to download the learning pack for the house that will not stand
TRANSCRIPT
by Marcus Gardley
Background Pack Written by Harry Mackrill
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Tricycle Creative Learning
The Tricycle’s Creative Learning programme works to develop the imaginations, aspirations and
potential of children and young people in the diverse community of Brent and beyond. Collaborating
with schools and young people, we use theatre, drama and film, to bring unheard young voices into
the mainstream; creating work that engages the emotions and provokes debate. Whether as
audiences, writers, performers or producers of new work at the theatre, young people are at the
Tricycle’s heart.
About this Background Resource Pack
This document is designed to give an insight into the research and rehearsal of the Tricycle’s 2014
production of The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley, directed by Indhu Rubasingham.
Contents
The Tricycle Theatre Production p3
Character Biographies p4
Background and Context: New Orleans, Free People of Colour. Placées and Voodoo p6
Assistant Director’s rehearsal diary p9
For further information on the inspiration behind the production and what to expect from the story,
please watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBaEm61z2tU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-MSYhsP3vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mGYGaWbQPg
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Background Pack | The House That Will Not Stand | Autumn 2014
The Tricycle Theatre 2014 Production of
The House That Will Not Stand By Marcus Gardley
The Production opened at the Tricycle Theatre Kilburn, on Friday 17 October 2014.
The Company
Odette Ronke Adekoluejo
Agnes Ayesha Antoine
La Veuve Michele Austin
Beartrice Martina Laird
Makeda Tanya Moodie
Marie Josephine Clare Perkins
Maude Lynn Danusia Samal
Visitor Paul Shelley
Director Indhu Rubasingham
Designer Tom Piper
Lighting Designer Paul Anderson
Composer Paul Englishby
Sound Designer Carolyn Downing
Movement Director Lucy Hinds
Voice Coach Richard Ryder
Casting Director Briony Barnett
Assistant Director Harry Mackrill
Michele Austin, Ronke Adekoluejo, Danusia Samal, Ayesha Antoine, Martina Laird
Photo: Mark Douet
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CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES
Beartrice Albans
The powerful matriarch of
the Albans household.
Beartrice is the placée (see
p7) of recently-deceased
Lazare, and mother to his
only daughters. She is a
free woman of colour, and
is spoken of as one of the
most powerful in New
Orleans.
Agnes Albans
At nineteen, Agnes is the
eldest daughter of Beartrice and Lazare. Agnes dominates her younger sisters and is determined to
attend the Quadroon Ball in order to become the placée of the wealthy and handsome Ramon le Pip.
She refers throughout the play to her own burgeoning sexuality and, Beartrice refers to Agnes as “all
body”.
Maude-Lynn Albans
The middle daughter of Beartrice and Lazare, Maude-Lynn had
the closest relationship with their father. Playwright Marcus
Gardley took inspiration for Maude-Lynn, a devout Catholic,
from Henriette DeLille, the first black nun in New Orleans.
Maude-Lynn is determined to keep her sisters as holy as she is.
Odette Albans
Odette is the baby of the family, aged fifteen. She is a hopeless
romantic and desperate to find true love. Odette has been
sheltered by Beartrice and has a naivety about the world. Her
journey through the play is one towards self-awareness and
enlightenment.
Marie-Josephine
Beartrice’s younger sister, who has been locked in the house
since she was a young woman, when she was found trying to run off with an African drummer she
met in Congo Square. Marie always tells the truth but people rarely believe her because they think
she is mad.
Ayesha Antoine (Agens(), Danusia Samal(Maude-Lynn), Ronke Adekoluejo (Odette)
Photo: Mark Douet
Clare Perkins (Marie-Josephine)
Photo: Mark Douet
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Makeda Albans
Makeda is a slave belonging to Lazare and
Beartrice (slaves often took the surname of their
owners). She has been part of the household for
many years, and helped raise the three girls.
However, she remains an independent spirit, one
who seeks her own freedom from slavery.
La Veuve
A free woman of colour. La Veuve is Beartrice’s
oldest friend, who nonetheless betrayed her when
she fell in love with Beartrice’s first love Armand.
The two have been rivals ever since. It is La Veuve’s
greatest wish to take Beartrice’s house from her.
Lazare Albans
A wealthy, white fur trader of New Orleans.
Married to a local white woman, but his true love is
Beartrice –who has been his placée for 20 years.
Lazare has died of a heart attack the night before
the play begins, but his body remains onstage
throughout.
