What a fantastic opening night at Bury St Edmunds! I have to admit, that despite the fact that for the past few months Mansfield Park has been our upmost priority in the Marketing office, last night was the first time I had seen our cast perform the play. Of course I have read it and popped in on the odd rehearsal, but actually seeing the final product and how perfectly everything comes together was better than I could have imagined!

The set, the costumes, the lighting and sound- every component creates an immensely flawless backdrop for this wonderful adaptation, and our fabulous cast brings it to life, capturing, no doubt, every member of the audience in every moment- I certainly was. The atmosphere in the auditorium was wonderful and what was even more wonderful was the sheer support the actors had from their 'home town'.

As I waited to congratulate everyone on the success of their first night, I spoke to a number of audience members who have known and not seen one or two of the actors since they were little! Seeing such a warm re-union just summed up the whole feel of the evening. Though it may have been my first night, welcoming Mansfield Park back to the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds was like welcoming a much loved relative or old friend with great affection.

Kat Bransby, Press Assistant

We were all a little apprehensive about opening our in-house show away from home, but the moment we stepped into The Palace Theatre in Southend, we felt really excited because it is a beautiful Theatre and the space felt really intimate although it has 600 seats.

Over the weekend (31st August and 1st September), the production team got the set into the Theatre, so it was all ready when the cast and creative team arrived on Monday morning (2nd Sep).  With this preparation, it meant that we could get on straight away with our technical rehearsal.  A technical rehearsal is when the play is run in costume, but with lots of starts and stops, so that all the technical aspects of the production (light, sound, movement of props, scene changes) can be put together. 

Our biggest challenge was the costume changes as certain actors have quite a few and sometimes barely minutes to get a whole outfit off and a new one on. As with all costume dramas, it's not a case of pulling on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt as there are coats and dresses with lots of buttons, braces, cuff-links, gloves, shawls, hats and fans to remember. Fortunately our two ASMs (Assistant Stage Managers) were brilliant at helping the cast to change very, very quickly, although it did take a little practice.  At one stage, we thought one tall and one smaller actor had each other's trousers on, but one pair just needed pulling up with braces and the other pair needed pulling down. It did cause a moment of confusion and hilarity though!

Overall, everything went really well, and we finished our tech in one day, even with time for a fish and chips supper (a must when at the seaside).  We anticipated it might take us a day and a half to tech the show, so were glad to be ahead of schedule; it meant that we could get straight on with our dress rehearsal the next day and have more time to work on costume and changes.

My role as producer is an interesting one during tech rehearsals because a lot of my intensive work has been done (booking the venues for the tour, setting the budget for the project, employing the creative team, helping with the casting of actors, contracting etc).  The pressure is focused heavily on the production/ technical team, the director and the actors.  I am there to support the team and help to troubleshoot any problems that arise, but it is not such a hands on role at this stage unless there are things that get difficult. Luckily, issues that did arise were minimal (a trip for me to Argos to get hair tongs to help the girls curl their hair; looking high and low in Southend to find the strongest hairspray possible to keep the curls in place!), but that has a lot to do with the fact that many of us have done this show before, so were all well acquainted with what needed to happen.  

On Tuesday night, we were ready and raring to go, and it was exciting to hear people gathering outside the auditorium.  A production only really comes to life and feels complete when an audience becomes a part of the experience.  We had a good sized crowd for our opening night, who really appreciated the production.  A couple who had been coming to the Theatre since 1949 stayed behind afterwards to say how much they loved the show and that was quite an honour coming from two Palace Theatre stalwarts! 


Thank you Southend!

Mhari Gallagher
Producer

I have (only just) returned to the office after ‘popping out shortly’ to take rehearsal pictures of our Mansfield Park cast in action. What can I say, I was immersed into the intertwining relations between the characters and before I knew it an hour had flown by! Luckily for me I arrived just in time to see the ‘last dance’ between Mary Crawford and Edmund, and the scene in which Henry declares his love to Fanny. Two highly emotional moments that allowed me to see the seemingly timid Fanny Price silencing the boisterous Henry and the feisty Mary Crawford put Edmund in his place during what she decides (there and then!) will be their last dance- a choreographed whirlwind that reflects the heart-wrenching dialogue perfectly! As I didn't see the play during its run last year, it was fantastic to see the characters in action- even better than I had imagined from reading the script. When the actors stopped for their lunch break I left very reluctantly, itching for more! 


