,play,.Roulston . has, been particularly conscious of . the fact ' sonic writers want to play director and offer - • .-..over-elaborate instructions about the ',play's character's, • ' .movement on stage. etc. Tin avoid- this, the author has given a brief description of the character at the beginning of the script, • leaving • the director lee ay in building, the action 'on .stage. The cast are scattered -about a table, pencils in hand,tok-e cans and coffee, cups in profusit n, minfeographedseripts in loose leaf' binders, reading through toe play's first act slowly, line by line, . testing each other's reaction to the dialogue, discuSsingwhether one line should be softened' so the"charaCter is less "bitchy".• whether 'words it_Lanother line_Should_beeltattge' d - to clarify -a- .rsituation and tentatively experimenting with different expres- sions when delivering their' lines. Rehearsals for the play started a week before, When the cast met each other for the first time, listened to an explanation of the Actors Equity rules gnYerning rehearsals (the director can 'work his cast seven hours a day, with' breaks for lunch, and coffee) and :meeting the play's author, 'Blyth writer Keith .Roulston. The comedy... is about a Youngman from the eity,fed 'up with working on the assembly line, who comps to .a country town to take over his late uncle's cheeSe factory. The idea for the play, Roulston's second, Came op one of his blackest days when he was running..his own small business in Blyth. Although the pfaY is humorotis, the theme is.. slightly more • serious -.you have to have small businesses as'an alternative to big', business!, if you don't have small businessmen then' you won't have small towns, but if you want small towns then the small businessman has to believe someone cares,about him and the government doesn't always prove to be one-, of the agencies • .that seems to care, Sine Roulston had just finished-an article on !a cheese factory for his magazine The Village Squire, he decided this would .be an ideal setting for his play about the tribulations of running a-small business: The idea for His Own-Boss came to him when he was in the . - • in ids t--of-r-c-r-vv-r-iting-T-h e--Sh ortestr•Distance-adween--Two Potttt his first play "produced at the Blyth, Festival last summer: He stored his cheese factory idea until the end of the summer, then mentioned it James- ROy, the festival's artistic direetor and .after Roy was eonNinge.clibe idea:had potential„ he commissioned Roulston to. put his ideas on paper. Now the writer sits at rehearsals, listening- as the cast , members slowly dissect each line of his script - testing the-play's . structure, the dialogue and the characters. NoW and then - he answers questions from thesastabout a character's background, now and then he notes changes which will have to be re-written. into the final! Seript. It. will still be another two day's before •the. actors have finiShed_. going through the Tirst .act step, by ;step. From the director's point of view, working with a new play, one which • has never !been :tested .'on stage, has both its advantages and plisadvantages. First, since the author is both ! alive and present, lines and even entire Scenes •can be changed and modified, so the final play is a compromise between author„......._ McCall says the only problem's with the play to, date have been to clarify the overall statement Roulston is trying to make and a ' arrived,, half the lines in his play, also e comedy, no longer seemed funny. The actors were scared the lines would die on stage, .and the writer found he couldn't sit still long enough to take a scat with the audience. ! , But, surprisingly, the audience did laugh - at the sante lines the writer and cast thought-were stale. And each night the play was produced. -audiences would laugh at different lines, since each audience brings a personality of its own to a perforniance. ' By the.. end of the play; Roulston 'was able to sit through a whole performance, but in the early days of, a production, he wants 'to be free to walk out if things get too bad. , Although Roulston can qualify as, an establiShed playwright by the end of this summer, few theatres in Canada are doing Canadian plays. Many that arc specialize in plays about one Slibject - e-i the_workingman or playswithategional location so Roulston's published play may sit for years before it's produced again. In the meantime, McCall and his actors -`Peter Snell, Karen Wiens, Heather Ritchie, Kate Trotter, Tom McCamus and David Kirby sit surrounded by the boxes and other paraphenalia meant to represent the finished -set for His Own Boss, and go' over and over. the lines of ;the play. . If they find the play, if the "play says it" as McCall hopes, then the frustrations, the doubts, the long hour, the endless -• cups of instant coffee, will be worthwhile. The first time the audience reacts to alinep the first time the audience leaves the theatre, still talking ab out what they've• seen on stage,' the process will be complete. Live theatre is best. As ,rehearsals start ."`- Cast is. „fending'' ndng the - play • • • • d.