‘Cabaret Alternative’
Starring the talents of
RoseAnn Victory
Louise Costa
Camille Tonna/Twickesbury
Joe Cruz
Timothy Cummings
Directed by
Andrew Dark
Backstory
Back in 1995, I came to spend a few months with my Mother. I really wanted to do some theatre, and I was in-luck. Because The Gibraltar Drama festival was coming up. So, I looked around and found out ‘Cabaret Alternative’ was looking for a director. They had been formed by Chris Victory and RoseAnn and earned a reputation of being edgy. By performing challenging pieces, including Jean Genet’s ‘The Maids’, Red Cross by Sam Sheppard and ‘In Camera’ by Satre. I couldn’t believe my luck at running into such a progressive group. Now, Chris had gone over to England to study and live. But he had chosen a play for the group to do. By this time Jackie had joined ‘Cabaret’ but was very pregnant and so was not up to directing. She limited herself to producing the play. At which she was a power-house. She’d already found the actors and cast them in the roles. Over coffee I met Jackie Villa and RoseAnn Victory, and was hired to direct ‘The Gnadiges Fraulein’. I passed the audition to direct a play I would not have picked. But, I ended up having a blast directing! LOL.
In the intervening 25 years since our production. I have wondered what Chris’ version of the piece would have looked like? I understand from Jackie and Rose Ann that he was a skilled and courageous director. But for me, even though I was used to directing absurdist pieces. I found this leaden and empty of ‘Joy. You see, Tennessee Williams had written it during a very bad time in his life. During the early 1960s Williams had fallen into a long depression and decline. Both fueled by his longtime addiction to alcohol and barbiturates. He felt he was being forgotten and wanted to be relevant again in the theatre. The absurdists Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett were the rising stars with their nouveau use of reductive, circular plots and language. This was, of course, completely the opposite of William’s poetical, lush prose and dialogue. Tennessee decided that the answer was to deconstruct his own ‘Romantic’ style and write something in the ‘New Way’. Thus was born ‘The Gnadiges Fraulein’ (The Gracious Lady). A tragicomedy which opened on Broadway on February 22, 1966 and folded after only seven performances. No surprise! It was a heavy-handed attempt to copy the new wave. It’s surrealistic, highly repetitive dialogue would have been almost unintelligible to audiences who knew William’s other works. My answer was to take a knife to it and cut all the doubled up lines. In an attempt to streamline the pace. I also threw in every single gag I could create to connect it to the local audience. Including making references to the ‘Tobacco’ smuggling, which was huge in Gibraltar at the time. The highly energetic and talented cast brought the house down with their performance. Though well received by the audience, it was disliked by the Adjudicator. C’est la vie!
