Ownership and Prosperity in ‘Hard Times’
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Ownership and Prosperity in Hard Times
There is a powerful moment in Lighthouse Theatre’s Hard Times when actor Sonia Beck makes an early transformation onstage from orphaned schoolgirl Sissy Jupe into manipulative housekeeper Mrs Sparsit. From the outside it is effected by a simple change of costume: a bonnet, gloves, and a cape which are handed to her by another actor, and of course – like everything else in Joe Harmston’s meticulously detailed production – it has been diligently rehearsed. But the simplicity of the description belies the complexity of the task – fingers grasping to find the right gaps in the fabric, bows that need tying on both hat and garment – and all to be completed with split-second timing before she gets to the end of a direct address to the audience. In a matter of moments the transformation is done; voice and physicality have made their own adjustments in the meantime and the character standing before us now is strikingly more mature and disagreeable than the one we witnessed earlier, but so assured is the focus that Beck applies to what she has to share with us, and so casual the manner with which this whole frenzied business is executed as if in the background, that we in the audience never question the technical challenge involved – the activity of changing has been owned.
Activity is the medium of the actor’s craft; it is the ‘stuff’ he has to work with. For the painter that ‘stuff’ is oils or watercolours, while the musician has her instruments or the sculptor his clay, and though emotion and presence are vital elements of an effective performance, without ‘something to do’ the actor cannot create. Some of these activities require a great degree of skill; many is the actor who has been caught out for over-embellishing his CV by claiming greater proficiency in, say, horse-riding than he currently possesses, and occasionally the acquisition of such ‘special skills’ needs to be factored-in as part of the rehearsal process. Centuries ago the roaming troupes of the Commedia dell’arte combined stock, knockabout sequences of activity (known as ‘lazzi‘) to create rudimentary improvised plays, transcending frontiers of language and culture with an eloquent physicality whilst eschewing the spoken word for a kind of elevated gibberish that could be universally understood. But as Stanislavsky recognised, if activity is to find more sophisticated expression it must first be imbued with kind of inner purpose. Indeed, while speaking – intelligible or otherwise – is in itself just another form of activity, it is perfectly possible ‘to caress’, ‘to wound’ or ‘to seduce’ with the spoken word alone, and with no less intensity despite the metaphorical – as opposed to physical – execution. Now the medium – activity, and specifically here speaking – is being put to work by the actor. It is being manipulated in an attempt to affect other characters, and often in a way that seems to contradict what’s actually being said. It has been integrated into a higher-level function, one that Stanislavsky referred to as ‘action’.
Now, clearly it is also possible for a character to chatter away aimlessly to herself with no conscious dramatic agenda whatsoever, in which case the chattering remains squarely on the level of activity and is not specifically mobilised into action. In the same way, a director might ask the actor to ‘give us a bit of cold acting’ – rubbing hands together or blowing into palms and so on – as part of setting the scene, in order to provide it with texture and colour but not necessarily to drive it forward. The distinction lies in the quality and immediacy of purpose: an interior, psychological charge – an intention, we might say, or an objective – so that for Stanislavsky all dramatic action is necessarily ‘psychophysical’, having both an internal (psycho-logical) and an external (physical) dimension (and one of the tenets of Integral theory is that can be no interior without a corresponding exterior). Moreover, while Stanislavsky found the supreme form of psychophysical action in the ‘active word’ , the technique is absolutely not limited to text. By its very nature we tend to think of a script – a printed artefact – as a collection of lines to be learnt, and for that reason the dialogue of a play tends to take precedence in our theatre. But as a blueprint for performance, the script can also suggest internal activities of the mind – thinking, willing, meditating – that are invisible to the observer: sitting in silence gazing out to sea does not imply an absence of activity, while a pause can be redolent with action if such mental activity is charged with intention.
And so, for all that some actors might get sniffy at the notion of an internal process, (the question ‘What’s your motivation here?’ becomes a longstanding backstage joke when applied in improbable contexts), and while it’s true that experienced actors tend to do much of this work intuitively anyway (again, no exterior without a corresponding interior), all Stanislavsky’s System was about, really – following the basic Newtonian paradigm of action and reaction – was breaking the work down into manageable blocks of ‘stuff’ for the actor to play. Because you can put on a hat and gloves onstage whilst also planning tomorrow’s shopping in your head if you’ve been in a role long enough, or you can become so absorbed in the activity itself you’re in danger of forgetting your lines. But when the medium is owned fully – both inside and out – then the playing begins to appear effortless.
Hard Times, Charles Dickens’ political satire of the ideology that permeated the Industrial Revolution, in which he pits an insistence on hard, measurable fact against the ephemeral gifts of the imagination, has been given new life by Lighthouse in a collaboration with Pontardawe Arts Centre, using the acclaimed dramatisation of the novel by Stephen Jeffreys. It follows a longstanding acquaintance with Dickens on the part of this Swansea-based company as it continues to establish a warm and friendly presence on the South Wales theatre circuit. Whether guiding you gently through Cwmdonkin Park past exquisitely realised memories from Dylan Thomas’ childhood (another Lighthouse favourite) or recreating the city’s Three Nights’ Blitz in venues little bigger than your own living room, the company have always displayed a remarkable flexibility of staging and an uncommon consideration for their audiences – on occasion they’ve even been known to make you a cup of tea in the interval. But the geographical reach of this pocket-sized ‘National Theatre of Mumbles’ – has also extended far beyond the shores of Swansea Bay. Indeed, their signature piece Brief Encounters, recently reworked with elegant sensitivity in an immaculate new production by Maxine Evans, has been seen literally around the world since it was first performed in 2011.
With this latest work, you’re still guaranteed a cheerful welcome at the door, but director Joe Harmston has brought a lucid genius to the proceedings that surely lifts Lighthouse into the leading rank of Welsh theatre companies. The whole thing looks gorgeous. Sean Cavanagh’s handsome set, evocatively lit by Daniel Taylor, is lavish and spectacular: a giant mechanical cogwheel at first enshrouded within the canvas of a circus tent, but which later unfolds with delightful ingenuity to reveal a chimney-stacked panorama of the bleak, infernal Coketown. This in time further separates into an array of panels and doors that are twisted and angled to shape the scenes, or suddenly become transparent to reveal what’s hidden behind, while Tic Ashfield’s discordant underscore provides intelligent, atmospheric support. A chase sequence through the carriages of a train is particularly impressive.
The modest ensemble of four – Beck, Adrian Metcalfe, Non Haf and Vern Griffiths – each take on a number of roles and together embody an entire Victorian portrait gallery with vivacity and skill: callous businessmen and militant factory workers, circus artistes and jealous widows, all emerge fully formed in their turn and are transformed one into the next in the time it takes to put on a hat. And yet these are not grotesques – such is the precision of Harmston’s direction that though the characters’ individual costuming is minimal – an apron here, a shawl there – we completely believe their full-blooded humanity, and instantly recognise returning characters before they’ve uttered a word, simply by posture, gesture, or the quality of owned activity.
I had just one small reservation at the Pontardawe premiere: that the actors themselves were not quite having fun with it yet (perhaps a subtle sense of enjoyment is the final stage of ownership). It was as if, on meeting an audience for the very first time with this production, it hadn’t sunk in just how good they all are. But, knowing Lighthouse, I’m sure they’ll add in a dash of theatrical relish in no time on the road, and I look forward to catching up with this glorious epic again later on in the tour.
I don't like these men. 
