1: I am sixteen years old. ….. I spend a lot of time drawing women with slanted eyes and long tousled hair…… People do not approve of me but I fascinate them. My teacher calls me a poseur and the girls think I am trying to be different. . – Sally Banner
2: I fight authority and authority always wins- John Melancamp
3: Modern Drama reflects our life now. . . . It makes a pattern out of all the multitudinous of the twentieth century life, and people need patterns and meanings in their lives. One of the places they can find this is in the theatre.- Dorothy Hewett
1: Sally Banner, from Dorothy Hewett's Chapel Perilous is confined by the walls of society, unable to walk freely through the world. Sally is judged through her attempted suicide, abortion and divorce, moving from 15 to 61.
2: She represents a society that wants to move forward, challenging what confirmative society demands.
3: The beauty of Chapel Perilous is that it depicts real life. By identifying societies reliance on customs, the audience reflects on their lives, deciding if they are the oppressed Sally, the authority figures or both.
1: As seen on page 5 in your booklets, Australian theatre slowly progressed in the early 1900's. Radical theatre didn't arise until the 1930's. The Australian voice wasn't accepted on stage until the 50's. Women's theatre and fringe theatre rose in the 70's, becoming more experimental, challenging the stereotypes placed on women. They explore the struggle of young women then and today through comedy and expressionism.
Chapel Perilous was one of the most controversial and challenging female plays of the time, using parody, Satire and vandellueve. It broke many stereotypes, and focused on Australian themes, challenging previous theatre traditions.
The Sport For Jove Theatre company often focuses on maintaining the classical dramatic traditions. We also pride ourselves on bringing controversial works like Chapel Perilous, to the stage.
2: If you turn page 4 of your booklet, you will see that we would like to have Chapel Perilous featured in the festival to hold a mirror up to the audience. By doing this, they see fragments of their own lives, causing them to reassess how they accept individuality.
We propose to put the play on at the York Theatre in the Seymour centre, as its hexagonal thrust stage surrounded by tiered seating forces the audience to look down upon and judge Sally with the chorus. Its large seating capacity allows us to place chorus members in the audience who will constantly interact in the play, , encouraging the audience to join in on judging Sally as marked in page 8.
Page 10 shows the unity in chorus costuming, allowing Sally to stand out as she refuses to conform. Sally's costuming deapens in colour as the play progresses, highlighting her passionate and rebelious nature. This represents how her passion begins to die as she slowly gives in to society. Sally never completely conforms, more so accepts that to be accepted, she must restrain her individuality.
The chorus, along with the, the three authority figures, reflect the inability of Sally to walk "Naked through the world".
Have you heard that an empty stage makes the audience nervous? For this reason our set will be very simple, with only an oversized stone alter in the center of the stage, the 'masks' and stained glass window at the back.
We want the audience to feel uncomfortable, so when they are given answers in the beginning of the prologue about Sally, they automatically embody societies judgment.
If you look on page 8, three large boards stand at the back of the stage. These will act as masks, with faces projected onto them. Slowly they will go from blurred faces to grotesque and distorted images of the authority figures. The slow progression reveals Sally's realization of societies unaccepting nature.
To further emphasize her inability to escape judgment, the characters will be doubled as follows:
• Head mistress and the mother, and Cannon and the father to demonstrate the unloving nature of those in Sally's life.
• Sister Rosa and Judith, to highlight how Sally couldn't love who she wanted to, as the church confined her.
• Micheal, Saul and David; as they all left Sally. Thomas is seperate as he was the only one who didn't leave Sally. Sally left him.
On page 12, you will see the costuming for the authority figures. The mother and father will wear dull clothing, and have the same manerisms as the corresponding characters.
We want Judith to reflect today's debate surrounding homosexuality and same sex marriage. Although widely accepted, there are still people in society who look down and judge those who do not follow such ideals, such as the authority figures in Chapel Perilous. This is why she starts in school uniform and finishes in Sister Rosa's robes.
Mostly, we see the play as very expressionistic and over the top in staging and acting.
"chose Sally Choose."
In this scene, we move away from Dorothy Hewett's staging. Sally stands in a red spotlight, and is calm and settled in speech. As the scene progresses, she deteriorates, falling to the floor, under societies restrictions on her individuality, represented by her lover's voices coming from an amplifier.
In comparison, when Sally is talking to her lover's alone, the style is realistic, allowing the audience to watch their own lives unfold, accepting the effects of an unaccepting society.
When we read the play, we were influenced by the authority figures to view Sally as "violent, immature, dangerous, malicious, macarbe…….. And a lesbian".
By the end of the play we felt guilt for such thoughts, recognizing society decided how Sally was viewed, not the individual. We want the audience to feel this guilt and accept individuals like Sally.
By using a range of theatrical techniques and design elements, the audience will be able to see how easy conformity is when influenced by those around us. They are spoon fed judgment on Sally in the prologue. As the audience shares Sally's hardships, they feel empathetic. When Sally is alone in silence on stage, under a single spotlight, the audience feel responsible for not letting Sally "walk naked through the world."
Due to its importance in Australian female theatrical history, and strong relevance to today, sport for Jove would be proud to bring such a dynamic play to the Australian Voice festival.