The First 40 Years: 1979

This is part of a series of articles looking at the first 40 years of the Stephen Joseph Theatre (1955 to 1995) from the perspective of the theatre's Archive. The articles were first published in the SJT Circular newsletter.

1979: An Event

by Simon Murgatroyd

Over the decades, the Stephen Joseph Theatre has captured imaginations with what Alan Ayckbourn has dubbed ‘event theatre’.

These are productions which emphasise what makes theatre unique and so different to other media such as film and television. This largely being the ‘live’ element.

House & Garden is a prime example of ‘event theatre’ with its two plays performed concurrently in two auditoria with a single cast moving between the two; it is a uniquely theatrical concept and can’t be replicated in other media.

The foundations of ‘event theatre’ at the SJT date back to 1973 with The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy of plays looking at the events of a single weekend from the perspective of the lounge, dining room and garden.

However, the first true example of ‘event theatre’ at the SJT was the premiere of Sisterly Feelings at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round in 1979. Here a template was set with an ambitious play with an element which made it a uniquely live event.

In this case, the crucial element was random choices which decided the course of the play; audiences would not know what they might see each night with a play that had four possible variations.

Add to this, arguably the largest and most ambitious set yet conceived at the venue and we have a true theatrical event in the making.

And what perhaps makes it even more notable was this was a play created for two venues: the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round and the National Theatre - a more extreme range of venues is hard to imagine.

The concept of Sisterly Feelings dates back to 1974 when Alan Ayckbourn was first invited to write for the National Theatre by its Artistic Director Peter Hall (who wooed Alan with the immortal line, “Alan, you can well do without the National Theatre. But ask yourself this, can the National Theatre do without you?”)

The result was the National’s earliest success at its new South Bank home, Bedroom Farce, which led to the request for a second play, but which would be performed in the National’s largest auditoria, the 1,000 seater The Olivier.

Faced with such a daunting space which completely dwarfed the stage in Scarborough, Alan came up with an ingenious solution which would allow the play to suit both the SJT and the NT. He set Sisterly Feelings on Pendon Common, a park whose size could obviously work at the SJT (with a little imagination) but also sit very comfortably in the huge stage space of the Olivier.

This would not mean Scarborough would be the NT’s poor cousin, for Alan had a plan to expand the stage in a way that had never been attempted before. He decided he would all but remove one of the seating blocks to create a 12ft high grass bank which would play a very memorable and prominent part in the Scarborough production - not least when an actor freewheels a cycle down it!

Having decided upon the physical setting, Alan set about writing the play and producing something which emphasised the uniqueness of theatre and which could not be seen on the small or large screen.

His solution was a play which began with a set first scene but then which had two alternative second and third scenes before everything came back for a single final scene. At the end of the first scene, a character would flip a coin and - depending on how it landed - that would dictate the choice of second scene. At the end of that scene, an actor would then make a random choice about which of the third scenes was to be performed.

Neither the actors, the company, stage management team or audience would have any idea which of the four variations of the play they would see on any given night.
Thus the first of Alan’s ‘chance’ plays was born - and he would go on to write It Could Be Any One Of Us, Mr A’s Amazing Maze Plays and Roundelay, which all incorporate elements of chance.

Once written, Sisterly Feelings was the most ambitious play Alan had yet written; although he would surpass it in just three years when he tackled his epic Intimate Exchanges.

To accommodate what was, in essence two plays, the production had the longest rehearsal time yet for any play produced at the SJT, running from November through to January. The play opened on 10 January 1979 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round with the first two performances ‘set’ to allow each major variation to be performed. The third performance was the crucial one though as this would incorporate the random element for the first time. As Alan Ayckbourn himself recalls, the coin-flip did not quite go to plan.

“I stood in the control box and watched as we reached the end of the first scene. The historic moment arrived when the coin would be tossed and the fate of the evening decided. The actor in question tossed the coin. It landed, would you believe? On edge, a chance in a million, and rolled like a thing possessed offstage into the wings. The actors, who hadn't much alternative, sheepishly followed it. Thus theatre history was made offstage and out of sight of everyone.”

The play proved to be highly popular and a sell-out during its initial run. It would then return for the summer season, proving to be the biggest hit of the year at the theatre.
In a nod to people wanting to see variations of the play they hadn’t already seen though, 11 of the final 15 performances were fixed and did not feature any random elements. Instead the choices were made and advertised beforehand to allow people a guaranteed chance to see a version not previously seen.

Between the winter and summer run, Sisterly Feelings went on a European tour to Brussels, Rotterdam, Bad Godesberg, Arnhem, Amsterdam, Herford, Cologne and Eindhoven.

Intriguingly, due to alterations taking place at Westwood at the time, the touring production had to be rehearsed in Scarborough’s Spa Grand Hall and Royal Opera House.

Following Sisterly Feelings, the idea of ‘event theatre’ became part an integral part of this theatre. Within short order, Alan would flood the entire auditorium to create Way Upstream and create his epic Intimate Exchanges; a play featuring 16 different variations with more than 60 hours of dialogue learnt by just two actors playing a cast of 10 characters.

Alan was determined that there was no limit to what could be achieved at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round.

Article by and copyright of Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce this article without permission of the copyright holder.