Kat Bransby 
Press Assistant

Catch a behind-the-scenes video of the Mansfield Park cast in dance rehearsals.

Gorgeous dresses alert!

Click here:

‘We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves’: Aristocratic Private Theatricals in the Nineteenth Century

In the structure of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, the scenes describing the rehearsals of Elizabeth Inchbald’s play Lover’s Vows are perhaps the most significant of the entire novel. These scenes are crucial to the development of the central plot, multiple sub-plots and also of many of the characters. Beyond the novel, however, these scenes are also of great importance to the theatre historian as contemporary evidence of a once very popular form of home entertainment known as private theatricals.

Private theatricals were amateur performances produced by members of high society, most commonly at home in both town and country. These enterprises became extremely fashionable from the late eighteenth century onwards, and as the craze developed they became less exclusive and were incorporated into the social calendars of the rising industrial middle classes. By the mid-nineteenth century private theatricals were thriving and were being staged in hired public theatres and village halls, in hospitals and mental asylums, in schools and universities, onboard naval ships and in army encampments around the world.

Despite their popularity, private theatricals were attacked by some sections of society, who rejected Tom Bertram’s assertion that they were merely ‘a little amusement’, and instead believed that participating in these entertainments led to immorality and vice. Austen captures this disapproval through the characters of Fanny, Edmund and the patriarch, Sir Thomas, who immediately puts an end to the performances on his return from Antigua and restores order to the Bertram household. Of the numerous anxieties about private theatricals prevalent in her age, Austen chooses to highlight the beliefs that they instilled selfishness and vanity in the performers; that they encouraged excess, extravagance and expense; that they challenged the period’s gender norms and threatened the strict social codes of the day; and finally that their rehearsals allowed improper relationships to develop through the informal mixing of the sexes.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 she was quick to patronise home entertainments, helping them to become a more respectable pastime. She invited the best of London’s theatre companies to perform before the court and encouraged her children to stage theatricals and tableaux vivants at home. These came to a sudden end, however, when Prince Albert died in 1861, forcing the monarch into a period of mourning that would last for the rest of her life. Interestingly, although Queen Victoria never returned to the public playhouses after 1861, she did continue to show her passion for the arts by once again inviting theatrical performances into her homes. At Balmoral in Scotland and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, the royal family put together their own amateur productions, and professional theatricals at Windsor Castle were also reinstated in the 1890s.

Queen Victoria’s renewed interest in private theatricals in later life no doubt influenced the most spectacular of all of the nineteenth century’s private theatricals - those arranged by the eighth Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Duchess of Devonshire was one of the greatest society hostesses of her age and in 1895 she made the decision to permanently transform Chatsworth’s Ball Room into a state of the art, fully functioning, private theatre, to add another dimension to her entertaining capabilities. The theatre’s conversion began in January 1896 and for over a decade performances were held in the theatre almost annually to celebrate the New Year and Twelfth Night. The audience was made up of all the social elite and Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, first as Prince and Princess of Wales and later as King and Queen, were almost always the chief guests.

Whilst many private theatricals may indeed have principally been produced for ‘nothing but a little amusement’, there’s ample evidence to suggest that these amusements can also add to our knowledge and understanding of social, cultural, theatrical, political and indeed economic histories for various reasons. For example, it’s surely of some significance that several plays, which were banned from the public theatres, were later taken up by society amateurs and performed behind closed doors in private theatricals. It’s surely also of significance that the King, the Prime Minister, members of parliament and an array of influential figures from high society, saw a pantomime at Chatsworth House in 1903 in which Cinderella attends a political meeting instead of a ball. And is it not of importance that amateur performers working in private theatres, which were unlike the public playhouses in both size and scale, had to innovate with their use of stage lighting, make up, theatrical costume and scenery in order to connect with a strikingly different, small and intimate audience?

