"Top up Sue?" The year is 1978. Hostess with the mostess Beverly and husband Laurence are getting ready to have some guests over for drinks and nibbles, while young Abigail is having a party over the road. As the night goes on, it goes from bad to worse and results in a dramatic climax which you were not expecting.
It's the well-known play by Mike Leigh that's about Bacardi and Coke's, Gin and Tonic's and Demis Roussos. Top Ups all round.
"Abigail's After Party" - The review of Abigail's Party.
When I heard that the company of ten were doing Abigail's Party for the 2016/17 season. I knew instantly that I had to be on the team. The show was originally meant to open the season and come out in September 2016. But for some reason, that didn't happen, whether it be another play fell through or couldn't happen because of such and such a reason, so it got pushed back to November and The Browning Version/ Black Comedy double bill took the September slot instead.
With the time of year established, I was very lucky to be in the right place and the right time. I was at the Abbey Theatre studio doing some promotional videos for Twelfth Night, when Philip Reardon the director walked in and Abigail's Party came up in conversation, I explained to him my interest in working on it and within five minutes he said to be "ASM, you've got it!" it was the easiest job to get ever. It was all done and dusted in five minutes.
My background into this play, I knew bits and pieces of it. The trouble is, the only link or raw material I had with Abigail was the famous film with Alison Steadman in it. The trouble I have with the film is, it's very dull. I try to watch it and every time, without fail, I fall asleep. So I never understood the full story. I knew bits and pieces and I didn't find it that hard to understand. The concept of Abigail, the fifteen-year-old girl you never see, having a party across the road. And many people might make the mistake because of the title that Beverly is Abigail. But she's not. As you get to know her, you find that she is this exceptionally brilliant yet truly awful woman who only cares about herself and oblivious to many of the things surrounding her, which I think she takes for granted.
And it's a play that is so popular with people and recognisable. I'm sure the majority of our audiences who came to us, the chances are they had seen the film and knew what they were letting themselves in for. Which is the simplicity of it, It's not that difficult to explain. My dad asked me "What kind of play are you working on?" and I'd reply "Twelfth Night - Shakespeare" and then he'd reply "Oh yeah, what's that about?' and I'd have to go into a little bit of what the play was about so that he'd get it. But in the case of Abigail all I had to say was "I'm doing Abigail's Party" and my mum went "Oh great, we've got to see it" and I think it comes down to it's popularity. This is a show that is very popular with people and for some reason, it's very simple and so well known that audience will pay to see it in large numbers. So I knew we were onto a winner when I signed up.
Emily Elfer as Beverly.
I came into the rehearsal process quite late, due to my unexpected job offer to work on the September double bill it meant I was delayed in coming to rehearsals. I remember the first rehearsal in the club room. Which is not a very big room, but it suited our purposes for rehearsals. Very minimal set marked out, Three chairs set out to resemble a sofa, a table with drinks and glasses on it to resemble a kind of bar among various other things to make it look more like a home. I knew one of the cast members in this before, having acted alongside him in Jumpers for Goalposts so it was nice to see a familiar face. I knew Mark Coltman who played Laurence from having seen him in 'Noises Off' and 'The Vortex' and I knew Emma who played Susan a little, having become familiar with who she was on the double bill. So this cast was an assembly of two new members, one regular, and two newish people just settling in. It was a very versatile and diverse cast who all combined to make all in all a terrific group of people. At the time, I just didn't know Emily who played Beverly and Sara who played Angela so I didn't know what to think of them. But once they started acting, I was amazed and taken back by how good Emily was. She just became Beverly and it was astonishing, her characterization was on point to the way Alison Steadman played her in the film. They were just running with it. The first rehearsal that I went to went so quickly. Everyone had a great understanding of their characters, and they used that to their advantage.