Michele Austin (La Veuve)
Photo: Mark Douet
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Background Pack | The House That Will Not Stand | Autumn 2014
CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND
The House That Will Not Stand is set in New Orleans in 1836, in the household of Lazare and Beartrice
Albans. They share this house with their three daughters: Agnes, Maude-Lynn and Odette, as well as
Beartrice’s younger sister, Marie-Josephine, and their house slave, Makeda. We meet the family on
the morning following the death of Lazare, with Beartrice demanding that “they go into mourning
for seven months like proper free coloured women.”
To understand the narrative, and the decisions that the characters make, we need to understand the
context of the play; the time and place in which the Albans live. The social constraints of New
Orleans in 1836 have a direct impact on each and every character of the play.
New Orleans
The land on which New Orleans now lies was founded as a French colony in the late17th Century,
and was alternately under French and Spanish rule for the next hundred years. Spanish and French
sensibilities intermingled with African and Caribbean ones, as many Black Creoles and slaves
emigrated from Haiti to New Orleans in response to the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).
This resulted in a unique fusion of culture, religion and cuisine that still exists today. When America
bought the city from France in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans became part of
the United States. Through this, America obtained a thriving and culturally distinct port town, with
free passage to the Mississippi River.
As an important port with a large population, New Orleans played a key role in both the Atlantic and
domestic slave trade in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Two-thirds of the slaves brought to the
Deep South arrived via forced
migration through the internal
slave trade; where free people
of colour were taken from their
homes and forced into slavery.
Despite its role in the slave
trade, New Orleans also had the
highest population in the
country of free people of colour
at the time; individuals who
were often educated and
middle-class property owners.
During the first half of the 19th
Century, New Orleans became
the wealthiest city in America,
due to the profit it made from
the slave trade.
New Orleans’ French Quarter in the early 19th
Century
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Free People of Colour
Despite the slave market, New Orleans had a thriving black community, known as free people of
colour. When French settlers and traders first arrived in the colony, the men took Native American
women as their concubines or common-law wives, and when African slaves were later imported to
the colony, they took African women as wives. Thus a Créole population began and grew in New
Orleans – these were the free people of colour.
Free people of colour developed as a separate class with
a status between the colonial French and Spanish and
the enslaved black African workers. They often obtained
an education and achieved some measure of wealth,
spoke French and practiced Catholicism. At one time the
centre of their residential community was the French
Quarter. Many owned property and their own businesses.
They formed a social category distinct from both whites
and slaves.
Plaçage
Many Créole women engaged in a form of common law
marriage, known as plaçage, with white European men
during the early 19th Century. With European men
outnumbering women, the male colonists took free
women of colour as mistresses. By the early 18th century
the plaçage system was developed to define the legal
ramifications of these relationships, including inheritance
of property and rights of the offspring. A white man was
entitled to have a white wife and still engage in the legal system of plaçage.
The most common way for a white man to find and secure a
placée was through the convention of dances, known as
Quadroon Balls. These Balls were designed to encourage liaisons
between mixed-race women and wealthy white men through
plaçage. Usually a masked event, they happened as often as once a
week and were populated solely by white men and Creole women.
Voodoo
Voodoo was brought to the French colony Louisiana from Africa,
and from the Haitian exiles after the Haitian revolution. From
1719 to 1731, the majority of African Captives were brought
directly from what is now Benin, West Africa. They took with them
their cultural practices, language, and religious beliefs, rooted in
spirit and ancestor worship. Their knowledge of herbs, poisons,
and the ritual creation of charms and amulets, intended to protect
Placées in New Orleans
Voodoo Practitioner Marie Laveau
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oneself (or harm others), became key elements of Louisiana Voodoo.
European and African religion and custom entwined in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries and as
a direct consequence, Catholicism became a valued part of the Voodoo tradition. The core beliefs of
Louisiana Voodoo include the recognition of one God who does not interfere in people's daily lives,
in addition to spirits that preside over daily life. Spiritual forces, which can be kind or mischievous,
shape daily life and intercede in the lives of their followers.
One of the most renowned Voodoo practitioners of the 19th Century was Marie Laveau. Marie was
the illegitimate daughter of a rich Creole plantation owner, Charles Laveaux, and his mistress
Marguerite. Both she and her daughter, also named Marie, had a large following in New Orleans, and
her practice is still remembered today.
Definitions and Further Information
Domestic slave trade: The forced transportation and enslavement of free people of colour
across State lines in America, predominantly to work in cotton fields
in the Southern States.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation and enslavement of West and Central
African people across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas between
the 16th and 19th Centuries.
Haitian Revolution: A slave uprising in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue, which
culminated in the elimination of slavery there, and the formation of
the Republic of Haiti.
The Louisiana Purchase: A land deal in 1803, in which America bought around 827,000 miles
of land (much of what are now the central states of the USA,
including Louisiana in the South) from France for around $15 million
dollars.
