On Thursday I paid a visit to Bury St Edmunds with my good friend Jan Jones to attend an evening performance at the Theatre Royal of The Wolf and the Lamb by Thomas Egerton Wilkes and The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald, written and performed by Katie Bonna. This came under the umbrella of a programme entitled Restoring the Repertoire - A Series of rehearsed readings of forgotten gems from the 18th Century theatrical repertoire.
The first of these two pieces was not in costume but was a reading of a play which had been read through and rehearsed by the actors for the first time that afternoon. It was an extremely silly and funny farce about two identical brothers who had been brought up separately, one turned out to be an honourable and studious young man, Edwin and his brother, who rejoiced in the name of Gossamer had spent his life in London and was a cad and a rake and all that was shallow and dastardly. Their cousin Rose has to marry one of them or forfeit a fortune and of course Edwin adores her but is too shy to tell her of his love, and she turns to Gossamer who is prepared to marry her purely for her fortune. Well, we all know that there is going to be lots of mishaps and mistakes and muddles in mistaken identity before all ends happily and so it does, but it was tremendous fun and acted with great verve and brio by the actors.
The second half was a one person monologue about Mrs Inchbald. The programme notes tell us that 'independent, determined, ambitious, witty and talented the beautiful Mrs Inchbald was a remarkable woman and not just by the standards of the period she lived in. Born in Stanningfield near Bury St Edmunds, she became one of the most successful playwrights of her time and her play Lover's Vows is immortalized in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park'
Katie Bonna who both wrote and acted in this play was very very good indeed at bringing to life all her friends and family, switching between the different characterisations with great ease and style. This was a fascinating piece but it really did require concentration and attention from the audience, which she certainly obtained and held. My knowledge of this period of history is not as comprehensive as I would like it to be, in fact it is pretty poor, but suddenly in the middle of The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald, Mary Wollstonecraft and her marriage to William Godwin was mentioned and suddenly it all fell into place and I had the sense of period there in my grasp which really enhanced my enjoyment of this piece. (My knowledge of Mr Godwin and Mary was gained by reading Death and the Maiden by Janet Todd last year which I reviewed here).
At the end of the evening the company came onto the stage and a question and answer discussion took place between the audience and the actors which was extremely interesting and I put forward the view that knowing something of the background and historical context of the Mrs Inchbald play must surely add to our enjoyment and would it be a different kettle of fish to perform this play in front on an audience who knew nothing about it? I gather that this has already been done and seemed to be well accepted and, really, I suppose you would be highly unlikely to attend an evening like this unless you were interested in this period.
An alert and intelligent audience and one who obviously love and support this theatre which is an absolute gem and recently restored and renovated. They do Shakespeare and opera there as well and I cannot think of a more perfect way to spend an evening in this wonderful building (the only working Georgian theatre in the UK I gather) watching such delightful acting as this. We were sitting in one of the boxes actually on the stage which put us slap bang in the middle of the action and it was such fun being so close.
Earlier in the day, Jan had taken me to the assembly rooms to have a look round as she had already told me just how wonderful the ante room was and here is a picture. Doesn't this just knock your socks off? Just as good as Bath and every Jane Austen character you can think of would be at home here. Simply gorgeous.
