Ok so chapter one of this book is really just an introduction to what to expect from the author and the publication. It is very well written because I get a real sense of Frances Mackenzie's voice and a genuine feeling of the type of woman she was. The chapter starts with her trying to answer the question 'What is Theatre?' which I think is a query we should always be making to challenge ourselves to work in different ways. Ms Mackenzie talks about her personal feelings as to what is the draw of the theatre and her personal background in the industry. The words and phrases she uses can sometimes sound quite matter of fact and she seems immovable on some of her beliefs, however when you read about how she worked her way up from producing in the amateur theatre to the professional industry taking all the small jobs along the way to eventually teaching production for the BDL you have to respect her. She rose to a high powered job in the theatre in an era when women as anything else apart from actors were few and far between. After introducing her credentials and feelings on the theatre she gets right into the subject of 'Finding a Producer' and starts talking about the problems involved in amateur theatre with regards to the producer role. I found this part to be very true to my personal experience within amdram and its interesting to see that even fifty years ago this was a genuine problem. Moving onto 'Training a Producer' she talks about how you can train a producer but the best ones are people with genuine underlying talent and passion. The feeling I get is that she doesn't truly believe one hundred percent that people who just fall into the role can be effective which does make me question her motives in writing this book. However near the end of page 6 you can see why she despairs so much of the people without passion or talent for the role with the cake story. I read this and couldn't believe that someone could be so foolish, but then again I have asked some stupid questions myself. Anyway this is the cake story.
'Some years ago a lady attended a course at BDL. At the end of the course she came to me full of indignation and announced "I am most dissapointed in this course"
"Oh, dear" said I "Why?"
"I came to find out what they use on the stage for cake and I asked the tutor and he said Cake!"
Nothing I could say would convince the lady that she had not been cheated'
Unbelievable isn't it that sometimes people will not accept that sometimes the simplest thing to do when recreating a scene on stage is just to make or use a real thing?
Well Chapter One didn't put me off this book, which is a good thing, and I actually feel that by following this publications course that I will either learn something new or solidify and refresh my memory from before RTDA.
Chapter two quickly follows in which we will be trying to discover what 'theatre' is by analyzing a play and starting that creative ball rolling by bouncing some ideas around. This is going to be a fun project over the weekend I can tell. Check in on Monday to find out how it went.
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