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The Vortex
By: Noel Coward.
Director: Brian Godden.
Assistant Director: Elaine Godden
Gulbenkian Theatre
24, 25, 26 June, 2010
 The Vortex, By Noel Coward.
 The set for final scene of The Vortex.
"The Vortex" is
a disturbing play, focusing on the psychology of its protagonists rather
than the cut and thrust of the events in the plot, a serious drama in
which its witty dialogue reveals profound observations about the human
condition.
The play was originally banned by the Lord Chamberlain as "far too
unpleasant" and, when performed, described as "dustbin drama"
by the tabloid press. However the author is in fact not condoning the
behaviour of his characters but reporting and describing it. The play
deals with drug addiction, adultery and nymphomania, with implicit suggestions
of homosexuality and oedipal love; indeed the final scene between mother
and son has been compared to that of Gertrude and Hamlet in Shakespeare's
masterpiece . Written 85 years ago, its subject matter is timeless and
still relevant today, and offers an excellent opportunity to anyone of
the Players looking for a challenging role.
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The scene is a country house party. Florence, a fading beauty, is having
an affair with Tom, a man of her son's age, Her son Nicky, a musician,
returns from Paris with his fiancée, Bunty, who recognizes Tom
as an old friend and soon falls in love with him. She breaks off her engagement
to Nicky, and Tom abandons Florence. A close family friend, Helen, tries
to advise Florence and Nicky, who are both emotionally unstable, but has
to witness the painful outcome of events, in which family secrets are
dramatically revealed.
Directors: Brian and Elaine Godden.
Stage Manager:
 Liz Findlay. Stage manager and actor. |
Liz Findlay
Actor: Play It Again Sam;
Much Ado About Nothing;
Stage Manager The Birthday
Party, La Ronde, The
Accrington Pals, Gosforth's
Fete; Play It Again Sam,
Fallen Angels, Blue
Remembered Hills; Two; Arsenic
And Old Lace; The Vortex
Liz joined the players in 2005 as prompt for Roleplay, rose to the position
of chief of teapot bearing and has been stage managing since then in Pinter's
"Birthday Party",
Ayckbourne's "Gosforth’s
Fete", Schnitzlers "La
Ronde", Whelan's "
The Accrington Pals" and Woody Allen's Play
It Again Sam in which she also took the part of Vanessa.
Liz is trained in Fine Art and has exhibited locally and has launched
a new small business for which www.canterburyart.co.uk
will be the new website. She designed the posters for Fallen
Angels, and Blue Remembered Hills,
Much Ado About Nothing
and The Vortex |
Occasional Stage Manager:
Jo Purvis. Actor.
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Jo Purvis
Assistant Director: Day After the Fair
Actor: Canterbury Tales
Occasional Stage Manager: The Vortex
Jo has always loved the theatre and spent most of her childhood playing
various Dickensian waifs and strays.
As a natural bossy boots, she relished the opportunity to hone her organisational
skills as Assistant Director for Day After the Fair.
She is looking forward to making her first stage performance for the
Players in the Canterbury Tales and
reprising her key role of official tea-maker. |
Set Design:
CAST
As Hellen Saville
Anne Hancox. Actor.
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Anne Hancox
Committee Member
Actor: RolePlay;
Play It Again, Sam; Fallen
Angels; Bazaar and Rummage;
Two; The Vortex.
Anne's early performances were all in music theatre. Later came a shift
to straight drama.
Her involvement with Canterbury's long-established amateur theatre group
Playcraft for 21 years and now, with The Canterbury Players has provided
a wealth of acting opportunities.
She has enjoyed numerous leading roles ranging from Nora in
Ibsen's "A Doll's House", Katharine in Shakespeare's
"The Taming of the Shrew"; the drunken and shameless Arabella
in Ayckbourn's "RolePlay"
and Julia in "Fallen
Angels" by Noel Coward. |
As Pauncefort Quentin
Tony Johnson
Read more about Tony Johnson. |
Tony Johnson
Actor: RolePlay;
Much Ado About Nothing;
Arsenic And Old Lace; The
Vortex.
Tony made his acting debut in the first year at Grammar school, when he
was cast as the Virgin Mary in a Nativity play.
"The embarrassment of this put me off acting for about twenty years,
until I joined the Charing Guild of Players with the proviso that I would
play only male roles.
"I began this acting hobby more than forty years ago and despite appearing in over fifty Plays and Musicals since then, I'm still trying to get it right!
"The
Vortex is only my second Noel Coward play since "Blithe Spirit" in 1977 so I'm looking forward to the role of 'Pawnie' - an elderly maiden gentleman - as the playwright describes him!
Should be a lot of fun." |
As Clara Hibbert
Jill Akhurst. Actor. Director. Director's
Assistant.
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Jill Akhurst
Director – "Palace of Varieties"
and "Bazaar and Rummage"
Director's Assistant "The
Accrington Pals"
Singer of saucy songs; Actor Fallen
Angels; Two; Arsenic
And Old Lace; The Vortex.
This is the second "old lady" Jill has played for the Canterbury
Players - are they trying to tell her something? Guildhall trained Jill
has been with the Players now for three years, during which time she has
directed "Palace of Varieties"
in 2007 and "Bazaar and Rummage"
in March this year. She also played the maid Saunders "Fallen
Angels" in (March 2008) and the Old Woman in "Two"
in July this year. She is also involved with the "Really Promising
Company" and enjoyed some success last October playing the Princess
Puffer in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" at the Theatre Royal,
Margate. |
As Florence Lancaster
Ruth Cameron
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Ruth Cameron.
Actor: Much Ado About
Nothing; Bazaar and Rummage;
Arsenic And Old Lace;The
Vortex.
