The morning after ......
Spinning? I don't even know where my head is this morning. I'm beyond groggy and dazed: perhaps it was singing along with the Massed Mixed Choirs of Birsay at the after-show party that did it. It is nothing [Nothing at all? Some mistake, etc. Ed.] to do with the Orkney Sailing Club's excellent bottled Orkney beers (Scapa Special, Raven Ale, Orkney Best, and a few others).
(When/if my head clears a bit later, I will blog on the two excellent plays which I watched from the auditorium on Friday night. They were:
Deerness Drama Group: Terrorism
by the Presnyakov Brothers, translated by Sasha Dugdale, and directed by Gill Smee and Chris Giles.
Stromness Drama Club: Blood Brothers
by Willy Russell, directed by Rhiannon Reilly.)
After all the usual thanks (from amongst which I would highlight the Orkney District SCDA Committee, for the very efficient way they organise the annual festival, and the adjudicator for his positive attitude), there were some (appropriately few) amusing remarks from Dave Gray, Senior Producer at BBC Radio Orkney: he will be nominated for the Northern Blethers Cup for the Most Politically-Correct Humorous Anecdotes Delivered During an SCDA Orkney Presentation Ceremony During the Last 10 Months.
Then Ronnie Mackie, the one man with the opinions that determine the marks, announced the winners [those who received the highest marks according to the marking scheme, surely? Ed.].
In response, I (another person, among the many who saw the plays, with lots of opinions) say:
Congratulations to Birsay Drama Group!!
Birsay (Brough) presented an original, popular, festival-winning play, The Wine Game, by Isobel Ross Moar, directed by Margaret Irvine. Margaret has entered at least one (often 2, and occasionally 3) plays to the Orkney Festival, never missing a year since her first in 1983. She has waited a long time to be awarded the Challenge Cup for First Place Overall.
Congratulations to Birsay Drama Group!!
Equally popular, and possibly (is this possible?) even more outrageous was "the other Birsay play" (there is nearly always another Birsay play!): Birsay (Greenay) were awarded the Firth Trophy for Second Place Overall for Cinderella, by Michael Green, directed by Greer Norquay. It is to be hoped that the performance in the Birsay Hall [When is this? Details here when I have them. Ed.] will be every bit as disgraceful as the shambles that was the Kirkwall effort. Of course, the ensemble and crew can now only watch, as their inebriated Wine-Game "colleagues" make a complete mess of representing Orkney at the Divisional Finals [That'll be right! Hmph! Get on with it. Ed.]
Congratulations to Ad Hoc Players!!
The A. C. Hunter Cup for Third Place Overall, was awarded to Ad Hoc Players for Bird Calls (Act I), by Lesley Glaister, directed by Vivia Leslie. They will also have a well-deserved opportunity (due to the SCDA rule which stipulates that only one team from a single club can progress beyond the District Festival stage) to perform before another adjudicator, on their home stage, at the end of March.
Congratulations to Birsay Drama Group!!
[Again?? Ed.] Birsay (Brough) were awarded the St Magnus Parish Trophy. OK - they won the Challenge Cup, fair enough. But are they really eligible for the parish cup? Surely there must be more than 500 people in that part of the Orkney mainland traditionally referred to as the parish of Birsay. How else could they have contributed like they have to the Festival over the last 25 years or more? Community spirit you say? Well; I say, let's have a census to count them, and find the missing thousand support staff!
Congratulations to Stromness Academy!!
Ernie's Incredible Illucinations, by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Emma Grieve with assistance from Jenny Devlin, was very successful and was awarded The Orcadian Youth Trophy, and the opportunity to represent Orkney at the Northern Division Youth Drama Festival at the Webster Theatre in Arbroath on 12 March. I cannot really comment on this performance: I was too busy in the lighting bridge, missing sound cues and/or playing their music too loudly or too quietly, to take in many of the details. Judging by what I could take in (and from my knowledge of this fantastic cast and their teachers, and from the great reaction from the audience - not all 300 were parents!) the adjudicator's warm words in summing up the performance were well-deserved:
This play was performed by a talented young cast, with very impressive vocal skills, who sustained their characters, and achieved most of the humour demanded by the piece. The direction worked well, showed great creativity in moving quickly and effectively from one scene to another using a minimum of set and props. There was some great work in providing the costumes, and the lights and sound contributed [Phew!] to the overall effect: all the theatrical arts supported the efforts of the actors, as they should do. Well done. [ - slightly paraphrased!]