As rehearsals went on, things seemed to run fluently and then almost start and stop. What I mean by that is it would run without stopping at all, and then something would happen to put an actor off and we'd burst out laughing and it would be almost impossible to pick up from where we left off. We laughed so much during rehearsals, it was almost like we were sharing the comedy of the whole thing amongst ourselves. Plus It was great to see everyone taking an interest and making their own suggestions on how they could improve or make what they did before better than the last time. It did feel like a team effort which I found very insightful to watch. My role in rehearsals is to come along and watch the rehearsal for the purposes of me getting to know the play. The purposes of me getting to know the play reflect in how well I do my job. My role as an assistant stage manager is to facilitate the needs of the stage management team, make sure cast are happy and answer any questions that they have regarding the production, and overall just to help out in bits and pieces that I can.
The fun happens when you get to the get in and you have a set made up, that's when you really feel like this is a play that's coming to life. I thought our set looked amazing, set designers and the people who built it did an incredibly convincing job in bringing it into the seventies with black leather and bead curtains and the attention to detail on the walls and on the bar, it is absolutely incredible and just adds to that whole feel of making it look like a real person's living room. In addition to that, another thing which embraces the whole thing is the costumes. The costumes as always were marvellous. Beverly had a disgusting flowery dress which really suited her character, Laurence had a typical brown suit of the time, I really liked what Emma was wearing as Sue with the blue dress and the blue shoes to match, the light blue cardigan, she almost looked like she was in the kind of sixties generation still which I loved.
Mark as Laurence (Left), Sara as Angela (Centre) and Michael as Tony (Right)
Then it came to final dress rehearsals and the run itself, this was the bit that we have all been working up to. It always a little nerve racking because you never know what to expect from an audience, you hope they'll have a laugh and really enjoy it but on some instances, they don't laugh at bits you find funny and you query over it "why didn't they laugh?". But on the whole, it went off without a hitch and we sold out five nights out of ten, four of them being public performances.
I'd also like to make comment on how well I think all the cast member did, considering that they had their difficulties along the way, I thought they coped with everything very professionally and got through it and that's always the right attitude to have when taking on something overwhelmingly challenging like a play such as this, where you've got to perform it ten times. That's quite a long run for an amateur theatre. Most theatres, don't have their own stuff and they have to hire facilities. So we are very lucky doing what we do at the abbey theatre.
Emily was a terrific Beverly, she captured the very essence of her character and portrayed her as the in your face, ignorant, poxy snob that she is, but never intentionally nasty. And Emily is nothing like Beverly in real life. It was a hard job to play a character like that, and I thought she coped with the challenges she faced very well indeed.
Mark as Laurence, Laurence is a very plain type of character, he likes James Galway and Beethoven and classical music, mini's and works for an estate agency. The whole point of it is, that him and Beverly are two very different people which are not suited to each other. As well as being hilariously funny and entertaining on set in rehearsals and backstage throughout the run, there were bits of Laurence in Mark I felt, which he could use to bring out in his performance to his advantage.
Sara as Angela, very sensitive and caring, and quite nervous I thought as well. She brought a lot of sensitivity and good meaning towards her part. The thing with Angela is she means well, but she never says the right things at the right time. She annoys her husband by constantly answering for him throughout the whole night and being very needy towards Sue in terms of wanting Sue to really like her but obviously you can tell from the moment they meet that Sue doesn't like Ang and that they were never going to get on, no matter how hard Ang tried. Which seems a shame really because you have a bit of sympathy for her. Not in a pity me kind of way, but just as a sort of hug for comfort kind of thing. Sara brought a lot of sensitivity and care towards her character and she has lots of really funny moments in this play, which I'm really annoyed audiences didn't give her the credit for.
Emma as Susan, Emma did something great that she gave to Sue that some people who have played her in other productions haven't given her - a personality. I think Sue is a very tricky character for people to understand and Emma more or less summed up what she thought her character was in a nutshell in her first rehearsal which I thought was spot on. She had a basic understanding of what her character was about and she hasn't even started acting yet. Her attitude was very straight faced and plain and with a higher status attitude of "I'm too good for this place", "I don't want to be here". Not in a horrible way but in a funny way which communicates to the audience that Sue really doesn't want to be at Beverley's and that she puts up these people as a means of getting through the evening. I thought little specs of Emma's own personality came in as Sue which made her character so different and all the more successful.
