The following is a brief account of the journey to
make Forster’s novel a stage play for Austin Playhouse. While I’ve done my best to be fairly
accurate and comprehensive, if you have any questions or comments about the
process, they are always welcome!
-
Lara Toner
I was 10 years old when Merchant-Ivory released their beautiful film version
of E.M. Forster's
A Room with a View. I did not see it in the theatre,
but sometime in the next year or two, probably when it made it to HBO, I saw
it. For a very, very long time it was my answer to "What is your favorite
movie?" The moment when George waded through a poppy-stained Italian barley
field to grab Lucy and kiss her... Well, for young Lara, that was about as good
as romance could get.
I read Forster’s novel in high school and loved how he managed to combine
seemingly mundane events with some of the kindest and most accurate commentary
on the human condition: Love one another. Tell the truth. And we’ll get through
this muddle together. His novel added a depth to the story I loved in film.
In 2005 Austin Playhouse produced Matthew Barber’s stage
adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel, Enchanted
April. The play’s first act is set in England and its second act in Italy. The
play was well received and shortly after working on that production I began
thinking about my favorite Italy/England tale, A Room with a View. I mentioned to my father (Austin Playhouse’s
Artistic Director) that I thought it would work as a play, but that I didn’t
want to talk about it too much until I had a draft. I’m a little superstitious
about these things and I feel that talking too much gets in the way
of actually doing. And then a lot of
time passed.
A few things did happen during the next few years: I
downloaded a copy of the book, reworked it to remove most of the descriptive
narrative and highlighted all of the dialogue. And that was about it. Part of
the frustration was that I couldn’t see our current space at Penn Field working
for the play. At the other side of the process I see that this was more my
limitation than the space’s.
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| The ensemble. Our Lucy plays the violin instead of the piano! | |
|
In 2010 it began to look very promising that the Playhouse
would be in our new home for our 2011-2012 Season. I began working in earnest.
The first draft was mainly an edited version of the novel in play format. I
kept in large swathes of descriptive language to describe
action/characters/scene settings. I formatted the dialogue and basically
determined which characters and scenes would be included. Then I went back through and
cleaned it up a bit. This was the draft I turned in when the Playhouse company
was nominating plays for our 2011-2012 Season. It was very, very rough.
The season selection process at the Playhouse starts with
company members nominating plays. The artistic director narrows them down to a
list that’s presented to our “early-bird” subscribers and they get to vote on
plays when they purchase season tickets for the following year. The final
decision is made by the artistic leadership, but the input of the company and
audience is taken strongly into consideration.
For this season Man of
La Mancha topped the poll (as we knew it would –big musicals are almost
always the highest vote getters) and A
Room with a View came in second. Which was a big surprise. And which meant that I
really needed to get busy writing. When we worked out the season we placed Room third. At this point we knew that
we would be in a temporary facility for the first play and possibly the second,
but I was still hoping that Room
would open in our new theatre. I love our tent and in spite of all the
challenges I’m so glad I had the opportunity to perform in our temporary facility,
but for several reasons I did not want to try to stage Room there. For one
thing, weather is hard to control and Room is a big costume piece with lots of
layers of vintage clothing. Also, several scenes would be much, much easier to
stage in a more formal theatrical setting (the murder in Florence, bathing in
the Sacred Lake…). And finally, I wanted to project Forster’s chapter titles
and a few commentary projections throughout the play.
The process to get us into our new theatre did not move
quickly. The ongoing saga is full of permits and bureaucracy and funding issues
that I’m sure surprise no one.
We opened The Lion in
Winter on November 18, 2011 and at that point it was pretty clear that A Room with a View would be done in the
temporary facility. I made the final decision to cut a couple smaller
characters and to try to double-cast two other roles. Our backstage space is
limited in the tent!
Three members of the Playhouse company were pre-cast, and
auditions were held for all the other parts. Out of all the decisions I made
during this process, assembling the first cast to bring the play to life is the
one I’m unequivocally happiest with. They are an incredible group, not only
ridiculously talented and well-suited for their parts, but also smart,
collaborative, supportive, and full of good humor. Many of the best ideas (like
how to stage the Sacred Lake scene) came from the actors.
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| Our Lucy and George, Claire Ludwig and Joey Melcher. |
Just before our cast was assembled, the play was read again by Don Toner and Cyndi Williams. Cyndi is an acting company member, a friend, and a fantastic playwright. And she had the incredible advantage of never having seen the film or read the book. Her reaction to the play was incredibly helpful because she didn't carry any bias from the other works. Once the cast was assembled we began a series of read-thrus.
I’d deliver a new draft a couple days before, we’d read it, then I’d go away
and try to make it better for the next time. For me, the writing process was a
hybrid writing/editing process. I wanted to preserve as much of Forster’s
delicious dialogue as possible. And where the words were mine, I wanted them to
blend seamlessly.
Once we started staging the play, several challenges
presented themselves. Originally I’d envisioned the play in two halves: Italy
and England. After the first read-thru it was clear that the Italy portion only
took up about one third of the stage time. In fact, the play naturally fell
into a three-act structure. Because it was being performed in the tent there
were some concerns about taking two intermissions. I began looking for a
different act break and eventually settled on the spot where Lucy finds out the
Emersons will be her neighbors in England. We worked with this act break
throughout the rehearsal process, but it always felt a bit disjointed and
randomly placed. The Tuesday before we opened we ran the play with the two
breaks, where the play wanted them to be. It worked.
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| Abandoned projections! |
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|
Our biggest technical challenge was the projections. I envisioned
simple projections using Forster’s chapter titles to set the scene as well as
commentary projections to occasionally incorporate Forster’s comic narrative
voice. The Friday before we opened we tested them out and it quickly became apparent
that there was no way to make them work in the tent. During Sunday matinees you
can’t see the stage lights until curtain call as it is. And most evenings it’s
not completely dark till half an hour into the show. I talked with the cast and
proposed having the ensemble speak the projections. We eventually lost all the
commentary projections and about a third of the scene settings. As it turns
out, having the ensemble lead the audience through the narrative is probably
more of a natural fit than projections would have been. Many other small
moments transformed throughout this process. The very, very nicest thing about
working on a new piece is the flexibility to make changes.
I could not be more grateful to work with this ensemble of
actors and designers. This has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding experience. Thank
you for joining us on this adventure!
Mueller
Town Center is a planned 1.2 million square foot mixed-use lifestyle
district in the heart of the Mueller development envisioned to be an
active 24-hour, 365-day mix of commercial, civic, residential,
recreational, and cultural offerings. Designed for the ease of the
pedestrian, one will be able to stroll through the Artspace residences'
art gallery on the rooftop terrace of Austin Playhouse, enjoy dinner or a
drink in the full-service restaurant inside, as well as attend a
performance at one of Austin Playhouse's two theatres.
