Some of the action centres round an erotic Indian screen, but the production team are still looking for something ornate enough.  Lanyon says “It should have three or four ‘leaves’ - preferably plain on one side and with a carved top.”

If anyone can help with the search this would be greatly appreciated.

For this produciton, many of the cast are new or fairly new to STAC.  Angela continues:

Rehearsals are going well and it should be a load of laughs. Marcus and Verity are both new members and are fitting in well and good to work with.  Gilliam Charles is newish, he was in Memory of Water and Children’s Theatre.  Ann Lancaster is a member of Rachel le Sauvage’s Chance to Act group.

We could still do with a helping hand for the lighting.

If you’re not a STAC member and therefore don’t receive complimentary tickets, look out for an upcoming competition in the  Worcester News!

Photos from the dress are now up on the dedicated page for The Importance of Being Earnest.  The show began its run last night and is being well-received.

Many thanks to Howerd for taking them and getting them to stac-worcester.com so quickly!

Also, here’s something which didn’t find it’s way to the website so promptly…!

The Birmingham Mail anticipated our Wildean production back on September 19th, focusing on the much-talked-about “handbag” line of Lady Bracknell.  See “Patricia bags star role in Wilde classic” by John Slim.

With the caution that Charley’s Aunt was actually a 2006 production, not 2007, the text of the article follows below.

Ever-popular masterpiece set to return to city stage

CUCUMBER sandwiches, a lost handbag, and high society – it must be The Importance of Being Earnest.

Worcester-based Swan Theatre Amateur Company (STAC) will don period costume and stiff upper lips for their production of Oscar Wilde’s ever popular masterpiece.

Set in the elegant world of Mayfair and an English country manor, it follows friends John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff as they woo loved ones while pretending to be who they are not, all under the disdainful watch of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell.

Directed by Tim Crow, who was responsible for 2007’s farce Charley’s Aunt, The Importance of Being Earnest runs at the Swan Theatre from Tuesday, October 7 to Saturday, October 11.

For tickets, priced between £5 and £9.50, call the box office number on 01905 611427 or visit worcesterlive.co.uk.

The article is online: “Sister act at the Swan”.  The Standard calls the play “powerful and funny”.

You can read more about The Memory of Water here on the play’s dedicated page, or at the Worcester Festival website’s event page.

The full text of the article follows below.

The Blue Room, Swan Theatre, Worcester
May 2 2008
By John SlimAN ACTOR and an actress play five roles each in David Hare’s amoral merry-go-round.

There are ten scenes and the essential idea is that whoever the two characters are in any of them, they will be in bed before the episode is over and we shall thenceforth be regaled by sounds of appreciative excitement in the dark.

It is largely pretty earnest stuff that doesn’t really get anybody anywhere, which is why the amusing story involving the very theatrical actress and the playwright with a polysyllabic vocabulary is the one that comes as something of a happy release.

Emily Portsmouth - making her first appearance with the company - and Bob Churchill acquit themselves with distinction in each of their various roles. They take in their stride the need to appear in the altogether when the script demands it and he makes light of the surprising eyepatch that he is required to wear in his two appearances as Malcolm the aristocrat.

Wisely, Chris Jaeger’s production is supported by a pleasing jazz trio which enables it to avoid the silences that would otherwise descend between scenes. The action continues until tomorrow.

John Philpott writing in the former, appears to understand the themes, has his ideas about “the essential truth” of the play, and is congratulatory over Chris Jaeger’s “masterly brushstrokes” as director. But it would all be for nothing “without the right materials, and his [Jaeger's] artist’s palette must surely overflow with the talents of Emily Portsmouth and Bob Churchill”.

Catherine Phillips writing in the latter, however, is less effusive. She appreciates the “convincing” changes between different roles, but her dislike of the play itself and her opinions of the morals displayed by the characters appear to be a hang-up. She also discusses the amount of sex at the Swan (is it really so much, or does it just appear that way if sex is particularly salient to someone as they flick through the programming brochure?)

The text of both reviews follows below.

From the Worcester News:

The essential truth is men are hopelessly inadequate idiots
By John Phillpott [Friday 2nd May]

IT would be easy to jump to conclusions as scene one unfolds - street girl and cab driver, grubby exploitative sex and nothing more.

The next two settings appear to reinforce the victim theme, loveless liaisons that depress rather than titillate.

David Hare’s creation was forged in the white-hot sexual heat of earlier works, Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen and La Ronde, a 1950s cult film classic. Each incarnation sends out the fashionable messages of the day, whether Marxist orthodoxy or feminist rant.

