1. Jake Cecil Candidate number 2200 1
Unit 1, Exploration of Drama: Bedroom Farce
‘Bedroom Farce’ by Alan Ayckbourn, is a play of simplicity.
Three beds and four couples line the stage and we can
immediately see that one couple flitters in and out of the other
couples bedrooms causing chaos where ever they turn. The
different visual interpretations are very similar, with the idea
of three beds on stage. The main idea of the play is to ask the
probing question of ‘what makes a good and successful
marriage?’.
Language is used in the play to create differences
between the couples, which each represent a different
generation or occupation. Ernest and Delia’s (the older couple’s)
language is very old and classical, with Earnest showing his
background as a public schoolboy with comments such as ‘good
lord’ and when he compares Delia and Susannah to ‘sleeping
next to a girls dormitory’. Delia obviously has this problem
quite a lot with her husband rambling on about the ‘good old
days’, but it does not seem to affect her, so their relationship
seems unscathed from what we see of their language. This
juxtaposes with Nick and Jan for example, as he thinks it is
acceptable to ask everything of his wife because of his position
as a businessman. She quite obviously gets frustrated much
like Trevor and Susannah who cannot stand each other, but
cannot be without each other. The odd couple out is Kate and
Malcolm, whose language towards each other is very informal
and rather child like. ‘you started it, no you started it! And
their short and sharp lines (‘Ah!, What is it? Ah!, What?) this
shows their childlike antics, much reminding me of the play
‘Blue Remembered Hills’, where adults play children, it seems
as if the study of children’s play has come across in the
language of this couple. When I explored the language of
Trevor, I played him as an eccentric with long rambling
sentences fading out, symbolising his lack of understanding of
everyone around him and how he just cannot understand half
the time, people have not a clue of what he is talking about.
The Non-verbal communication of the couples are all
very different as well. Malcolm and Kate are very frantic,
running around like children, jumping up and down and their
facial expressions are very obvious, much in the style of Brecht.
This is the opposite to Nick and Jan who are very static due to

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his bad back and her not really being around in their bedroom,
but you get the feeling that Malcolm would also be rather
powerful and quick paced due to his tremendous ego. Ernest
and Delia are rather slow paced due to their age, so there levels
of tension are slow with small but significant movements, and
Susannah is somewhere in-between with her outlandish moans
for Trevor and her glum stature on stage. They both also used
physical business to achieve humour. When I acted Trevor, I
made sure that his eccentric personality came over in his
physical communication, I used large hand gestures and big
movements to show that he is a ‘larger that life’ character. I
also rehearsed ‘space’, and made Trevor take over the space of
Malcolm and Kate. Some performances stage the beds in
different ways, with one on a higher platform over another, but
I believe that the simple simultaneous bed formation works
better because of its more realistic viewing as well as being a
‘sight gag’.
Different characters in the production we saw had
different vocal qualities, this again was determined by which
couple the person was in. Bearing in mind pitch pace accent
and volume Delia and Earnest were both rather sedate,
steriotypicalising the elderly and highlighting the fact that they
have a very steady marriage which has been going for quite a
while. Malcolm and Kate’s vocals were rather loud and frantic,
highlighting their childishness. She also had a strong regional
accent. Nick and Jan were both very stern towards each other
perhaps symbolising how Nick’s profession is very strict and
difficult to achieve success, he is constantly trying to back
himself as an important person. Finally Susannah and Trevor, I
believe were not vocally interesting and the vocals used when
we saw the play did not fit with the characters at all. As hippies
or eccentrics, I believed that their voice work should have been
rambling but also with a sense of ridiculousness. When I acted
Trevor, I tried to bring across how he is naturally not very good
at putting across what he is trying to say.
The exercises that I used to try and build Trevor’s
character were hot seating and monologues and we applied
Stanislavski’s ideas of the ‘Magic if’ observations of life and the
given circumstances of an eccentric. Hot seating made me
realise my character’s mindset and helped me with
characterisation. I thought that by using the monologues in

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particular, I was able to portray how he tries so hard to make
what he is saying understandable, even if the words he uses do
not make sense (‘giving ness’). The scene I focused on was the
one in which Trevor is trying to explain to Malcolm and Kate
his situation with Susannah at that moment. When he is trying
to explain, he uses words such as ‘Egotistical’, ‘Draining’ and
‘Submerging’, showing how he doesn’t use these words in the
correct context, but still tries to use them as he conveys the
situation. As he lists these words, I tried to create the effect of
Trevor trailing off, and leaving his sentence behind on the
search of better words to use. This I believe brought across his
hippy aura and also his eccentrically confused mind, which
makes him so hard to communicate with. Overall in this scene,
it was decided that his objective was to explain the challenging
prospect of his relationship with Susannah.
The era of the play makes a huge impact on the play
itself in cultural and historical context. Set in the 70’s, the play
infuses fashion and the new technology as well as the ways
people went about their daily lives in the time. Men’s shirts
were tightly fitted with floral patterns and big collars (as shown
by Malcolm’s party shirt). The relaxed look is also sported by
Malcolm with the jeans and scruffy smart shoes. Susannah’s
‘untamed’ hair was also a fashion of the time. Also linking with
Malcolm, the DIY sales rate increased dramatically during the
70’s and new furniture fashions were available, such as the
oddly curved sofa’s and chairs. This explains Malcolm’s
obsession with DIY. This could explain the hot drink Delia
gives to Susannah at night. And lastly home entertainment
rather than going out was very popular in the 70’s and became
rather iconic. Lager and Wine also became popular in
succession. Ayckbourn has taken this into account and
therefore incorporated this into his play, the play therefore is a
reflection of it’s time.
The fundamental message of the play is quite hard to
distinguish because of the play’s uses of social questioning,
marriage, parenting sexual equalities and woman’s rights. But
for me, it seems like the running theme is that we are all
maimed victims of heredity and if Trevor is one of life’s walking
wounded, then it is rather clear who is responsible.
The set design used for this play is simple but very
effective. The notion of three bedrooms on view simultaneously

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is both a nice comic sight-gag and the ideal set for exploring
private behaviour (where people feel most at ease). lighting was
used on the separate bedrooms on the different spaces on the
stage. There was also a nice moment when LX was used to give
the audience a sort of night time vision for a while, letting us
view Ernest and Delia whilst they fall to sleep. The Props were
standard but one stood out to me as being quite poor, the table
which Malcolm makes collapses too ridiculously as ‘mindless’
Trevor bangs it with a hammer. This was incredibly unrealistic.
The practitioner style used in the play we saw at the
theatre was far different to the style I thought the play should
have been played in. A sort of Brecht type style was used,
focusing on the over exaggeration of the character (especially
the mindlessness of Trevor, the wailing Susannah and the
immaturity of Malcolm and Kate, much like an exaggerated TV
sit com). This made Trevor in particular very unrealistic and
rather annoying seeing as he couldn’t get anything right
throughout the play. I believed that Trevor should have been
played using Stanislavski methods, building the character the
audience bit by bit, with hints of natural over exaggeration
(because of his eccentricity). This would have made the
audience perhaps relate to having friends like him and would
make Trevor a more likable character (as he can not help his
over the top nature).
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