Linda Hampson - director

I have been a member of East Lane since 1990 and consider

myself fortunate in that time to have been cast in several rewarding

principal roles as well as character parts. I have also enjoyed coming down on a Sunday to

muck in and generally socialise. I have been on the committee for six years, the last three as

Chair, from which I shall retire in September 2007.

As another member of East Lane once memorably observed, “When women reach a certain

age, their parts dry up.” This is as true of me as of any other, and so it was with one eye to the

future (i.e. total desiccation) that I decided to start directing. As an actor, I have always been

prone to coming up with my own ideas, sometimes in conflict with the director’s original

intentions, and I felt it was high time to put my money where my mouth was.

I must confess that although I love acting, I prefer to direct. Taking a play from page to stage

and taking ultimate responsibility for all aspects of a production cannot be bettered in terms of

personal challenge.

Why this play?

Plays are selected at East Lane by inviting aspiring directors to submit a short

list of plays which are then read by the play selection sub-committee. Normally, directors may

include whatever they want, but for the 2006 - 2007 70

th anniversary season the plays were all to

be from East Lane’s back catalogue so that the season should cover the range of the Club’s

work over the 70 years.

Frankly, the list did not appeal to me at all, consisting as it did of middle-of-the- road plays

much favoured in the past by AmDram societies. There were however several gems which had

been ignored and, in my viewA Doll’s Housewas one of them. I wanted the challenge of

presenting a play which, although it had been done in the past, would not today be regarded as

an “East Lane Play” in terms of our current audience profile. Having directed two comedies for

East Lane, I wanted to extend my own directorial range by tackling something more serious in

what looked as though might be a drama-light season. I therefore eschewed the prepared list

and offered to directA Doll’s House.

Good old fashioned bloody mindedness played a part; being told by a member of the play

selection committee that Ibsen would never be staged again at East Lane made the prospect of

submitting it as my preferred choice doubly attractive!

I was also keen to do a ‘landmark’ piece of theatre as part of the anniversary season.A Doll’s Houseis a flawed play but at the time it caused a sensation, and there is no doubt of Ibsen’s

place in theatre history as the man who put the real into realism.

The Play

Today, a wife who walks out on her husband and family to ‘find herself’ may not seem

such a big deal. Even today though, a woman who walks out on three small children would raise

a few eyebrows and I felt that Nora’s decision would be a post-show talking point for audiences,

which it was. I felt that the audience would need a constant reminder of the child presence in the

home to point this up, and for that reason I wrote in scenes, and dialogue, for the Helmer

children.

I was very keen that Nora should not be played as a bimbo who morphs into a feminist icon in

the face of impossible male behaviour. It would therefore be necessary to show her strengths

and the men’s respective vulnerabilities right from the start of the play. This would also affect the

way in which I subsequently cast the play.

The Casting

The auditions consisted of improvisation and text work; I always try to include an

improvised element so that I can see how actors work with each other and how far they can

respond to a director’s request. Although they were not pre-conditions of casting I made it clear

that I would expect actors to warm up vocally and not to smoke during rehearsals. This did not

go down terribly well but at least people knew what they would be signing up for. (In the end, I

cast three smokers, all of whom anticipated the July 1st ban with courage and one actor who

hates warm-ups but nevertheless showed esprit de corps and did them cheerfully)

Casting in Amateur drama, unless you are very lucky, is usually a process of compromise. I was

in no doubt however about my choice of Claire McGill for Nora. Claire is no shrinking violet- she is

bright, feisty and sexy, exactly the qualities I wanted in Nora. Hilary was exactly what I was

looking for in Christina Linde; the compromise element was in terms of age, as she and Nora

should really be contemporaries. I have always been an admirer of her acting, but Hilary

additionally (and she will not thank me for saying this) has a natural warmth which is

sometimes hidden on first acquaintance by a layer of apparent reserve. Mrs Linde’s head

usually rules her heart, but she does have a heart and I needed an actor who could show both

layers. I could have cast the smaller female parts several times (usually the case at East Lane)

and was fortunate to have such a choice. Anne has a natural empathy with children which I

knew she would bring to her interactions with the Helmer children. Janice was heroic in agreeing

to take on the apparently thankless part of Helene the maid, but I suspect she felt vindicated as

she saw her part grow at each rehearsal!

