a break in the rehearsal schedule.
The dog who belonged to the owners of the rehearsal space was Otto, a lively dachshund. One of the company’s cast members owned the house and garden next door and had always had problems keeping Otto out of his garden into which he could wriggle through gaps in the dividing hedge. You can imagine Otto’s indignation when he saw this neighbour delivering his spoken lines and being put through his paces in the play in what Otto considered to be his own territory. He stood looking at the actor in dumbfounded disbelief at the outrageous cheek of it!
Other creatures, accustomed to being able to wander freely through the rehearsal space, watched the unfolding of the play with astonishment. A neighbouring cat took advantage of the roof of a shed at the edge of the garden area to survey the extraordinary proceedings in the style of an attentive member of a theatre audience in the dress circle. This was at an advanced stage in the rehearsal schedule and the cat obviously could not understand the formality of the action, lacking the spontaneity of the human behaviour usually manifest in this spot!
SHEEP
Many of the beautiful sites where Theatre Set-Up’s performances were held were surrounded by grazing sheep. These contributed to the pastoral reality of performances of As You Like It in Bowhill, Scotland. During any scenes involving the characters of the shepherds in the play the actors offstage used to enjoy making sheep noises. These were so realistic at Bowhill that the sheep in an adjacent field responded loudly and ran towards the tents to recover which of their flock they assumed had strayed there.
FISH
A fish made a surprise appearance at the performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1983 at Sudeley Castle. The actor performing Starveling as the Pyramus and Thisbe play’s character of the moon had a carved flat wooden dog representing the moon which he usually flung away sulkily at the interruption of his performance by the characters playing the courtiers. On this occasion, aware that the wooden dog would float, he flung it into the pond. This startled one of the carp there which leapt into the air in protest, giving the audience a rare performance of the play involving a leaping fish.
HORSES
Horses from another event being presented at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, gave one of the performances there considerable problems. Unfortunately the entrance of the company’s vehicles clashed with the exit of the horses and the gear they were pulling. The nature of the terrain made it difficult for either side to back off and after the vehicles were driven to one side the horses struggled past. The next day the owners of the horses were so angered by the incident that they piled their rubbish by the theatre company’s changing tents, an action which the company, given the strength of the horses, wisely chose to ignore.
A FOX
The actress performing in the 1995 performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream wore a long curly red wig for the role of Hippolyta which she put with her costume in the off-stage right changing area of an open air performance of the play at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham. When she came to change into it she was alarmed to see a fox racing off into the distance, the red wig in its mouth. Evidently the fox had mistaken it for one of its cubs. She later complained:
“It is a dreadful thing to see the wig which transforms your character being carted off by a fox!”
A STUFFED GIRAFFE
Wollaton Hall provided the play and its audience with an indoor alternative venue in its hall should the weather be stormy. In the early days of performances there the space where the play could be performed was set out as a museum of stuffed exotic animals. Most of these were in glass cases, glaring with artificial eyes at both the actors and the audiences, but the huge giraffe stood proudly at the back of the audience area with some seating beneath it. Children were especially astonished at the size of its masculine glory when they looked up at it during the performance!
INSECTS
Any outdoor venue is likely to run the gauntlet of insects which plague both members of the audience and the actors. Theatre Set-Up discovered that the insects in Northumberland, Yorkshire and Cornwall were far more robust and numerous than in any other county. Over the years, strategies had to be developed to cope with this. Any exposed flesh of the actors (as well as the tights-clad legs of male actors) always needed to be sprayed with insect-repellent, and mosquito coils were always lit beside the changing tents to the sides of the stage and often interspersed with the sun-floods lighting placed in an arc at the front of the stage area. On one occasion when Anne was commuting between her teaching job in London and performances in the grounds of Wallington Hall, Northumberland, she arrived ready to change into costume and do her stage make-up minutes before the start of the play. She was hit by a wall of insects as she rushed to the changing area.
“Quick, everybody,” she shouted to the cast, “Do as I am doing. Put on loads of insect-repellent to see if that will help!”
However such was the density of the insect hoards that even that was insufficient, as the insects went into the open eyes of the actors and into their mouths as soon as they opened them to deliver their lines! When Anne suggested to the gardeners of the venue that the site of the play should be sprayed to kill any insects, they were most offended:
“The insects live here. They were here first. You are only visitors!”
Anne adopted a strategy to help members of the audience in insect-plagued venues. This was necessary not only to protect them from irritation and possible bites from the insects, but to stop them twitching and flicking them away during the performances. This constant movement would be a distraction for both people in the audience and the actors. Therefore before performances guaranteed to be insect-bound, Anne would go around the audience offering to put insect repellent on the hands of anyone who had not provided themselves with their own repellent and then they could apply it themselves to any exposed flesh, plus over their hair, into which insects loved to nestle! This usually worked but sometimes an extra application had to be made in the interval before the second half of the play. Insect repellent became a very essential part of the company’s gear!
In the early days of the company’s tours the primitive sun-floods which lit the play in an arc around the stage area were not glass-fronted, and insects, attracted to the light-bulbs, would be burnt by them, sending smoke rising as if in their funeral pyres. On one occasion the smell of this smoke alarmed the company’s patron during a performance in his garden on Tresco, as his property on the mainland had recently been largely burnt down and he rushed to the scene to see if another fire had also been ignited, this time in his island home.
On the Isle of Wight, sensitive local residents were more concerned about the cruel fate of the insects themselves:
“Please can you get sun-floods with glass on the front to protect the insects. We can’t stand seeing them burn to their deaths during the play and cannot come to performances again if this continues.”
Fortunately it was possible to replace the old sun-floods with new glass-fronted ones and everyone was happier.
However some actors (like the residents of the Isle of Wight) became upset by any of the operations of the company causing the accidental deaths of insects and they were distressed by the deaths of insects who crashed into the windscreens of the travelling vehicles. It was a company rule that, with the exception of touring to venues many miles apart, the company vehicles should not travel very fast. Thus generally any insects accidentally landing on the windscreens had time to escape from them.
In some areas, however, where many animals were in fields beside the roads on which the company was travelling, there were so many insects in the surrounding air that many met a sad fate on the windscreens. The car carrying three actors always followed the van (a customised white Mercedes