Besides these arguments, private and amateur theatricals are interesting for many other reasons. They were, for example, used as an opportunity to trial new plays before they went before the public and were utilised as a training ground for new performers.  Moreover, private and amateur theatricals gave a semi-public voice to women in an age when speaking out in high society was decidedly improper. Finally, research into these entertainments has revealed a whole world of so far undiscovered ‘professional amateurs’ who were celebrated for their talents and went from country houses to amateur clubs, and from village halls to hired public theatres across the country to tread the boards. These ‘professional amateurs’ were prevented from launching themselves on the public stage for fear of jeopardising their individual and family reputation, rank and status. But who is to say they had not the potential to be the next David Garrick or Sarah Siddons?

Whilst time has remembered the extravagant balls and excessive dinner parties of the bon ton in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the place of private and amateur theatricals has largely been excluded from our history books. The evidence for these once popular pastimes was brushed under the carpets of Britain’s great country and town houses in the early twentieth century and has lain dormant, gathering dust in copious collections and archives ever since. It’s only now, as their fascinating stories are being uncovered, that we’re able to realise just how important these entertainments may have been to families, to communities, to local economies, to the aristocracy, to women, to homosexuals, to the theatrical profession and to the progression of the grand narrative of the amateur theatre which has resulted in the organised movement that we know and enjoy today.

Written by David Coates.

David is a theatre historian and PhD Candidate based at the University of Warwick.
If you wish to get in touch with David about his research, please contact [email protected]

Here is a little sneak peek at rehearsal day 2!

The marketing department popped into rehearsals on Tuesday and were lucky enough to see the cast practicing their Regency dancing as well as some lovely scenes from act 1.

Enjoy,
Emma,
Marketing Manager

What a lovely way to start the week by walking up and down Abbey Gardens in the sunshine looking for actors to direct them to our audition space at St James' School.  And what a lovely way to start the rehearsal process for Mansfield Park Tour Number 2 with a sparky and vibrant read through from our cast.  I know the script is funny because I have read it and seen it a number of times, but I had forgotten in the year that has passed exactly how funny it is, or maybe it is the cast (many of whom know the script so well) who are seeing new opportunities for humour in this second outing of the play.  Mrs Norris' catty remarks and the highly skilled Geoff Arnold adeptly playing three different characters had me in stitches within minutes of the read through and left me feeling really excited about the forthcoming tour.

It's so great to see the return of some of our 2012 cast, but also great to welcome new members to the team.  We have a new Mrs Norris (Julie Teal), a new Henry Crawford (Eddie Eyre) and a new Mary Crawford (Laura Doddington), each of whom will bring their own unique interpretations of the characters they are to play.  It's going to be an intense rehearsall period though as we only have two weeks to get the show on its feet before opening in Southend on 3 September - the time is going to pass so quickly, so although there is a sense of fun in the air, there is also the knowledge that everyone is going to have to work in a focused and  economical way.  Plenty of tea and biscuits have been provided to see the cast through, so I'm sure they will manage very welll indeed.

Mhari Gallagher
Producer 

It's only 10 days until the Mansfield Park cast arrive in Bury St Edmunds for two weeks of rehearsals and we are busy preparing everything they might need for a smooth fortnight!  Inviting staff to meet and greet the cast, preparing numerous copies of the script - I think our printer is just about holding up!! - and ensuring everything the Deputy Stage Manager will need is all in one nicely organised folder for her.  I do like to make sure everything is as easy as possible for people, just a little effort and thought really can make all the difference.  On top of the usual preparations we will have to spend our 1st week rehearsing in a different venue; St James Middle School. They have been very accommodating and we think it is a great space to rehearse in, however those crucial things like a kettle and mugs aren't available, and we can't have a team of 12 or so going without the essentials; tea, coffee and biscuits. So a box is growing under my desk full of all those things, not forgetting a couple of cakes, I'm sure ;) 

If there is one thing the cast will know about us here at Bury st Edmunds it's that we like our cake!

So we all wait eagerly with great anticipation to welcome our 10 actors to our beautiful Suffolk town as we begin to see Mansfield Park, once again being brought to life.

Emma Haley