“We’ve never seen that scene before”
Robert Sharp’s recollections of the 2003 performance.
One of my most memorable moments of the 2003 production of “Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden” was also a good example of the unique nature of the text.
Since the play was a non-linear, promenade production, it was of course possible to attend the show on a number of occasions, and watch different scenes. As a member of the production team, I was naturally a ‘regular’ and saw the performance several times during the run.
I attended one showing in the final week of the run. During the “middle section”, where the audience an actors roam the garden, I happened across a scene taking place just outside Mina’s pagoda. Only three audience members were watching the intimate scene when I arrived… and two of them were Muriel Romanes and Judith Adams, director and playwright respectively. They were doubled over in laughter at the performance they were witnessing.
After the scene had finished, and ‘Lily’ (Pauline Lockhart) had careered off the footpath in search of more butterflies, I fell into conversation with Muriel and Judith about the scene.
“I agree it was a funny scene,” I said. “But we are two and a half weeks into a three week show run. Why do you, the creators of the piece, still find it so funny?”
“Ah, you don’t understand,” they explained. “We’ve never seen that scene before.” The actors, Pauline Lockhart and Alexandra Mathie, had recognised early in the rehersal period, just how flexible the text was. They were therefore experimenting with the text, coupling different scenes together, to create something that had surprised and delighted even the playwright.
This brings a whole new meaning to the idea of “developing a character”, a process that does not finish on first night, but continues right throughout the run of a play. It is something that only theatre can achieve, and is encouraged by the creation of a flexible text. When critics and practitioners speak of creating new languages of performance, then perhaps the process developed by the actors of Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden, is one example of what they mean.