A pick and mix ethos has always pervaded at Pitlochry
Festival Theatre, which opens its annual summer season this weekend with an all
singing, all dancing production of Kander and Ebb’s musical, Chicago. As pretty
much the only old-school repertory company in the UK, over the next five
months, the resident ensemble of seventeen actors will move between six
different productions performed in rotation.
This year will also mark the first season since the departure of John Durnin, who, over his fifteen years as artistic director, attempted to push the perceptions of what was possible in PFT’s riverside auditorium. This has included the introduction of a large-scale musical to open each season, as well as initiating a new autumn strand. Durnin also introduced a Christmas show into the programme. As if to illustrate the enticing range of work on show, this season, programmed by Durnin before his departure, even features a play called Quality Street.
The original plan was that J.M Barrie’s little-known
play would be directed by Richard Baron, whose association with the theatre go
back more than twenty years. Baron’s early productions at PFT included Giles
Havergal’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel, Travels With My Aunt, and a
memorable look at Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Durnin’s
departure has seen Baron taking over Chicago, which the outgoing director had
originally earmarked for himself.
With Baron also stepping up to direct Tom Stoppard’s
play, Travesties, and The Last Witch by Rona Munro, Quality Street will now be
directed by Liz Carruthers. Gemma Fairlie, who was drafted in by Durnin for the
new associate director’s post at PFT, will direct Jim Cartwright’s play, The
Rise and Fall of Little Voice, as well as Rodney Ackland’s dramatization of W.
Somerset Maugham’s short story, Before the Party. Fairlie will also oversee
this year’s Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz, as well as working on PFT’s
youth and community engagement. Despite the reshuffles, this all sounds pretty
much business as usual for the Pitlochry Festival Theatre machine.
“The logistics of things certainly haven’t changed,”
says Baron, referring to the scheduling gymnastics of programming a season of
six shows which have to be rehearsed alongside each other. “There’s a set way
of getting things on in order for audiences to be able to see six shows in a
week. Obviously, John decided what shows were going to be in the programme, and
since he left, the entire company has rallied round to make everything work as
smoothly as it normally does. The only real change for me is to be doing a big
musical like Chicago.”
As with most of the musicals staged by PFT, Chicago is
more usually seen on the celebrity-friendly commercial touring circuit. This is
where the company can take advantage of having such a large acting ensemble.
“We’ve also got the biggest band we’ve ever had on the
Pitlochry stage,” Baron says of his production of the prohibition era musical,
“When it was first done in the 1970s, it was written as a response to
Watergate. Then when it was updated in 1996, it came out while the O.J. Simpson
trial was going on. It’s all about celebrity in America, and is deeply
satirical.”
Music and drama combine again for The Rise and Fall of
Little Voice, Cartwright’s drama about a young woman who finds salvation
through song. Fairlie’s production follows on from PFT’s 2013 take on another
Cartwright play, Two.
While PFT has a long history of producing work by J.M.
Barrie, Quality Street is something of a neglected classic.
“It was hugely popular in its day,” says Baron, “so
much so that the chocolates were named after it, but it’s a play that’s almost
forgotten about now. Part of that is to do with the large cast required to do
it, but it’s very much a strong play for women.”
Travesties will mark something of a reunion for Baron
with Stoppard’s Zurich-based play featuring novelist James Joyce, Dadaist
Tristan Tzara and Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin.
“It was the first play I ever directed when I was a
trainee director at the Lyceum in Edinburgh,” Baron says. “About ten years
later I did it again at Nottingham Playhouse. It’s a play about revolution and
modern art, and Stoppard uses every theatrical trick in the book with it.”
Baron describes Before the Party as “a John Durnin
discovery.” Rodney Ackland’s adaptation of a short story by W. Somerset Maugham
looks at “how the English middle class responded to the Second World War. It’s
a fascinating discovery, that has a very dark heart to it.”
The final show to open will be The Last Witch, Rona
Munro’s historical drama, which was first produced by the Traverse as part of
the 2009 Edinburgh International Festival. This revival continues another
Durnin initiative, of doing plays by living Scottish writers. It also marks a
brand new partnership between PFT and Firebrand Theatre Company, the
Borders-based company which has adopted a similar policy of taking a fresh look
at contemporary Scottish work which may have only received one production
before falling out of view.
While Firebrand was co-founded and is run by Ellie
Zeegan and Janet Coulson, Baron is the company’s director of productions, and will
take his PFT/Firebrand production on tour to the Tron Theatre in Glasgow and
the Traverse, Edinburgh.
“We’re all very keen for Pitlochry to connect with the
rest of the Scottish theatre scene,” says Baron, “and Firebrand working with
Pitlochry connects up two parts of the country, as well as opening up
opportunities to do a different range of plays by Scottish writers.”
Baron directed a revival of Munro’s women’s prison-set
play, Iron, for Firebrand, and recently oversaw her Northern Irish
Troubles-based piece, Bold Girls, at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.
“Rona Munro pointed out to me recently that I’m the
director who’s done her work the most,” says Baron, “but that’s only three
shows, which I think demonstrates how few revivals there are of contemporary
Scottish plays. That’s something both Firebrand and Pitlochry would like to see
change.”
Until a metaphorical white puff of smoke appears
alongside the announcement of who will be Durnin’s successor at PFT, Baron will
have the best of all worlds. While he is overseeing the theatre’s new season,
he appears to have ruled himself out of taking over on a permanent basis.
“I think I’m better as a freelancer,” he says. “It
will obviously be interesting to see who takes over, so I can give them all my
support. I’ve been an associate director at Dundee, Perth and Nottingham, and
I’ve always watched the various artistic directors with admiration. It’s a very
different job, and for me the important thing is directing the work itself
without having to look after all the other stuff. A freelancer like me is a
lucky chap who gets to nip in and do what they want to do and then go away
again.”
Baron will be nipping in and out of Pitlochry a lot
over the next few months.
“I think out of all the seasons I’ve worked on, this
one is probably the most challenging,” he says. “It stretches what the company
can do to the absolute limit. To see seventeen different actors take on such an
array of different artforms, styles and genres, it’s an extraordinary
achievement. Logistically, apart from anything else, it’s extraordinary, but to
then apply such a range of different acting styles to the material is
astonishing. I’m in awe of the actors’ ability, especially as sometimes there
can be a ten-day gap between doing a show again.
“The Quality Street analogy is a good one. They’re all
wrapped in nice shiny paper, but when you unwrap them you discover that they’ve
all got different flavours. Some are crunchy, and some are sweeter than others,
and hopefully what you’re left with is a box of theatrical delights.”
Chicago opens Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2018 season
on May 25. The season runs until October 20.
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