I hope Ronnie (and the company) will forgive my quoting a remark he made as he left after a constructive and helpful private adjudication (and he knows what he is talking about):
[The Stromness Academy production of Ernie's Incredible Illucinations] is a perfect example for A Curriculum for Excellence, without the shiny green folders - Ronnie Mackie
Congratulations to Ad Hoc Players!!
What would Ms Campbell think, I wonder, if she knew that the Jean Campbell Trophy for the Play Depicting Scottish Life and Character was awarded in the 10th (or is it the 9th?) year of the 21st century to Ad Hoc for Bird Calls? Hoping that she celebrated Scotland's diversity in her own day, I trust she would be cheering along with the rest of us in celebrating a depiction of one small part of modern-day Scotland's diversity.
Congratulations to the Kirkwall Arts Club (Third Age Players)!!
They made sure they attended to detail, adopted an academically thorough approach, and did lots of hard practical work, and their efforts were recognised by the award of the George Scott Cup for Best Stage Setting. It is pleasing (and perhaps gently ironic) that this award went to a group which emerged from a University of the Third Age (U3A) play reading group! If there is ever a community-theatre-related exhibition at the Orkney Museum, Tankerness House, I hope the beautiful Grecian armour, the torch, the hanging legs, and the pottery drinking bowls (made specially for the production by Andrew Appleby, the renowned Harray Potter) are featured.
Congratulations, too, to the author's representatives for good humouredly permitting the director, (Diana Preston) carefully (and reluctantly, in the case of some passages) to adapt A Pheonix Too Frequent, for the festival (maximum running time, 50 minutes). It is a complex and literary full-length play. As the author's representatives also offered to forego half of the normal royalty fee; one can only hope that Christopher Fry's reward is in heaven.
Congratulations to Palace Players (Bishops)
The Yellow Folk, by Thomas P. Andrews, directed by Graham Macdonald was an original play, providing an entertaining and informative hour [Up to 50 minutes, surely. Ed.] The author pointed out after my previous post , that it is not eligible for the playwriting competition this year, as it has been performed previously elsewhere: let's hope that next year there will be a brand new one which is eligible.
Congratulations to Deerness Drama Group!!
Terrorism, by The Presnyakov Brothers, translated by Sasha Dugdale, presented by arrangement with Hern Books, and directed by Gill Smee and Chris Giles, was a really interesting play, which some liked and some did not (I did like it). It presented the director and cast with an enormous set of challenges. Deerness, although in the East Mainland of Orkney, has a population of about the same as Birsay (well under 500), and this play involved a company of 11 on stage (according to the programme - there will have been many others involved, I am sure). If this sounds impressive, I still remember (and still stuggle adequately to describe) the year that the Deerness play had a cast of about 30!
Has there ever been a community theatre piece in Aberdeen, Edinburgh or London featuring well over 2% of the city's population as performers? Can anyone think of a community theatre performance attracting an audience of 2% of a city's people, even at as low a price as £5 a ticket for a programme featuring 2 other plays? [Stop ranting. Ed.] The play's stylistic and minimalist images will stick in my mind for a long time, and I hope to blog later with some more considered comments. In summary, it was very well presented and performed.
Congratulations to Palace Players (Earls)!!
I described their performance of The Memory of Water (Act II), by Shelagh Stephenson, and directed by Ernie Donaldson, in an earlier post: we did not know then that the play was disqualified, because it exceeded the absolute maximum running time, under Festival rules (there was a misunderstanding on the night about this, when it was announced in error that a 2 mark penalty had been imposed). Being disqualified from the competition does not detract from the company's achievements in presenting the piece.
