22 Jul A Sense of Direction – The Great Outdoors with Red Rose Chain

Every part of the performing arts industry suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, but once the lockdowns had been lifted and limited freedoms restored, there was one form of in-person theatre that boomed like never: outdoor theatre. During the summers of 2020 and 2021, al fresco entertainment flourished.

New, open-air auditoria were built, pop-up theatres popped-up, and productions were performed outside everywhere from Penzance to Pitlochry. Some of these stages were short-lived: once they were able, the artists involved retreated indoors again. Some, however, seem here to stay. Perhaps, with high summer temperatures set to become the norm, outdoor theatre will too.

Staging a show outside, though, is not the same as its indoor equivalent. It requires a different approach to direction and design. It requires actors and artists to adapt to the environment, to work with everything from changeable weather to animal interruption. And that, as Joanna Carrick, artistic director of Ipswich-based company Red Rose Chain explains, can be a long process.

“Staging shows outside takes a hell of a lot of getting used to,” Carrick says. “It takes time to understand the potential of a space. It takes you two or three years to work out what works there and what doesn’t. Once you have, though, you can get such an intimate connection with the audience, more so than you do in a traditional theatre. It sounds corny, but I call it cosmic.”

***

Carrick and Red Rose Chain have been staging open-air shows in Suffolk for over two decades. The company’s annual Theatre In The Forest event started in 2000 with a two-night run of an original play called UFO, staged in Rendlesham Forest and based on the mysterious, possibly alien sightings in the area in December 1980. Ten years later, and Theatre In The Forest had become a fixture of the East Anglian summer, a month-long Shakespeare that attracted over 10,000 audience members.

“I remember going to look at the space in Rendlesham Forest on a very rainy day in April and thinking, ‘Oh my God, what on earth have I signed myself up for here?’” says Carrick. “250 people turned up to each night of that first show, though. Something about it seemed to capture people’s imagination, so we decided to carry on doing it.”

In 2013, Theatre In The Forest left Rendlesham after 12 successive productions there, and relocated to Jimmy’s Farm, just south of Ipswich. After seven shows there, and two fallow years during the pandemic – Red Rose Chain did not stage a show in the summers of 2020 or 2021 – the event is moving home again. On July 27, the company will open its production of Macbeth at the nearby National Trust site of Sutton Hoo.

“Macbeth has been in development for a long time, and it’s gone through a bit of a metamorphosis,” says Carrick. “At first, it was going to be very Anglo Saxon, in keeping with its environment. Now, it is presented as if it is being performed by a band of travelling players. Our van broke down irreparably recently, and we’ve turned it into this Dr Seuss-style castle. The witches are giant puppets made by Nick Barnes Puppets, who designed Life Of Pi. It is going to look brilliant.”

***

The to-do-list for staging a show outdoors is much longer than it is for staging a show in a traditional theatre, explains Carrick. First, there are the practical considerations, from stage to seating, from insurance to interval refreshments, from portaloos to parking. Then come the artistic considerations.

“There is so much to play with,” Carrick says. “There are no walls, so you can play with simultaneity and have one scene start in the distance while another is still happening. The natural light changes, too, particularly if you perform in the evening. The first half is in daylight. In the second half, the darkness descends, the stars come out and stage lights kick in. It all becomes a lot more intense.”

Certain Shakespeare plays work better than others in this setting. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its fairy-filled forest, for example, is perfect, which is why Red Rose Chain has staged it four times. Macbeth works well, too, with Birnam Wood arriving at Dunsinane at the play’s conclusion. One thinks of the “blasted heath” in King Lear, and the Forest of Arden in As You Like It, too.

The most crucial thing with any outdoor staging, though, says Carrick, is to embrace the unexpected. “You cannot ignore the environment you’re in,” she explains. “It is better when you interact with it. I remember during one performance of Romeo and Juliet at Jimmy’s Farm, there was a wedding going on nearby. Romeo and Juliet were having their final scene in the tomb, and Stayin’ Alive was playing in the background. Romeo said, “This is not the time,” and it was brilliant.”

The same rules applies when it comes to the great enemy of any outdoor event in Britain, the weather. “I used to get really worried about the weather,” Carrick says. “I wanted it to be perfect all the time, but the truth is that people love it when crazy, unexpected things happen.”

“If it rains, we hand out biodegradable ponchos and people get a bit wet,” she continues. “In one performance in our production of Hamlet, this thick mist came across the stage for the grave digger scene, and it was amazing. If the lights fail for some reason, which has happened a few times, then we use torches instead. Stuff like that creates a really spiritual feeling with the audience.”

—

Joanna Carrick was talking to Fergus Morgan for SDUK.