Yet director Chris Jaeger is possibly alone in recognising the essential truth of this piece - that all men are, on some fundamental level, hopelessly inadequate idiots. They stumble about like drunks, intoxicated on their own hormones.

But Jaeger’s masterly brush strokes would be as nothing without the right materials, and his artist’s palette must surely overflow with the talents of Emily Portsmouth and Bob Churchill. Despite a decidedly Edwardian demeanour, Ms Portsmouth effortlessly flits from uncouth hooker to posh married bint and from classy model to prima donna actress.

Meanwhile, Mr Churchill as the aristocrat and politician actually starts to sound like his namesake at times, with just a hint of Boris Johnson for good measure.

But what really hits home is all this laughable male vanity, delusion and pure stupidity laid bare - literally on occasion - for all to see.

It is not always a pretty picture, yet the so-called weaker sex somehow always manages to rise above it all.

The Blue Room is a bitter-sweet sideways glance at the human condition, neatly held together by some cool jazz sounds. It runs until Saturday and is well worth a visit.

And the Worcester Standard:

Blue Room shows sex in cold light
Catherine Phillips
02 May 2008

The Blue Room
Swan Theatre
Until Saturday, May 3

There must be something in the water down at The Swan Theatre.

Recently, their programme has featured Get Naked - The Boys are Back in Town!, a musical involving men dancing and singing in the nude, the sex and swear-word-filled Closer, and now David Hare’s The Blue Room.

Ten scenes featuring a circular story of sexual situations, many of which show a cold, callous desire for the action rather than any true feelings of love and devotion.

Two actors play all the parts: Emily Portsmouth and Bob Churchill, each with five characters from various backgrounds all linked by their last bleak sexual encounter.

The diversity of characters, and in particular their accents, was seemingly handled better by Churchill than Portsmouth who initially struggled with a cockney accent as The Girl and an Eastern European accent as The Au Pair.

However, when playing the Married Woman who embarks on a tryst with The Student before returning to her husband, The Politician, Portsmouth created the strongest character on the stage.

She also dealt with her numerous nude scenes with no embarrassment and the pair were convincing in their different roles.

The bare set leant itself well to the audience’s leap in imagination for the different locations while the sometimes lengthy costume and set changes were punctuated by a delightful live jazz band.

Hidden behind a length of material, I found myself looking forward to the musicians’ return.

However, the play itself presents a very cold view of sexual relationships and, perhaps because there is so much nudity and swearing, lacked any real warmth.

Maybe I am just too much of a romantic but I would have liked to have seen some genuine affection coupled with the betrayal and lust as they do not have to be mutually exclusive.

On the way out I was handed a leaflet for another production at the Swan Theatre, The Naked Truth, featuring pole dancing.

There is definitely something in the water.

The Blue Room starts at 7.30pm and tickets are available by calling 01905 611427.

The text of both articles follows below.

Sex can be ridiculous in controversial Swan play [Friday 25th April]

A BOLD play about sex, love and betrayal is at Worcester’s Swan Theatre next week.

The Swan Theatre Amateur Company (STAC) will stage The Blue Room from Tuesday. In Sir David Hare’s controversial play, adapted from cult film La Ronde, two actors portray 10 sexual scenes as five different couples, drawing on the idea that sex is often ridiculous.

“I think Worcester can handle it,” said actor Bob Churchill, who stars with Emily Portsmouth. “We’ve got a jazz trio accompanying the action, and the play’s funny too, in a poignant kind of way.”

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Directed by Worcester Live’s Chris Jaeger, it contains nudity, explicit sexuality and strong language. It runs until Saturday, May 3.

Tickets are available from the box office on 01905 611427.

And Chris Jaeger’s column on the production:

CENTRE STAGE [Friday 18th April]

Chris Jaeger of Worcester Live

I am directing two different plays at the moment, the Blue Room and the Taming Of The Shrew.

In some ways, they could not be more different but there are also some surprising similarities.

The Blue Room is based on a play called La Ronde which shocked European audiences in the 1920s, although actually there weren’t many audiences because it was banned for some years after its first performance! David Hare has written a modern version - it was a smash hit in the West End with Nicole Kidman in the title role. (Nicole was not available for the forthcoming Worcester version but I do have a very good alternative actress!) The play is for adults only and is controversial in that there is nudity, sex scenes and strong language.

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However, the play is a brilliant insight into human nature (seen through our attitude to sex) and in the end, it is the words in the play that are significant, not the actions.

