Author Archives: Anne

Clothe Your Characters

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Clothe  your characters carefully because although Manners Maketh the Man, you are instantly attracted or repelled by the appearance of a new person and a lot of that effect is created by what they’re wearing.

early 2012 087Lady Macbeth’s Dress with Beetle wing decoration

Elegant? Tarty? One of the greatest examples of how clothes matter is Eliza Doolittle from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion – better known to most as My Fair Lady. Eliza’s beauty cannot be hidden, but her acceptance depends on much more. She’s the focus of an experiment in speech, but she’s also dressed to fit in with the people the professor wants her to mingle with.

Pretty Lady is the same. Julia Roberts character is so transformed by the cocktail dress, her man doesn’t at first ‘see’ her on that bar stool.

The excerpt I chose for MuseItUp’s Sunday Musings today, is this from Mariah’s Marriage:

“Peter sketched a tiny bow and Mariah knew he was still smarting from his dismissal the previous afternoon. He straightened and looked past her to study the two ladies making such elegant splashes of colour in the home where visitors usually wore un-dyed woollen garments of no colour and no particular cut. Mariah saw a combative light flash into his pale eyes. No doubt he recognised the resemblance between the women and the family likeness to Mr. Longreach.”

Throughout the book there is a tension between the fashionable and the intelligentsia who might very well ignore the egg stains on their waistcoat fronts. I think it adds to characterisation, but what do you think? Can you see the person inside the packaging?

Mariah’s Marriage UK amazon http://goo.gl/4LWt1H

US amazon  http://goo.gl/qoggiQ

Follow me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/annestenhouseauthor

Tweet to me @anne_stenhouse

 

CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE

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The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertold Brecht is running at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum theatre in a translation by Alastair Beaton.

My feelings about Brecht are always over-shadowed by the horrors of Mother Courage, but I was delightfully surprised by this production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Loud music and raised voices from the off settle into a very human tale of how the ordinary person copes in stressed times.

What would you do when a baby cries?

The central story of Grusha captivates us and Amy Manson, previously seen at the Lyceum in Six Characters in Search of an Author, is a most watchable actor. The large ensemble cast move seamlessly from word to instrument, from good character to bad. One of them even plays a horse and as such gets the biggest laugh of the night – I won’t spoil it for you.

The baby whose existence is central to the plot is entertainingly portrayed by puppeteer Adam Bennett.

The questions Brecht asks us to consider are as present now as they’ve ever been.

Run continues until 14th March. Get your tickets here.

Pitlochry Summer Season in the hills

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The brochure for the Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s 2015 summer season has been tantalisingly present in the in-tray for several weeks.

Lots of favourites like an Ayckbourne, a Wilde, A Maugham, a Bennett, A Greig and opening with the truly wonderful A little Night Music by Sondheim.

Here’s a link: Pitlochry 2015 See whether you can make a choice. If not see you at them all.

Don’t forget to build in time to walk round the Plant Explorer’s Garden. Accessed from the theatre car park, it’s a fascinating haven just off the A9.

Scottish Community Drama Friday 20th

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The One Act Festivals of the Scottish Community Drama Association throw up a varied menu of plays. Choices have to be made and these will often be taken on the basis of what cast is available. Friday 20th February included a comedy by Archie Wilson, a two-hander of psychological horror by Eleanor Fossey and a modern drama by David Greig (adapted).

St Serfs opened with Wilson’s Old Folk

The cast were handicapped by illness which had caused a substitution. The understudy, Vicky Horne, was word perfect and is to be congratulated for a brave effort. Unfortunately, the script has little to recommend it and I found the clichés of life in an old folks home – bingo and pretend deafness together with little understanding of how the very old actually move – to be irritating rather than funny.

Leitheatre (Kirkgate) took the middle slot with a two hander for two female actors, Playing With Daisy,. Esther is an inadequate with an imaginary friend, Daisy. Esther blames all that goes wrong on her mother and all she does wrong on Daisy. Life catches up with her and the play ends with a long prison term looming. Liza Shackleton and Ellie Arcidiaco gave brave performances. The director needs to demand a little more from them to bring the horror to its dramatic peak.