Créole: A term that means ‘native born’. In Louisiana, Créole people are
those born in America who are of African and either French or
Spanish descent.
Plaçage: A recognised system in French and Spanish colonies of America
where white European men entered into extra-marital common-law
marriages with women of African, Native American or mixed-race
descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place
with".
Common-law marriage: A marriage considered valid by both partners, but not formally
registered with any state or church registry. Depending on the
period in history, and local laws, these marriages may carry the same
rights and obligations as traditional ceremonial marriages.
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ASSISTANT DIRECTOR’S REHEARSAL DIARY
Pre-production:
The work that leads up to the production of a play begins long before the first day in the rehearsal
room. The House That Will Not Stand has been part of the consciousness here at the Tricycle Theatre
since it was sent to us a year ago. Once a play has been programmed, the creative team is
assembled, the process of designing the production begins and the actors are cast.
As often happens with new plays, there was also additional work on the script. The House That Will Not
Stand has previously been produced in America, but Marcus still felt the play had the potential for
further development. He and Indhu therefore spent the year discussing elements of the narrative
and how it could be developed. Once Marcus had a draft he felt happy with, we assembled the cast a
month before rehearsals started, to hear the play aloud for the first time. This would usually happen
on the first day of rehearsals, but giving the play an additional reading allowed Marcus and Indhu to
hear the elements that had worked and identify those parts of the story that still needed
development.
Week One:
The meet and greet (where the company come
together with theatre staff for the first time) of
the first Monday of rehearsals is a calmer event
than usual, due to the workshop in the summer.
Each face feels familiar and there is a real
excitement from everyone. During the morning
session we read the play aloud and then Indhu
hands over to Marcus who explains his inspiration
for The House.... He tells us that, for the
characters, “language is their most important
weapon. They relish their own wit. The language
is in contrast with their bodies – especially when
constrained by corsets.”
The play is imbued with the socio-political
landscape of New Orleans in the 19th Century,
and during the first week the company share
pieces of research in order to understand the
history behind the text and the world the
characters inhabit. Marcus discusses race in New
Orleans under French and Spanish rule and
explains the status of the free people of colour.
We also learn about the system of plaçage, and
how important it is to the lives of Beartrice and her three daughters. To become a white man’s placée
was one of the only ways of securing a stable position in society. In addition to this, we also talk
about the slave trade (both the Atlantic and the domestic slave trades) and the Louisiana Purchase.
Michele Austin
Photo: Mark Douet
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All of these factors have a direct effect on each character, and for the actors to play their parts with
authenticity they need a deep level of understanding of these influences.
The Créole culture of New Orleans has elements of the French and Spanish languages, so we spend
much the first week perfecting the pronunciation of certain French words – and of names!
Week Two:
After the necessary table work of Week One, it is exciting to get the play on its feet and start to
inhabit the Albans’ home. We discuss the architecture of the house and the differences between the
size and shape of the rehearsal room, and the stage, once it is filled by Tom Piper’s set design. We
then have the first movement session with our Movement Director, Lucy Hind. This session focuses
on the wearing of corsets and use of fans. As Lucy tells us, the fans and corsets were seen as “an
extension of one’s self” – and Tom contextualises this for us by saying that we should think of the fan
as the equivalent of a mobile phone: never far from reach!
Movement during the turn of the
19th Century was incredibly
mannered. All people, especially
women, were taught ‘correct’
ways to sit, stand and walk, and
we therefore work towards
making this consistent for all
members of the cast. Posture is
upright and walking is slow and
restrained – which, as Marcus
told us last week, is in direct
contrast to the lines the
characters are speaking.
Lucy then works separately with
Clare, who plays Marie Josephine
– Beartrice’s younger sister. Marie has a pivotal moment in the play when she dances to the
bamboulas (the drums played by her lost lover). During the early 19th Century, the playing of the
drum was banned by the ruling white population – and the only place it was allowed to be heard in
New Orleans was in Congo Square. Clare and Lucy work together, using footage from the internet
and then combining their own ideas to create a fluid, seemingly improvised, dance. The dance
expresses the freedom that the women so urgently need, and is a wonderful contrast to the
restrained waltz during Act One.
In conjunction with this work, the foundation for the production, Marcus is constantly watching
rehearsals and rewriting the moments where he and Indhu feel the narrative could be more clearly
told.
Danusia Samal and Clare Perkins
Photo: Mark Douet
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Week Three:
After the initial discoveries
of the first fortnight we start
to add detail to each scene
and character. Each
element of the play is
starting to come together
to create a unified whole. A
perfect example happens
on Tuesday when we have
both Paul Englishby, our
composer, and Darren Lang,
the illusion consultant,
come in and work with the
cast.
