The adventure of producing a student show at the Oxford Playhouse

When I left Oxford I thought that would be it, no more student theatre… perhaps no more theatre ever again. My final experiences of the drama society were not as positive as they could have been and as a result I had turned my back on the world of performance. Thankfully, prior to this decision I went for lunch with a friend while in Edinburgh for Fringe. I vividly remember the day… having just seen and reviewed a show I was on my way back to the flat when I changed route and ended up eating pad Thai and gossiping. I was at the peak of chronic fatigue exhaustion at this point and could barely get my limbs to work, but through the snap decision to offer to help with said friend’s show should he need it I found myself months later producer of one of the most technically ambitious plays Oxford Drama has seen in society memory.

The ride has been far from a smooth one, the bumpiness not even being relieved once we got into the venue. There has been scandal, gossip, dropouts and tech week abdominal surgery… and everyone acknowledges this and the fact that we had one of the smallest crews to grace the Playhouse in a while. Given all of these factors, the results were no less spectacular than any other of the Clarendon shows.

Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses is at its heart a game played out by Merteuil (played by Susie Weidmann) and Valmont (Nic Rackow) with little consideration for the damage that they cause in the process. The play provides a cross section of 18th century society, displaying a fascinating array of characters all of whom were skilfully portrayed by an undeniably talented cast. But seeing as this is a reflection rather than a review I will refrain from descending into an admiring assessment of their performances, suffice to say I never got sick of watching it… even if it took until the final night for me to actually sit in the audience. I feel like there is no better example of how a producer’s work is never done – I would stand by the monitor every night watching the scenes play out, typically with phone in hand, tackling tasks which had suddenly materialised. Certainly it’s been a whirlwind week of admin and more messages and emails than I have ever received in my life, in which I perfected a little circuit around the theatre enabling me to check in with the head of each department regularly. This was all quite the stress inducing learning curve and by about half way through the week I will admit to walking out for lunch and taking two hours trying to convince myself to go back. In moments like this it’s the crew that you go back for. The cast were incredible performers and having the best time upon the stage, but its the hidden faces of a show, the cogs, who are constantly firefighting while somehow managing to stay calm that my admiration goes out to. It’s easy to forget in the post run euphoria quite how stressful the actual process is.

One of the things that drew my interest to this play right from the off was the live cinema. We all know I’m a Jamie Lloyd fan and the opportunity to gain an inside understanding of how this practically works was fascinating. Blending the feeds of the three cameras upon the stage with moments of prerecording, the audience were provided with an almost consistent alternative to their view of the action upon the stage. Particularly notable were the close up moments of Rackow’s fingers playing with the fabric of Merteuil’s dress. While on the topic of costume, most of what was worn on stage came from the National Theatre and was fitted and fixed by our talented our costume designer. Having just worked in a fashion cupboard it was quite a shock to discover the condition of many of the costumes. Hems were ripped, old fittings and unpickings were clear to see, and many layers of costume were crushed into thin clear clothing bags which were prone to ripping. It’s crazy how different the worlds of fashion and costume are!

Sitting in my bed trying to recover from a week of no respect for my chronic fatigue, or my autism for that matter, I find that I could write a gratitude list as long as a book’s acknowledgements… with mentions of people from our amazing Stage Manager and DSM to Louis on the stage door to, of course, Lucas, who I barely saw all week but without whom none of us would have been there. But for me there were two people in particular who kept me from falling from the knife edge of sanity I was teetering on this week. So to the most level headed and unshakable guys in my life, one in the centre of the action and one with no knowledge of how theatre works, thank you for taking the stress and chaos in your strides!

There are so many stories and moments crowding in my brain, that I can’t possibly list them all… so many people who came together to make this possible and worked so hard. I can’t imagine how anyone managed to find time for their degrees this week and am so glad I’ve already graduated! So as I sit here listening to the opening of Lou Newton’s incredible score once again, I know that I won’t be talking of much else for the next few weeks. So to Clarendon Girlies, unshakeable crew, almost sell out audiences and patient Jesubites who think I’m crazy, we made it! Live cinema was brought to the Oxford Playhouse and as a single tear rolled down Rackow’s cheek in that final performance, it was undeniably established that this blending of mediums is an exciting and unconventional new way to experience theatre rather a negative turn in the industry.