The men’s parts were more problematic; I am sure that Des, Laurence and Barry would be the

first to admit that they were all the wrong ages, but I felt that they would cope and that for each

of them their parts would take them out of their usual comfort zones.

I had already acted with the two little girls Claire and Nicky and knew how talented they were;

Aaron was one of those strokes of luck – his father had written a few months before asking

whether there were any children’s acting opportunities at East Lane; Aaron came and opened

those enormous dark eyes, read me an extract from Harry Potter, and I signed him up on the

spot!

I had no cause to regret any of the casting; where I had choices I made the right ones and

where I had no choice (Torvald and Krogstad) I was gratified to see each actor give, in my view

and that of others, their best East Lane performances to date.

I was lucky to have experienced and talented people working behind the scenes. Linda Mallet,

assistant director, is an insightful and accomplished actor who I knew from experience sets

much store by the text and its multiple meanings.

Judith Meredith put a great deal of time and thought into getting the costumes right. I have seen

too many plays (some of them at East Lane, some of them quite recently) where the sense of

period has been badly let down by anachronistic costume choices. I feel that thanks to Judith

this was not to be the case withA Doll’s House.

Gerry Tivers showed similar attention to detail in creating an authentic set which managed to

combine Scandinavian austerity with 19

th century claustrophobia.

Underscoring a play is one of the most pleasurable aspects of the directing process for me.

Perhaps my greatest piece of luck came in the form of the services of two composers. I was able

to use Grieg’s wonderful string quartet as incidental music, and was very proud each night as

this cross-faded into the Norwegian folk song to be picked up (in impeccable Norwegian and in

the correct key) by the children. My second composer was Lewis Lev who wrote and recorded a

lovely tarantella for Nora to dance to.

Preparation and rehearsals

There are many psychological ambiguities in the text of “A Doll’s House” , and it was important to

me that from the start each actor should have thought about their over-arching motivation.

Each actor was given some “homework” prior to the first rehearsal, which consisted of some

questions designed to help them explore their character’s background, relationships and

motivation. A fair chunk of rehearsal time in the early stages was spent on discussion of their

answers, sometimes individually, sometimes in a group. The decisions we made together often

served as a good point of reference and reminder at the later stages of rehearsal. I was very

impressed with the thought that the actors put into this, and how perceptive they were.

A word about warm-ups. The purpose of the warm up was:

• To give the company a transition from whatever they had been doing that day into the

considerable focus and high level of concentration to be demanded of them at rehearsal

• o free up body and voice and, hopefully, improve the vocal work to ensure a higher standard

of performance overall, in particular to allow individuals who needed particular vocal

techniques for their characterisation to practise these in a “safe” group setting.

For rehearsal purposes, I had divided the text into small sub-sections and I used a “ building

block” strategy; each sub section was intensively worked and the final structure ( i.e. whole acts)

was not put into place until relatively late in the rehearsal period.. Actors don’t always like this

bitty approach, and are always keen to start running plays quite early, but I take the view that

there is no point in doing this until detailed groundwork has been done. On a practical note, thjis

approach means that actors don’t spend too much rehearsal time sitting around, as they are

only called for the “ bits” they are in

In retrospect

Something that professional directors do not have to do as a rule is sit through

their own productions night after night. This is a sobering and humbling experience, as all your

mistakes come back to haunt you. However, it can be a joyful experience as well, as you see all

the hard preparation and rehearsal paying off. As experiences go, this fell largely into the latter

category.. I was particularly pleased that the intensive work done with the two principals on

those scenes requiring a wide emotional range had wrought a great improvement in the last

stages of rehearsal.