Racheal - Production Date: 4 June, 28 June & 20 July 1997
- Production Company: API Theatre Company, Brisbane
- Playwright: Edward Albee
- My Role: Mrs Barker
As I was only in the second year of my chasing my performing dream, my mentor, Carolyn, recommended doing a one act play for the festival circuit. Each year a number of theatre companies around South East QLD would hold a weekend of one act plays, where each play would be judged and awards would be presented. It was also a great way for new writers to showcase and gain recognition for their work. The festivals were often a mix of experience levels, and the shows were often less than 30mins and had simple staging and lighting which enabled the one act play to be easily toured and performed at the different festivals. Unlike a traditional theatre show, you often didn’t have the opportunity to rehearse in the venue prior to the performance, and only a short time frame was allowed for bump in and tech – usually on the morning or afternoon prior to the performance time.
The American Dream was a one-act play that had already been selected by the API Theatre Company to be performed at the 1997 SEQ festival circuit which usually started around June and finished around October. For this play, however I only had noted we performed three times between June & July 1997 – at the Manly One-Act Evening, the Dalby Drama Festival, and I believe the third was a one-act play night at the API Theatre. Perhaps we hadn’t performed it at more festivals this year due to being involved with the API’s next production, Cinderella.
Once again, I don’t recall much about the show itself. I played Mrs Barker who was supposed to be around 50 years old. When I looked up the synopsis online, the absurdity of the character still makes no sense to me. She is supposedly a catalyst to the family revealing their dark past, but is an innocent bystander that is really clueless and disconnected to the whole story. My lack of experience and formal training most likely didn’t help either – I had no concept of the idea of script analysis and character breakdowns. I wouldn’t learn this until much later when I finally went and did some study.
The play also had a larger cast than I remember – Mum, Dad, Grandma and the young man. As it was a festival play, I don’t have any show program to remember whom was cast in each role, nor any photos. Although I have a feeling that the Grandma was played by Mary Cuthbert whom I’d previously performed with in the two pantomimes. The only thing I do remember about the show is having to modify a dress I had to wear because when my character arrives, she is asked to make herself comfortable. To the character, this mean taking off her good clothes (in this case the dress). I did have a full slip on underneath, but to enable the dress to come off in two seconds I had converted all the buttons down the front of the dress to velcro dots. So this show was essentially my debut stage strip, despite being very unsexy and not overly funny as it was supposed to have been – at least in my view it wasn’t.
CAST: Unknown
CREW: Ross Coombes (Director)
