Dramatic Tales From Histories

Bispham CastAways – Dramatic Tales From History

6th September 2019

This was a performance of a trio of one act plays: “How the Vote Was Won” – a suffrage play first performed in 1909, “Behind the Nets” set in 1937, based on the historical arrests and persecution of homosexual men using English law and “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” set in the Jewish ghetto of Terezin during WW2. It was an enjoyable evening and the CastAways certainly didn’t shy away from hard hitting subject matter!

Each play was preceded by the curtain opening on the full company stood in a line across the stage singing a song of some relevance from the era. The curtains then closed and the audience heard a brief explanation of the play to follow, voiced from off stage before the curtains opened again for the play to begin. Unfortunately, this broke up the flow of the evening and it is debatable whether the songs really added anything to the performance; some cast members clearly didn’t know the song lyrics and there were extended pauses with curtains opening and closing several times whilst the lights were down.

A prompt was only needed once throughout the night and this was done in a timely and subtle manner, however, the second play began before the prompt was in place so they entered the hall, went to get a chair and positioned themselves in front of the stage whilst the action was going on up on the stage. Although this was done quickly, it was distracting for the audience; all members of cast and crew need to be ready in position before curtain up.

All cast members projected well throughout the evening, costumes were simple yet effective and lighting was particularly used to good effect to enhance the performance of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”. There were several noteworthy performances of the evening: Susan Hope as Madame Christine and Angela Crossley as Maudie Sparks in “How the Vote Was Won” convincingly portrayed characters full of Suffragette spirit and humour.

Dominic Bradley gave a very committed and natural performance as Norman in “Behind the Nets” and Angela Crossley was once again fabulously funny and believable as May, bringing a little light humour to this more thought provoking work.

The difficult subject matter of “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” was handled well with intense performances from all involved, not one of whom broke character at any time. Sam Bolton delivered his lines as both Loud Speaker and Child with great sensitivity and Debbie Flavell as Child communicated a great deal through her expressions and body language throughout. Siânan Conroy as Raja Englanderova and Dominic Bradley as Honza Kosek gave convincing performances as a young couple who develop a beautiful relationship against the odds in horrific circumstances.

A few notes to consider going forwards: when characters are speaking to other characters, it is important that they don’t speak as if they are addressing the audience and that they don’t deliver all their lines with their eyes closed. A watch needs to be worn if the script calls for someone to look at it for the time! Watch your timing with props – a newspaper was handed to someone before it was asked for. Try to reduce pauses between lines so that conversations appear more natural.

Overall, this was an enjoyable and varied evening’s entertainment with enthusiastic performances throughout from a cohesive cast. Well done for tackling some challenging material!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.