The third and final play on Friday evening was David Greig’s Yellow Moon adapted. It was performed by Edinburgh People’s Theatre.

This stood out. Not only was the script full of interesting light and dark, humour and pathos, but the cast were well rehearsed and well up to the demands made by it. The minimal staging and stark costumes allowed its themes to shine out. My winner on the night.

Run continues on Saturday 21st with Gala Dramateurs, Mercators and Edinburgh Theatre Arts.

SCDA One Act Festival

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Meant to say, Scottish Community Drama Association‘s One Act Play festival is running at Churchhill Theatre, Edinburgh, tonight and tomorrow night. Last night as well, sorry. Start time is 7pm. Great range of plays and my friends The Mercators are performing although, I think, not competing this year.

Scotland Short Play Awards

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The inaugural Scotland Short Play Awards run by Cumbernauld Theatre attracted a very rewarding hundred and fourteen entries. Details are here

Nine plays have been selected to progress to the next stage – a day’s development with a professional director. Thereafter the judging panel will consider them and the workshops again and announce winners.

FAITH HEALER by Brian Friel Royal Lyceum Edinburgh

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Faith Healer by Irish playwright, Brian Friel is coming to the end of its run at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum theatre. Three performances left, folks. Get Going.

Structured in four scenes and performed by a cast of three, Faith Healer is about that mountebank performer who preyed on the sick, the halt and the lame. Occasionally – how? no one knows – he would have a resounding success. Success that meant financial security for four days!

The play is about Faith Healing, memory, luck, the nature of illness and the human condition. Three strong performances from Sean O’Callaghan, Niamh McCann and Patrick Driver explore the strengths and weaknesses of each character. The narratives are marked by agreed ‘facts’ and differentiated by the interpretation of those ‘facts’. As always with Friel’s writing, the subtext is rich and its effect goes on working in our understanding long after the lights go down.

A gripe: if the programme costs me £2.50, I want to be able to read it in the theatre. White lettering on black does not suit my middle-aged eyes and I don’t think I’m the only one. Designers design, but those of us paying for the product want it fit for purpose – please.

In Flight

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Regular readers of this blog will have realised that I don’t watch many films. However, the recent long flights from Istanbul to Delhi and back tempted me to give Turkish Airlines In Flight movies a go.

Sorting out the operation of that handset thingy took a wee while, but in the end even my techno-phobia was overcome and the Home button produced a series of options. Actually, I rather enjoy watching the map of the route with its airplane cruising across the mountainous terrain and a raft of cities with unpronounceable names.

So, where to start? Well, I like comedy and I opted for a Canadian Rom-com starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan – What if? There was a lot of good script about the difficulties of being young and in love, or not in love, and one or two moments of truly black farce. The first, involving a door opening and an already open window, made me scream. At least, I think that’s why I was suddenly the object of so much interest.

Then I followed the DH’s lead and watched a DRAMA. It was called Nebraska. This 2013 production in B & W was full of warmth, human interest, pathos and some blistering one liners delivered by the most unlikely characters. Dad has received one of those pestiferous letters telling him he’s won a million dollars. He is a little confused, or on the Alzeimher’s path, and doesn’t understand anything other than Winner The film plays out family pressures, past feuds, past loves, and greed. The conclusion was heart-stopping and maybe asks us all to think about how we look at those living in that twilight. Amazing performances from so many: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Angela McEwan.

Then, in the spirit of personal indulgence, I watched Austenland. Another rom-com, but with the Jane Austen twist that those of us who write regency romance find irresistible. Not a work of great depth, but hugely entertaining and I suspect a faithful rendering of Shannon Hale’s original book. (suspicions rest on her writing the screenplay along with Jerusha Hess) Cast included  , , , Brett McKenzie and Jane Seymour. Lovely frocks and a truly wonderful set.

West Bengal and Rajasthan

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100_5037 100_5038West Bengal and Rajasthan

Here are the Baul singers and musicians arriving on deck to entertain us. I was enjoying a cruise on the Hoogli, part of the great Ganges river, when a mysterious boat drifted up alongside and several men clamboured aboard.

