Play Produced 1

The Aspern Papers

by Michael Redgrave Alan Carlton discusses his

production for Woodford Operatic and Dramatic Society (WOADS)

at the Kenneth More Theatre, liford, Essex

the introduction to a published script of "The Aspern Papers" Michael Redgrave felt called upon to defend his deci­sion to adapt the Henry James story for the stage, pointing out the essentially dramatic nature of many of the scenes in the book. James himself, despite a "gnaw­ing hunger for dramatic success",

summer holidays. The play is set in Venice in

1895, the scene the 'sala' of a decaying palazzo belonging to the reclusive Miss Bordereau who is old and frail and spends her waking hours in a wheelchair. She now lives in considerable poverty with her niece, Miss Tina, and one maid, Assunta. But Miss Bordereau has a past. "In her youth she was something of a wit and more than something of a beauty. Quite the toast of the town, in fact." More to the point she wa" apparently the lover of Henry Aspern, an early American poet who on coming to Venice "discovered himself"; wrote, inspired by their love, his greatest poetry; then died in battle defending Venice from

failed to write anything of worth for the theatre. In his books the situations may offer high drama but his complex prose style tends to dissipate the effed.

Redgrave, of course, fully understood what works on the stage and in his adaptation "The Aspern Papers" becomes an absorbing study of a man driven by obsession and a woman awaking to the possibility of love . Redgrave called it a "Comedy of Letters" and there is certainly humour in the script but it is often bitter and underly­ing it all is a sense of loss. It ends very much on a "dying fall".

Theatrical virtues apart the play had other attradions for us. Being a more sober, restrained piece than our recent produc­tions ("Chorus of Disapproval" and "Abigail's Party"), it offered a welcome change of mood and approach. There were also prac­tical advantages, not least the fact that with a cast list of just six it promised to minimise the problem of trying to organise rehearsals around everyone's

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invasion. This affair has only recently been uncovered by Henry Jarvis (H.J.l, an American writer in love with Europe (much as James himself was) and obsessed with Aspern, whose biography he is writing. Believing Miss Bordereau to possess papers of Aspern's that would throw a whole new light on the poet he arrives in Venice to gain sight of them.

The play opens with his arri­val. As earlier letters have met with a cold reception he ven­tures upon subterfuge. Intro­duced into the h0use by Mrs Prest, a prominent member of Vendian Society who has attempted to befriend the two women in the past, he proposes himself to Miss Tina, under an assumed name, as a lodger, on the rather Aimsy pretext that he needs a garden with his lodgings if he is to be comfortable, and that theirs has enchanted him. His offer to "fill the house with Rowers" enchants Miss Tina, who in her seclusion has grown up guileless and unsophisticated,

but her aunt has a more practical reason for accepting his propo­sal, seeing in him a source of money to protect her niece after her own death.

she tells him she has destroyec the papers and sends him away Left alone on the stage however she takes them from the trunk and burns them in a stove.

H.J. moves in, but his plan to win their confidence by "making love to the niece" is frustrated by the enmity of the old woman, who despises him, and by Miss Tina's resolve not to betray her aunt. To add to his burden, his new manservant, Pasquale, has convinced himself that H,J. is a "much respected English milord", travelling incognito after a recen t scandal.

It is Pasquale however who, hoping for reward, abstrads the frunk in which the papers are hidden, on a night when the household is thrown into confu­sion by the illness of the old lady. Before Jarvis is able to open the trunk he is discovered by Miss Bordereau, who enters without aid of her chair only to collapse in front of him.

H.J. Rees the house, returning several weeks later to find that

Casting and rehearsals With a play that relies so heavily on the successful creation of character and atmosphere a very strong cast was called for. The time of year however meant that many of our members were unavailable and I felt extremely fortunate when, with only a minimum of persuasion and just one "guest" appearance, I was able to put together a cast that I felt would work well together.