Taming Of The Shrew is also a controversial play these days, with the apparent subjugation of a strong-willed woman by fairly strong chauvinist actions.

However, there are many ways of presenting a text, and as this was written as a comedy, I am playing it for all the laughs I can get. I am sure we will not be offending the female, or indeed the male audience.

The Shakespeare is outdoors at the Commandery in the middle two weeks of June. The Blue Room is at the Swan starting on April 29. Come on, be daring.

* Chris Jaeger is chief executive of Worcester Live.

Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes wrote plays about war while the body bags were still coming home from the war with Sparta that finally sank Athens. They pushed the forms of Greek drama - epic cycle, impassioned debate and convulsive comedy - to breaking point to grapple with war and all its fallouts. In their form as much as their content, plays like The Oresteia, The Trojan Women and Lysistrata broke the mould of theatre. For these dramatists, war was too dehumanising to be left to the chroniclers and historians. Alarms had to be sounded for all citizens through the artifice of theatre.

Today, in the fifth year of the Iraq war and its seemingly endless aftermath, playwrights are beginning to create drama up to the measure of our wartime wasteland.

The whole article continues at Comment is free.

The article refers to the linked themes of our two upcoming plays, and looks forward to “Marber’s multi-award winning play about passion and betrayal.”

The text of the article follows below.

Witty play about love and betrayal

THE Swan Theatre Amateur Company is making a habit of performing plays about sexual desire.

Next week, the group present Closer, Patrick Marber’s multi-award winning play about passion and betrayal.

The witty play - which was adapted into a film starring Clive Owen and Natalie Portman in 2004 - has been described as painful, sad and wise, sometimes course, sometimes obscene. It is known for having a resounding effect on anyone who has ever loved and lost or experienced infidelity. Set in contemporary London, it tells the story of four people who over a period of years meet and fall in, and out, of love.

Directing this production is Math Jones, who has starred in numerous STAC productions, including The Caretaker and Uncle Vanya. Math, who is making a return to directing after a 20-year break, is working with an experienced cast - Suzie Davis, Jim Ballard, Jonathan Scot, and Amber Bluck.

For tickets, priced £7.50, call the Worcester Live box office on 01905 611427.

Often dark, but shot through with knowing humour, Closer and The Blue Room stand together as complimentary twin shows for our spring season.

Closer is in final rehearsals for its run next week and is directed by Math Jones (a profile will follow on the blog momentarily).

Bob Churchill and Emily Portsmouth star in The Blue Room

Meanwhile The Blue Room features in the Worcester News today, with words from both actors in the two-person show.

The text of the article follows below.

[UPDATE: Closer made the same paper! See this subsequent post.]

Stories linked by a sexual daisy chain
By Lauren Rogers

“IT’S about sex, but it isn’t pornography.”

Worcester’s Bob Churchill, currently preparing to play a range of characters in the Swan Theatre Amateur Company’s (STAC) production of The Blue Room, is fully aware of the play’s distinctly adult themes.

“It’s about sex, or at least relationships that revolve around sex and how sometimes there can be very little love between lovers,” he said. “It is about longing. It’s about desire and deceit and fulfilment - or the lack of it - and touches on lots of important themes central to a full human life.”

The Blue Room, a modern adaptation of Arthur Shnitzler’s 1897 play La Ronde, is performed by STAC at Worcester’s Swan Theatre in April.

Directed by Worcester Live’s Chris Jaeger, it features strong language, explicit sexuality and nudity - not that it will put theatre-goers off.

Emily Portsmouth, who lives near Tenbury Wells, is making her STAC debut opposite Churchill. The 26-year-old, who admits this is her favourite play, is not concerned by nude scenes.

“I hadn’t met Chris or Bob before the audition and I was naked for the promotional shots,” she said. “But the worst is over.”

The two-hander follows 10 characters linked, to borrow Churchill’s words, by “a sort of sexual daisy chain”.

“You could be following the path of a sexually transmitted infection, although this is never made explicit,” he said.

“Each scene sort of builds through a seduction of various kinds, slides into sex and then briefly breaks. When the lights come back up we’re seeing the characters after the deed is done, usually lying around naked or pleased with themselves and so on. Sometimes it’s the first time they’ve slept together, other times it’s the end of a relationship, or the middle.”

STAC’s production of The Blue Room runs from Tuesday, April 29, to Saturday, May 3.

For tickets, priced from £5 to £9.50, call the Worcester Live box office on 01905 611427 or visit www.worcesterlive.co.uk.