Ruth was a singing, dancing, and acting child and won the best actor prize
for Lady Macbeth at age 16. Despite gaining a provisional place at the
Hampstead School of Drama, she did not follow an acting career.
In the 1980s Ruth co- produced a school pantomime with the writer John
Larr and took part in local sketches, but then did not return to drama
until 2006 when she joined the Canterbury Players; Ruth has been involved
in most productions since. This includes singing in Marie Lloyd songs
in "Palace of Varieties",
being an attendant in "Much
Ado About Nothing" and performing the outrageous, yet poignant
part of the blaspheming vulgarian Margaret Gittings in "Bazaar
and Rummage".
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As Tom Veryan
John Rye. Actor.
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John Rye
Actor: Blue Remembered Hills,
Much Ado About Nothing; Two;
The Vortex.
John has always loved the stage especially musical theatre. He took
lead roles in university productions of ‘Fame: The Musical’,
‘East’ & ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’. He also
directed successful performances of ‘Bouncers’ and an adult
pantomime. Since moving back to Kent he has worked with Yellow Brick Road
Theatre Company as well as the Really Promising Company in their shows
‘Promised Land’, ‘Kentish Tales’ & ‘The
Mystery of Edwin Drood’. John made his Canterbury Players debut
in 'Blue Remembered Hills' and
loved every single second of working with the wonderful cast, crew and
the fantastic support.
John moved back to kent after graduating in the summer of 2005 and is
now working far too hard as a teacher at Chaucer Technology School. Recently
he has worked with the Really Promising Company in their shows Promised
Land and Kentish Tales, through which he has met Sarah Gooch
and Sid Moon. He has also worked with Yellow Brick Road productions in
a very well received performance of 100 last year.
John would like to thank the Players for their warm reception and he
is looking forward to successful future productions.
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As Nicky Lancaster
Peter Fox. Actor.
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Peter Fox
Actor: Arsenic And Old Lace;
The Vortex.
Peter has previously worked behind the scenes on "Bazaar and Rummage" for the Canterbury Players,
in set production and assistant stage manager capacities.
He is also a budding young singer-songwriter, having played his first ever public gig in September 2009.
Peter dreams of one day writing for the big screen, that's if the music thing doesn't take off!
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As David Lancaster
Robert McGregor
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Robert McGregor
Actor: Arsenic And Old Lace;
The Vortex.
Robert woke up one day and decided to 'give acting a go'; as it happens,
the Canterbury Players company was able to accommodate him.
Robert's only previous acting experience was over 30 years ago in a school production of Ubu Rex (Ubu Roi). He seems to remember forgetting his opening lines but doesn't think anyone noticed.
He mentions, by way of an aside, that he is not suffering from a mid-life crisis, although he also tells us that he has recently started riding a motorbike. |
As Bunty Mainwaring
Sally Parker. Actor.
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Sally Parker
Actor: Bazaar and Rummage; Roleplay;
La Ronde, Two;
The Vortex.
Sally made her stage debut as Noddy at FHODS Little Theatre at the age
of ten, and on leaving school played Honey in "Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf". She made connections with CDS while acting in "Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight" and was immediately cast as the prompt for
"Dr Faustus". She went on to play Pattie in "Season's Greetings",
Dr Scott in "Who's Life is it Anyway", Olivia in "Twelfth
Night", Julie-Ann in "Roleplay", Ilsa in "La Ronde",
Bell-Bell in "Bazaar and Rummage",
and most recently the Landlady in "Two".
Sally is currently a full-time mother.
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As Bruce Fairlight
As Preston
Sally Brown
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Sally Brown
Actor: Two;
Arsenic And Old Lace; The Vortex
Stage Manager: The Canterbury Tales
Sally studied drama at Aberystwyth University and has since gone on to teach performing arts. She moved down to Kent in 2009 and is ever thankful to the Players to making her welcome and buying her beer.
She is currently stage manager for the other Player's production "The Canterbury Tales".
Sally is also delighted to be asked to join "The Vortex" and promises not to drop the cocktails. |
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The Vortex
Noel Coward
.
Banned play still has the power to disturb.
Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury
When The Vortex, Noel Coward's first successful play, was written it was banned. Its themes of adultery and nymphomania and allusion to drug-taking were considered too immoral for the 1920's.
Now those things no longer shock the 21st century audiences, but The Vortex still remains a powerful and, at times, disturbing play because it's all about human relationships and frailties and those don't change with the passage of time.
It is full of Coward's wit and humour and has lots of very funny lines, but this is no lightweight play about the roaring twenties' upper classes.
Throughout it all, even the amusing exchanges, there is an undercurrent of destructive forces at work and the final scene between Florence and her son Nicky is not only compelling drama but emotionally draining.
Because of its contradictions The Vortex can't be an easy play to stage but Canterbury Players rose to the challenge and pulled it off magnificently.
The set and costumes were spot on, creating the period perfectly and the cast turned in some great performances.
Pretending
Ruth Cameron was a convincingly
adulterous Florence, forever chasing after men the same age as her son, pretending
to everyone that she was having a great time but revealing in the powerful last
scene that she was really a rather sad and unhappy woman, frightened of getting
old.
Anne Hancox, playing Florence's
friend Helen, was totally natural in the role and her facial expressions, even
when she was not involved directly in the action or dialogue, revealed many
of the undercurrents coursing through the play. Jill
Akhurst as Clara, gave another totally natural performance.
Tony Johnson played the
languid and camp Pawney to perfection, having many of the typically witty Coward
lines, while Peter Fox, as
the troubled Nicky, was especially good in the dramatic final scene when his
emotions really came to the fore.
Sadly there is not space to mention everyone but this was a powerful drama in which the whole cast rose to this difficult challenge.
Reviewed by Sian Napier
For Kentish Gazette.
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