1990
Murray Bramwell talks with Beatrice Beaucaire, Fredricka Lascelles and John Kilby about Footsbarn Theatre’s latest production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which has its world premiere in Adelaide tonight.
When, in Cornwall in 1971, they first began rehearsing in a barn belonging to an actor named Oliver Foot, the members of Footsbarn Theatre could not have possibly foreseen that they would become perpetual travellers, a theatre community trekking across continents performing to audiences from Darwin to Moscow to Tunis.
Last year, to show that “international artists recognise no borders, physical, artistic or imaginative” Footsbarn participated in a large-scale touring festival known as Mir Caravan. Involving eight theatre companies, four from the West and four from Eastern Europe, a group of more than 180 artists and technicians travelled for five months from Moscow to Paris performing in Leningrad, Warsaw, Prague, Berlin,Copenhagen. Lausanne among other cities. While Shakespeare is Footsbarn’s staple, in Moscow they performed Babylon, a stage version of the previously suppressed novel The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov.
It was on this tour that Beatrice Beaucaire met Footsbarn and joining the troupe as an administrator. They also recruited Boris Sekhon, a classically trained percussionist, who had toured widely with the Russian folk group Svova Igra. At present eight nationalities are represented in the company.
Sometimes that has its difficulties- as in the preparation of the current production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance. “We had planned to have a four month rehearsal period in Bali,” Beatrice Beaucaire explains, “But our Polish, Russian and Portuguese members could not get visas. We had arranged rehearsal space in a big theatre in Ubud and we were all going to stay in houses nearby – but we couldn’t do that without our musicians. Instead we went to Herisson, a small village right in the centre of France.”
Administrator John Kilby joined Footsbarn in 1975 and has been on the road ever since. “By travelling we meet different cultures first hand, that’s how we gain theatrical experience. We do Shakespeare because we can do it in the English language knowing that the plays are well enough understood wherever we go. We played Macbeth in sixteen different countries only three of which were English speaking. We have developed our specific form of theatre interpreting the Bard in this way.”
Footsbarn have toured many different productions in their time but Shakespeare forms the backbone of the repertoire, notably Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest and Hamlet. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Shakespeare, we ever attempted,” recalls Kilby, “It was back in 1976 and it was played with six actors including musicians. That much doubling is typical of the group. The actors don’t like to stand around backstage waiting for the action. They like to be involved from an hour before commencing until half an hour after it’s over.”
“This time there are ten actors and musicians involved. We’ve been thinking about this project since we left Australia in 1986 and stopped over for a month in Bali for a holiday and to meet people. We had lessons in dance, music and mask. One teacher, Ida Bagus Gerya, we had previously met in Geneva in 1984 and he had become like a guru to the group, helping us find ways into the mask tradition.”
The more than thirty masks used in A Midsummer Night’s Dream were made by Fredericka Lascelles, originally from the United States, who joined the company in 1982. “When I started making masks we were rehearsing in Italy and I was very influenced by Commedia Dell Arte elements. For this show the selections are more personal. Although the time in Bali was important. We learnt about the power of the mask, and to have a respect for it. They treat it as an entity of its own and they bless it before and after performances. Like Commedia performers they take the same character with them throughout their lives.”
“The masks in this play vary. Some are quite stylised, others, like the one for Bottom, when he is turned into an ass, are more realistic to emphasise the transformation. The costumes come from various sources. The fairies, for instance, are not Victorian fairies. They are more organic, more like wood demons. We were interested in finding natural textures like mosses and lichens. We also use traditional elements such as the Mummers’ play in the masque performed by the mechanicals at the end of Act V. Their play is a true tragedy so they perform it straight.”
Footbarn has strong links with Australia and Adelaide especially, as John Kilby explains- “Last time we were here we stayed for fifteen months. It’s always good for us to return to places and develop an audience familiar with our productions. In 1985 we started in Perth and finished in Adelaide for the festival. We took tents, trucks, buses and thirteen caravans and set off with three productions , Chinese Puzzle (based on the Caucasian Chalk Circle), King Lear and a show called the Circus Toss-off.” The group toured not only the major cities but went as far north as Arnhemland and even set up on the playing fields of Geelong Grammar.
“At the end of the tour the idea was to produce Macbeth for the Adelaide Festival,” Kilby recalled, “So we stayed in McLaren Vale for three months – we know the area well. It’s quite a joy to be back and to meet people again.”
Asked whether the company is unique, Kilby reflects- “We meet other groups with similar histories but none so committed to travelling as us. It’s very much a way of life and theatre which people in the group want to follow. This lifestyle is not for every actor but there is something to having your own theatre with you wherever you go. You create the same atmosphere if you play in Rome or Paris or Moscow or in a small village in Portugal. Performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream we might play some key lines in other languages but usually we highlight the theatrics to emphasise the text.”
“This time we have a company of twenty-two. Our life is closer to the circus or the fairground than the mainstream theatre. It’s not even like rock and roll bands, they move around a lot quicker than we do. We like to stay in one place for three or four weeks, getting a rhythm of life that’s not frantically rushing from place to place. We like to develop the work in progress, that will be happening here. The work that opens here will be quite transformed by the time we end the tour.”
Remarkably, despite its peripatetic ways, Footsbarn operates without direct subsidy. “We are not the Royal Footsbarn Theatre Company,” Kilby observes drily, “We are quite down-to-earth. The seats in our theatre are not red velvet, we have good circus seating. The British Council helps us from time to time but last year subsidy would have accounted for only about 2% of our income.”
“It’s stressful sometimes but we also have a certain independence by not really being beholden to anyone. We can go out on some really crazy ideas and make them work or suffer the consequences.
“Mind you, this is not to rule out the hope that our financial situation might get easier because we are really under pressure to create popular theatre. All the time it’s bums on seats. Wherever we go, the theatres have to be full because if they’re not there is no subsidy to fall back on. It’s good for the actors, the ensemble works well in this popular vein but I know they sometimes would like to work together on something a bit risky. Sometimes we have to say ‘OK we only got fifty people a night, its a disaster- but we tried it.'”
Footsbarn operate on several articles of theatrical faith- the most important being the notion of collective creation. There are no directors and no stars in the company. As their programme notes explain- “Our basic form of preparation will remain the same. It has served us well through forty seven productions in the nineteen years of the company. It is first of all important that we all have the same understanding of the text. This is reached by discussion and argument. Then, through improvisation we find our own truth in the text and a way to communicate this to an audience of our times.”
The other key element is in the continuity of its members. Since about 1974 John Kilby and six actors have formed the nucleus of the company. “People join the group and leave and then come back bringing different experiences and backgrounds,” Kilby explains, “But the acting core is very tight. It’s just like an old travelling company. Not many companies keep their actors together for this length of time, some, but not many.”
“We have family ties. We have our own social security. Our mask-maker Fredie is married to Paddy who’s an actor, and they’ve got three kids who go to our school. We are a large sort of family with its own social structure. It’s become quite a life experience in that way. Mind you, if you had asked people all that time ago whether they’d still be working together in fifteen years, the group would have broken up. They’d have looked at one another and said `I’m not working with you for fifteen years !”
“All the World’s Their Stage” The Advertiser, June 9, 1990, p12.