Paul has written the music to the lyrics Marcus wrote into the script, and spends an afternoon
teaching the cast the initial parts of the songs. It is interesting to hear the many different styles and
sounds that come through, illuminating how culturally diverse New Orleans was (and remains to this
day). The three daughters are taught traditional Latin hymns, whilst Tanya – who plays Makeda –
learns the spiritual “Jordan River”. We also hear the music for the waltz – and start to discuss how the
rhythm of the bamboulas will be used during Marie Josephi ne’s dance.
We then turn our thoughts to magic! Darren teaches Clare
a slight of hand trick to inform her line, “but I have six
cents...” and we explore multiple possibilities of how
Lazare’s ghost can ‘appear’. Darren has brought an
‘invisibility cloak’ in for Paul Shelley (Lazare) to try on. In
reality, this is a large black cloak with a thin line of thread
attached to a hood – Paul will walk onto the stage during
a black-out, covered by the cloak, and the audience will
not be able to see him. When given the cue, our assistant
stage manager, Imogen, will pull the thread off stage and
Paul will appear, as if by magic!
Week Four:
Our fourth week begins with a visit from Crispin, an expert
on voodoo. He comes in to talk to us about the nature of
voodoo ritual, to help us to understand the scene at the
top of Act Two. It is important to all of us that we
represent voodoo authentically and respectfully – the
audience must come with us on the journey through the
scene.
Ronke Adekoluejo
Photo credit: Mark Douet
Martina Laird
Photo: Mark Douet
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Crispin tells us a great deal about the history of voodoo, as well as the current practices. There are
many different forms of voodoo across of the world, and New Orleans has very a particular practice
that Marcus is familiar with. We link these two thoughts together and Marcus comes in the following
day with a rewritten version of the opening of Act Two, which incorporates everything that we learnt
from Crispin. It is exciting to hear the new scene for the first time, and through changes (and a
clarification of the ritual) the scene gains greater dramatic purpose.
Towards the end of the week we are joined by our fight director, Kevin McCurdy. The challenge of
stage fighting is that it must remain safe at all times while seeming viscerally real for the audience.
Kevin is very clear in his direction and soon the fights are both safe to play and terrifying to watch!
We continue to work through the play and end the week with a run. This allows Indhu to chart the
arch of the narrative, and for each actor to understand their own character’s journey when we piece
the whole together.
Week Five:
The usual rehearsal period for a play at the Tricycle would
be four weeks, but fortunately for us we have a luxurious
extra week in the rehearsal room. This allows us to focus
even further on the detail of the play and continue to
grow and develop in a safe environment. Indhu utilises
the extra time we have by running the play three times
over the course of the week. This allows the company to
understand the rhythm of the piece, both when they are
on and off stage.
We are joined by members of our creative team: sound
designer Carolyn Downing and lighting designer Paul
Anderson. They both sit and watch the runs to formulate
their ideas for the design. Sound and Lighting Designers
have to navigate between the requirements of the play
and the practicality of the space and budget. By watching
the play in the rehearsal room, they can start to clarify
their own artistic vision but also begin to problem solve
before the technical rehearsal begins in the theatre.
After our final run on Friday afternoon, we say goodbye to the rehearsal room. It has been a time of
real creativity, and there has been much laughter both on and off stage! However, it feels time to
take the production to the next stage of its life, and it is exciting to be heading into the theatre and
allowing the work of the creative team to be realised.
Tech Week:
As we begin tech week, we see the Albans’ house for the first time. Tom Piper’s set is magnificent,
and it is great to see such a sweeping staircase in the Tricycle! As with all technical rehearsals, the
Tanya Moodie
Photo: Mark Douet
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week is a slow process, where each designer watches individual scenes then works to build up
lighting and sound cues as required. It takes patience, but before our eyes (and ears!) New Orleans
starts to appear.
After three long days we end with a dress rehearsal. It is the first time the cast have performed the
play in its entirety since last Friday, and the next time we tell this story it will be in front of the final
piece of the puzzle: the audience. As Indhu tells the cast, “this is the beginning of the next stage – it
is about finding out what this story is with an audience.”
Throughout the following week the creative team will watch each preview, learning what works and
what doesn’t in front of an audience. We listen to how the audience react to a story they are
witnessing for the first time, and make sure the play is as clear as it can be without sacrificing the
complexity of Marcus’ story.
This is the final step in our journey for the play. Now it is up to the cast and stage management,
along with each new audience, to continue to tell the story of the Albans over the course of the run.
It’s an exciting time – and as they say in New Orleans, “let the good times roll!”