Congratulations to Stromness Drama Club!!
They knew it was overtime! They performed it anyway (all 68 minutes of it), and the time flew by. Apart from one actor (who is certainly not under 18 - she is 40 something, just like I am!), and the director (who felt compelled to play the part of the Narrator - more on that below) this could have been a youth entry to the Festival. There were some huge technical challenges to overcome in the play they chose to perform (especially the 60-odd lighting cues, and the requirement for 3 of the cast to increase in age from 6 years old to adulthood during the play), and I thought that their ambition in choosing the piece was largely matched by the skill with which they presented it. The spirit in which they presented their work, despite finding out in early February that the author would not consent to their proposed cuts to the text did the young director and her team great credit.
It was Willy Russell's (and/or his agent's) absolute professional right to refuse permission for this amateur production in the Northern Isles (a Festival directorial debut for Rhiannon Reilly) to cut material from his masterpiece, Blood Brothers, however intelligently and carefully the proposed cuts had been selected. He (and/or they) has (or have) his reputation to consider. Just think of the risk this single performance would have posed if even one of his carefully chosen words had been deliberately omitted. Perhaps the author's meaning in this ever-so-subtle piece (on the timeless theme of how the love of money, and the abuse of privilege, can destroy lives) could not have been properly understood without the full inclusion of of every word written for the part of The Narrator (played, in and to the end by the director, with great skill). It is my hope that Willy (and his agent) spends his share of the royalty (which will have been paid to secure the SCDA's right to allow the performance to go ahead) on something that makes him happy. It is our absolute right, each of us, to have our own opinions about his attitude (and/or the attitude of his agent).
And then there was the after show party, and now we are starting to live happily ever after!
Finis.
But wait!
Postcript
You can see the two Birsay Drama Group plays (The Wine Game, and Cinderella), and the Ad Hoc Players' Bird Calls (Act 1) tonight at the Orkney Arts Theatre at 7pm. Admission will be £4 (or maybe £5 - I cannot remember), payable on the door. The Saturday repeat performance, an Orkney SCDA tradition, is intended to ensure that everyone (whether members of the SCDA or not) can see the highest-scoring plays, as all 300 and more tickets for the Orkney District Festival are usually sold out well in advance.
The Orkney Saturday Repeats also make an important financial contribution towards ensuring that all teams, wherever they live in Scotland, can be supported to ensure that there is no financial barrier to travelling to take part in Divisional finals (and occasionally, Scottish and British Finals). This is an important and basic way in which that the SCDA furthers its charitable objectives, on behalf of its many members (and their communities) throughout Scotland - and is very important to people in Orkney. For example, between now and the 2014 Northern Divisional Final in Orkney, there will be lots of travel and accommodation required for teams in the Northern Division alone. This year, 6 or 7 teams (plus various Northern Division committee members) will travel to Orkney for the weekend to take part in the 2010 Northern Divisional Final, and that will cost an absolute fortune! In 2011, 2012 and 2013 there will be a total of 6 or 7 teams travelling to Northern Divisional Finals held in each of the other Districts, and that will cost an-only-slightly-smaller fortune, probably! But this financial stuff is a subject for another blog post .................
Another important way that the SCDA maintains its finances is from membership income - if you are not a member of the Scottish Community Drama Association (Scottish Charity SC021397), why not? Apparently, if you are a member you get to vote on national, divisional and local officebearers, strategic priorities, policies and everything! You also get Scene Magazine regularly sent to your home.
Now I'm looking forward to meeting up again with Northern Division friends as the arrive (by plane, train, automobile, ferry and otherwise) in time for the SCDA Northern Divisional Final in the Orkney Arts Theatre, 25-27 March 2010. Good luck Birsay Drama Group and Ad Hoc Players (and to the visiting teams, too!).
And good luck to Stromness Academy, in Arbroath on 12 March in the Youth competition (and to the Aberdeen, Perth and Angus entries too!).
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