Because of the timing of the previous production our rehear­sal period was shorter than any of us would have liked and was also disrupted by unavoidable absences. Towards the end I was having to schedule extril evenings to make up lost ground. I would have preferred to spend longer looking at the text with the cast before we began blocking the moves but in

the old woman has died without regaining consciousness. Believing the papers to be his for the asking he meets Miss Tina onI:, to discover that his "love­making" has been all too successful. Made to realise that she can have no hope of his love

the event that was a luxury couldn't afford.

For me a major challenge was how to find ways of bringing movement into what was often a very static piece. without it seeming superRuous. This was especially difficult in the first half

Amateur Siage Nvvmtber 1989

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; the first scene, which is ing. The stage was painted with came in, the final image was of gathered the papers for burning. argely given over to "the story a marble design to complete the the burning letters flickering The doorbell and handbell were ~ far" and contains some dense effect of former opulence. behind the glass. rung backstage. :m occasionally purple passage~ f dialogue between H.J. and Props Lighting and sound Music .Irs Prest and I relied heavily on Most of the antique furniture we The lighting plot was very As a curtain raiser I opted for the a rvis' barely suppresed needed we had hired with the straightforward with Mediter- opening bars of a Handel Con-

excitement to carry us through the scene at high speed, with nervous pacing and a lecturer's manner. For the rest of the play the dialogue and interplay of character generates its own tension and we were able to set an easier pace.

The set For reasons of space and time (or more strictly the lack of both) WOADS tend to hire sets, which invariably involves a certain amount of compromise. In this case the set that I felt came closest to offering the splendours of a Venetian palazzo restricted our ability to recreate all of the features the play calls for. The set was made up of eighteen foot high flats, the largest the theatre could accom­modate, with painted murals of classical scenes. It gave us the French windows and high double doors that we needed, but not a wide arch. We had to make do with a four foot doorway with the doors removed and this left us with no real sightlines to see the stairs and window that were supposed

set and the small props we found without trouble. We were left looking for a Victorian wheelchair, a large parrot cage and a suitable iron stove in which the letters could be burned. The stove proved so difficult that I began to think of changing the ending. In the end

ranean sunlight through the French windows being the domi­nant effect in Act 1. The second act offered more scope to the lighting designer as the scene changes moved from early evening, to night and then to overcast daylight with passing thunderstorm. A particularly

certo for harp, flutes and strings, which seemed to sum up the underlying melancholy of the play. For the change of scene in Act 1 and the opening of Act 2 I used Pachelbel's Canon which, despite being misappropriated by the advertising industry for TV commercials, remains one of the most beautifully wistful pieces of music in existence. To cover the first scene change in Act 2 (after H.J. and Miss Tina set out for their one evening alone together) I could think of nothing more original than the Moonlight Sonata. The final scene change was the longest of the three, with a great deal of clutter needing to be brought on stage. For this I had reverted to the Handel but the timing had to be very tight as the music, after brooding for a while, suddenly becomes a much jollier affair, totally changing the atmosphere. It was a pitfall we managed to avoid but some nights it was touch and go.

In the end we found ourselves with a production which was considered a critical success (though it was not to be, unfor­

we hacked down a hire firm which offered not only a period stove with glass doors on three sides but a beautiful high-backed wheelchair and the parrot cage. The chair and stove both made a marked contribution to the play.

leaden effect was achieved for the storm which, combined with the sound effect of a gusting breeze and with a wind machine playing over the greenery on the terrace, almost physically lowered the temperature in the

tunately, a financial one). The play offers some very good parts, requiring great subtlety in their playing and the cast took full advantge of the opportuni­ties offered them. 0

theatre. The only other taped sound

effect was of a single church bell which was used as the tabs went up for the first act and again at the end of the playas Miss Tina

to lie beyond it and these had to The wheelchair so enveloped ':Je left to the imagination. The Miss Bordereau that she looked ' ats were also rather too bright quite frail and shrunken. The tor a room that had been neg­ s'tove came into its own as the ~cted but we were able to lights were brought down for ;ubdue them through the light- the final curtain. As the tabs

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