Adrian McDougall, Yvonne Stone and Eliot Guiralarocca talk to Susan Elkin about Blackeyed Theatre and its forthcoming new show, Frankenstein.
“We specialise in touring small scale shows to venues all over the country” says Adrian McDougall who founded Bracknell-based Blackeyed Theatre Company in 2004.
The company has just completed a successful six month tour of The Great Gatsby which features a cast of seven, all of them accomplished actor musicians. “They formed an on-stage jazz band as part of the action and the quality of what they achieved was so high that you could have mistaken it for a backing track” recalls Adrian proudly
Attention is now focused on the next show, Frankenstein in a specially commissioned version by John Ginman. “Like John’s Dracula which he adapted for us in 2012 it’s pretty faithful to the novel” says Adrian. The show will open in September at South Park, Bracknell and tour until March 2017.
The cast of Frankenstein will be just five and, most interestingly the monster is to be a life size – six foot three inch tall – puppet by Yvonne Stone. “I used to work on Warhorse looking after the puppets which had to be continually repaired and adjusted” she says recalling with a beam her role in the appearance of the horse, Joey, when it appeared on the roof of the National Theatre for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee river tour.
Yvonne, who did an art foundation course and then the degree in puppetry at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, is working with Eliot Giuralarocca, director of Frankenstein on ideas for the monster. She shows me a small figure modelled in plastizote, a Plasticene-like substance which hardens but retains pliability. She has a smaller figure modelled in twists of rope over wires. She produces two different heads out of her bag and there are lots of photographs on the table. This is the design process in action and even as we talk she and Eliot are tossing ideas at each other and asking me what I think.
Eventually this monster will be puppeted, by three of the five actors in the cast – one on the head and one each on the legs and Yvonne will coach them in puppeteering skills during rehearsals. “The Frankenstein story is about the creation of a monster who eventually acquires some of the characteristics of a human being. We envisage that watching the puppet come to life will really evoke the wonder and horror of that theatrically” says Eliot. Between now and the beginning of rehearsals Yvonne will scale up her creation – a quasi human being fashioned out the ropes and sails aboard the ship that Victor Frankenstein is travelling on as he tells his story.
I have seen several dramatised versions of Frankenstein over the years but none has been totally satisfactory partly because the extraordinary horror of what happens exists mostly in the mind of the reader of Mary Shelley’s novel, it tends to lose impact when it’s spelled out visually. Using a puppet could – if they get it right – be the most effective yet.
So why choose Frankenstein in the first place? “It’s set as an A-level text so we’ll get school parties as we did for The Great Gatsby” says Adrian. “We have to keep an eye on the need to fill theatres – and they range from 150 seats at Arena Wolverhampton to 950 at Devonshire Park Eastbourne for example – while presenting work as innovatively and imaginatively as we can.” The Great Gatsby played to 25,000 people in 35 different venues, Frankenstein is already booked for 40. “We play to a wide range of audiences” says Adrian. “Some are sophisticated theatre habitués. Others are first timers or people who’ve seen very little theatre. As well as A-level English groups we get theatre studies students keen to see a range of theatrical ideas in action and students from all disciplines learning to write reviews. It’s a very mixed bag and that’s part of the joy of what we do”.
The company also works with Danielle Corbishley whose background is in education to produce education resources to support each production. “She looks very carefully at the relevant exam syllabuses and then creates something useful and interesting” says Adrian.
Rehearsals for Frankenstein don’t start until the end of August so at present the planning is still fluid. “I try not to take too many fixed ideas into the rehearsal room because that blocks the creativity which good actors bring with them,” says Eliot. “You have lo to let a show evolve and develop. We can have the playwright in for example and tweak the text if we need too, Yvonne will probably make minor adjustments to the puppet and we’ll work out ways of getting the effects we want says Eliot, who – for example – dislikes sound effects but might employ an actor musician to create percussive sound as part of the action. Definitely something to look forward to.