 

I’d been aware in the early morning of single male voices raised in a haunting song as we drifted past the settlements on the banks and here was the explanation. Baul singers tell the tales of their folk culture in song and each will play an instrument to accompany the singing of others.

It was great to hear them up close, but a wonderful shivery feeling lying listening to them in the misty and dark early mornings.

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Corner 1st Gate

Rajasthan brought the chance to further my acquaintance with international puppetry. Round the road from 1st Gate, a marvellous boutique hotel, in Jaisalmer, there is a Museum of Folk Arts and culture.

Museums are hard to come by in India and I tend to fall on those there are. The gentleman who set this one up is a retired history teacher and he was around on the night I visited. The ticket entitled one to browse the museum and watch the puppet show.

The puppet show specialised in dance. we saw several dancing puppets telling the story of The Boy Who Lost His Ball, The Camel Dance and the Male/Female nature of humanity.

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Stars of the Show

A narrator told the story first in both Hindi and English and then handed over to the musicians and puppeteers.

 

 

 

 

One of the items on display was this travelling shrine or theatre. I hope you can see how the panels slide in and out. Religion has often had to rely on drama and pictorial representation in early or primitive societies where literacy is not high. I encountered another, bigger, version of these theatres later in my trip.

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Travelling Theatre or Shrine

The Geese Are Getting Fat – Free Tinsel Tale for you

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The Geese Are Getting Fat won me a flash fiction competition on the old Writelink site in 2009. I think Maureen Vincent-Northam was the judge. When Rhobin suggested we put up a free story or extract for our readers in the December round robin, I remembered this series of competitions, Tinsel Tales, and having found a paper copy of The Geese Are Getting Fat, I’m going to type it out for you all.

Happy Christmas, dear readers. Enjoy this little gift from me.

THE GEESE ARE GETTING FAT by Me – Anne Stenhouse

Brenda watched the geese waddle across the farmyard enjoying their last day of a well fed life. The boss would start filling Christmas orders tomorrow.

She turned to the open wardrobe door and gathered the dress that hung there into her hands. Its satin bodice was sewn with sequins and the net skirts flared from a cinched in waist. She sighed. surely Will would ask her to marry him when he saw her in this sparkling dress? Red was her colour.

There were only seven days till Christmas. Had she done enough? Twice weekly trips to the gym and starvation rations had turned her country figure into a svelte picture of sophistication.

She glanced at the wedding photograph of the boss and his bride, Rachel. City slim and glamorous, she smiled into the camera. Brenda gathered her cleaning things before going down to join her for coffee.

In November, when the dress arrived after a shopping trip, everything in Rachel’s wardrobe fitted her perfectly. Today, she was most often seen in trackie bottoms and a sweat shirt.

‘I’ve brought millionaire’s shortbread this morning,’ Brenda said.

‘Anyone would think you were fattening me up like one of the geese,’ Rachel protested. ‘There’s no point in taking that red dress with me when we go to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas. I must go on a diet when we get back.’

Brenda smiled and toyed with the farmhouse keys in her apron pocket. She’d done enough.

The end

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Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/ is next up in this round robin, but I’ve posted everyone’s link below in case you feel like dropping into several.

Now, if you enjoy my kind of slow, wry humour and would like to read more together with some sparkling ‘between the sexes’ dialogue, you may. Here are some links for your e-readers:

http://goo.gl/4LWt1H Mariah’s Marriage UK

http://goo.gl/JjY907 Mariah’s Marriage US

http://goo.gl/cW71Lv Mariah’s Marriage B&N

http://goo.gl/P3lmzk Bella’s Betrothal UK

http://goo.gl/7mh8FI Bella’s Betrothal US

http://goo.gl/HQjANo Bella’s Betrothal B&N

Ginger Simpson http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Rachael Kosnski http://the-doodling-booktease.tumblr.com/
Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/
Lynn Crain  http://www.awriterinvienna.blogspot.com
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

Connie vines connievines.blogspot.com