Ah, sweet mysteries of music

“Ah, sweet mystery of life…” Wouldn’t we all want to solve it, the mystery of life? The song of the same title reverberates through Annie Wobbler, at scene openings and closings. Lucky for us, the Hamburg Players have in their midst quite a few talented musicians - two of whom, Trevor Ferdy and Harald Djürken, were quickly roped in to arrange, sing and record their versions of it. Read on to find out how they did it in times of social distancing:

Harald getting ready to sing and record in his living room

“Most importantly, when arranging the song versions, I needed to be faithful to the era depicted in the scene,“ says Trevor, which in this case meant imitating the sound of the 1930s for one scene, as well as the ‘60s and early ‘80s. “I like imitating other songs, just for fun. It's nice to try to match the musical elements of a key piece of music that represents a genre well.”

Trevor at work mixing and arranging

But how do you go about creating music when the parties involved cannot meet up due to a pandemic? Thank God for the internet! “First of all, I created a skeleton piano track for Harald to record his singing to. He emailed me his recording, so I could then place it into a more spruced up version with instruments of an orchestra in it,” is how Trevor describes it.

That being said, the whole process proved to be slightly more challenging than he lets on. In particular, considering that both musicians were only able to stay in touch by phone, Zoom, or email throughout most of the production.

That’s what the vocals look like on a screen

As a singer, finding the right key and tempo while not being in the same room with Trevor was not without its difficulties, as Harald recalls: “I guess especially for the jazzier version, we would normally have improvised together once we understood what direction was needed. In the end, I recorded the vocals just with a metronome as a playback. It sometimes took us a few days because we were worked on the music in the evening or on the weekend. So, a few hours together in a room with a piano would have clearly made things easier. But even so, we were able to record, send and re-record music while in two different places. And it worked!"

Part of the soundtrack to “Annie Wobbler” on Trevor’s computer

You can hear Trevor’s and Harald’s cooperation in our production of Arnold Wesker’s Annie Wobbler between 1 and 11 September. More info and tickets here.

Rehearsing Annie Wobbler during lockdown

Remember December 2020? We do! It was when rehearsals for Annie Wobbler, our next production, began. Considering it is a one-woman show, we figured that despite the contact restrictions already in place we were pretty much all set to get it up and running for February 2021. Little did anyone know…

“Unlike anything I’d ever done”

Rebecca Garron. Joanna Thorn, and Jason Couch

While the two directors, Rebecca Garron and Jason Couch, went to work with Joanna Thorn, who plays all three female characters in Annie Wobbler, it slowly became clear that Covid protocols would need to remain in place for a while. So, instead of getting together the entire crew, rehearsing one-on-one it was.

“The rehearsal process was unlike anything I'd ever done before. For starters, I've never been in a play where there were more directors than actors involved!” Joanna recalls. “Theatre is a communal pursuit and normally cast and crew are together during rehearsals. Despite it being quite a solitary time, I really enjoyed being able to workshop and play around with the characters and themes of Annie Wobbler and then bring these ideas together in the periods where the lockdown was eased.”

An impressive feat of ingenuity by the team

As you can imagine, planning, let alone actually doing, on-one-on rehearsals proved to be quite a challenge, not having set and costume designers, the props department and the prompts in the same room. “I was enormously impressed at our team's ingenuity and commitment in such a difficult situation – but it was hard and slow-going,” says co-director Rebecca. “Without everyone in the room, the creative juices flow much more slowly and you miss the give and take of the production process. It felt very isolating for everyone involved. What can I say? Theater is an eminently social art!”

Under the circumstances, the crew made up for it as much as possible by meeting up via video conference – and despite his protestations at never having used Zoom before, Jason did fare more than well during online production meetings. “But it wore me down”, the co-director concedes. “Don’t get me wrong, it was really great working with Joanna! But the creative process was much less fun without having instant feedback from the team. Theatre, I've realised, is more of a social event for me. Which is why I really hope people will be able to see this play as live performance soon.”

Ready to go on stage

Directors, cast and crew finished rehearsals and production preparations in March and cannot wait to brush up scenes and tweak the show. How and when you can see Arnold Wesker’s Annie Wobbler depends on when restrictions will allow for the crew to get together. Watch this space or our social media channels for more info.

Photos: Herwig Lührs

“Like a treasure hunt”

Theatre life in times of a global pandemic almost seems impossible. Choosing the one-woman play “Annie Wobbler”, the Hamburg Players have tried to circumvent many of the problems along the way – rehearsals can be done with only one director and the actress in the room. However, for a show to get off the ground, many departmental cogwheels need to work together, and obviously creativity is usually fuelled by watching rehearsals, brainstorming together. Martina Plieger, who together with Kostas Lampou forms the props team for this production, talks about the challenges she encounters along the way:

Kettle, mug, mirror: Martina with some of the props for the upcoming show.

In times of social distancing, what is it like for you working on props?

Martina Plieger: “It's definitely weird and challenging trying to work on a theatre production during a pandemic. Since Corona regulations currently permit only two people at the clubhouse – where we rehearse – at a time, we’ve had to make arrangements as to who comes in when. This time round, I've only ever spent a couple of minutes at a time at the clubhouse, it’s a popping-in-dropping-off-props-popping-out kind of situation. At the very beginning I was able to spend maybe 30 minutes in the props room to check what we had and what needed to be bought. But that was it. It’s very different from the way we usually work“

What are some particular challenges you have encountered – and how did you solve them?

MP: “One of the main challenges is that I cannot just go into a store or theatre fundus to browse for stuff. Almost everything had to be bought online at different vendors. Props are very particular pieces that need to fit a certain era – looking for them always feels like a treasure hunt! You will never find one vendor that has it all. So, I ended up making a lot of mini-purchases online, buying a bar of soap here, shoe polish there, a mug there. A really lucky find was the typewriter which I stumbled upon when I helped clear out my old neighbors’ apartment.

“Then there was what I call ‘the rollmops challenge’. Annie, the first of the three characters, has to eat a pickled herring from a jar. Unfortunately, Joanna, the actress, can’t have them, so I bought a couple of rollmops made of marzipan. My first idea was to fill an entire jar with marzipan rollmops but I was concerned that the food color might come off when put in a liquid. Not wanting to take that risk, I bought a jar with a smaller cup inside that is also sort of attached to the lid. The idea is to put one marzipan rollmops in the smaller cup so that it can't be contaminated by the real rollmops in the jar. We have yet to test whether it will work or not!”

The real deal - or made of marzipan?

The props team for this play consists of you and Kostas Lampou. How did the two of you manage to work together?

MP: “Under the current regulations, division of labor is the way to go; I mean, even the directors have to take turns. For props work, Kostas and I split the play into two parts. I am responsible for the first part, Kostas for the second. We each wrote the props list for our respective parts and then worked separately. So far, I've only seen Kostas during our production meetings via Zoom. We sometimes chat via WhatsApp but that's it.

Props for scene 2.

“I have to say I've never felt this lonely during a production. The team spirit, the togetherness, is what I value most in theatre. This time there was none of that: no watching the rehearsals, no hanging out and having a chat during rehearsal breaks, no going to the Greek after rehearsals. At the moment, I feel more like an independent contractor who pops in and out, which can be really frustrating at times. But if there is an upside to the pandemic it is that it lets us appreciate all those things we now miss even more. And I for one can't wait to experience our first ‘normal’ production post-Corona.”