Let us Make the Flames of the Revolution Rage Furiously
by Tom Pauk
The short play Let us Make the Flames of the Revolution Rage Furiously was performed as part of the Saw It Here First production in 2018 at Theatro Technis in Camden.
About the play
This piece of new writing was part of Saw It Here First Productions, a night of short plays devised to raise money for The Moira Fund charity and to help generate industry interest in the writers, directors and actors performing that night.
Tom is a playwright of Hungarian descent, who also works as a graphic novelist, charities advisor, trustee and mentor.
The play depicts a married couple living in a totalitarian state, where they are constantly under surveillance, both by possible hidden microphones and by their radicalised daughter.
Meeting the Writer
The production was a piece of new writing with the writer involved, and so it was very different from productions I had been part of before.
Initially, I met with the writer to get his take on the genesis of the idea and what he had envisioned when writing the piece.
The piece had been inspired by his family’s own experience during the Hungarian uprising, when his parents fled from Hungary to England overnight to escape the violence and oppression taking place there at the time.
As such, it was a very personal piece to him, so I wanted to make sure that I did it justice.
I also worked with Assistant Director Katie Smith, as I had done on Frankenstein.
Casting
We put out an online casting call and had a large response for the role of the young girl. For the roles of the parents, we had fewer applicants, which surprised us. Although things are getting better, I feel there are still not always enough roles for older actors, so we had hoped to see a larger turnout for these parts.
For the auditions, we felt that intonation was particularly important, as the characters were trying to communicate a plan to escape while under constant surveillance. Their speech therefore had to convey two different meanings at once: what they appeared to be saying, and what they were really trying to communicate. The character of the Husband and Wife relied heavily on the ability to say one thing in an intonation, or using other signifiers, that clearly mean another.
To explore this, we gave the actors a short exercise in reading one line in ways that express other emotions or intentions. such as happy, paranoid, angry or accusing, to test how well they could shift the meaning beneath the words.
We were lucky to find three excellent actors who worked beautifully together as a convincing family trio. To this, we also added two actors from Theatro Technis for the roles of the Officials who come on at the end of the play to take the couple away.
My vision
The play called for a certain amount of symbolism around a suitcase that the couple were packing in order to escape the country. I pushed this symbolism so that the suitcase came to mean very different things at different points in the play.
For example, at one point, it became a child’s coffin that the couple stared into. At another point, it became too heavy to move. At the end, the daughter, who was spying on her parents, picked up the suitcase, showing that it had really been empty all along.
Costumes
As this was part of a multiple-play production, I kept the staging, costumes and sound to a minimum, with only a few key props used.
To see the board of key images used for the costumes, take a look at my Revolution Pinterest board.
I kept the costumes simple: rough trousers and shirts for the older couple, in keeping with their world. I chose well-fitted bright-white shirts with dark trousers for those who were part of the regime. The daughter also wore a red kerchief, marking her as part of the People’s Youth.
Research
We looked at totalitarian regimes that echoed the world of the play, including North Korea and the Hungarian uprising itself.
This Palin documentary was especially useful:
https://www.channel5.com/show/michael-palin-in-north-korea
Both episodes are worth a watch (especially for the Daughter as there are several moments that give insight into the school system and beliefs of the younger generation).
We also looked at the Hungarian Uprising on which the play was based and the works of Hannah Arendt.
Rehearsals
I chose to work collaboratively with the actors on this piece. I workshopped the different ways we could convey the various aspects of the script. The play called for the two main characters, who were under surveillance, to say one thing while conveying to each other and the audience what was really being communicated between them.
We had to look at intonation, minute actions and shared looks that could convey meaning.
We used improvisation to explore details such as where the characters had met and what their relationship had been like before the events of the play. This helped the actors develop a shorthand communication. This way, they could reference things in their speech and give the audience the sense that they were talking about a shared joke or understanding.
Performance
The piece was well received by the writer and by his parents, who came to see the production.
Tom’s mother told me afterwards that it took her back to being in Hungary, waiting for the knock on the door and for people to come into the house, as happens in the play.
The night raised £1,526 for charity and was attended by industry professionals.
Let us Make the Flames of the Revolution Rage Furiously: Short play 2018
Cast and Crew
Wife: Rosanna Preston
Husband: Ian Hoare
Daughter: Carlotta De Gregori
Officials: Craig Jewitt and Leigh Hughes
Director: Karen Sheard
Assistant Director: Kate Smith
Photographs from Let us Make the Flames of the Revolution Rage Furiously, directed by Karen Sheard