Micheal I already knew before coming into this, he played Tony in this play, who when you think about it is only there to just go "Yeah" and "Ta" a lot. But it's still funny, and we used to make jokes about it, we'd say to him any line he had that was four words or more was a monologue for him. He also used to tell jokes on set, not very good ones, but he kept everyone entertained on set. He was also the one to lift everyone's spirits. If someone was feeling down about something, he'd be the one to talk some sense into them and cheer them up. He seems to me like the kind of person who is almost too intelligent to be an actor. He has a very low boredom threshold. And he might disagree with me on that, I don't know, maybe it's me making assumptions for the wrong reasons. Having known him, working with him on something else he was the person I felt most familiar with. There isn't really much a person can bring to that type of character, but his character has value and he would do little things like stare at people in the audience or give people dirty looks who were rustling crisps or sweets in the audience, and he'd do all that as part of his character because he doesn't say much, he could do intelligent things without having to even utter a single word. That's what makes him work to complete a fantastic cast.
But of course, none of this could have accomplished without our brilliant director Phil in collaboration with Duncan Kennedy whom, together, managed to make the show their own. I know that's very cringe worthy of me to say but it's true. This show wouldn't have been the success that it was if it wasn't for them. I know Phil quite well, and I know where to spot his personality and even though they stuck more or less to the original outline of the script that was devised by the original cast, if you look closely, there are bits of Phil in it as well, just little personal touches that make the whole thing work better. He's a very good director Phil, dare I say it, but he makes magic happen.
Duncan was very clever too in terms of taking a gag and making it funny. He took the gags and told the cast what to do with them in order to make them as funny as they could be. And I'm sure that because he's young, that plays to his advantage as well because knows about the modern touch to things. Not that there's anything meant to be modernised in 1978, even though Phil took charge of the whole thing, Duncan was there to help make the comedy work and he'd think of things that Phil wouldn't originally have thought of and he'd agree with it and go "Yes, that works. Put that in" so the two of them were a little double act.
But of course, none of this could have accomplished without our brilliant director Phil in collaboration with Duncan Kennedy whom, together, managed to make the show their own. I know that's very cringe worthy of me to say but it's true. This show wouldn't have been the success that it was if it wasn't for them. I know Phil quite well, and I know where to spot his personality and even though they stuck more or less to the original outline of the script that was devised by the original cast, if you look closely, there are bits of Phil in it as well, just little personal touches that make the whole thing work better. He's a very good director Phil, dare I say it, but he makes magic happen.
Duncan was very clever too in terms of taking a gag and making it funny. He took the gags and told the cast what to do with them in order to make them as funny as they could be. And I'm sure that because he's young, that plays to his advantage as well because knows about the modern touch to things. Not that there's anything meant to be modernised in 1978, even though Phil took charge of the whole thing, Duncan was there to help make the comedy work and he'd think of things that Phil wouldn't originally have thought of and he'd agree with it and go "Yes, that works. Put that in" so the two of them were a little double act.
And of course not forgetting Suzanna, Elouise and Hatty, Matt and Nora and everyone else on this show, who were all so lovely, so hard working and passionately driven to make this show work. Sure the cast make the show, but it's all a team effort at the end of the day.
Abigail's Party - Cast and Crew photograph
Summing everything up, it all ends with the strike where everyone on the team help out to take the set down. This can prove to be a lot of fun, and depending on how many people you've got helping out will ensure how fast or slow everything gets done. Once the strike is done, it's the wrap party. It felt sad to see it all end, but I'm very proud that we all combined to make such a fantastic show which was 97.5% sold in the box office.
So thank you, Phil for giving me the job, thank you cast for all your hard work and bringing the play to the stage with your excellent characters, thank you, Suzanna for everything that you do, and just a big well done and congratulations to everyone. This will go down as being one of the best shows I've worked on, in the four years I have been apart of the company of ten.
