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Way Upstream is one of Alan’s most
famous and notorious plays. It is famed for being set on a cabin-cruiser on,
preferably, real water and for flooding the National Theatre. Yet Way
Upstream is much more than this; it is an important play in the
Ayckbourn canon and sees the playwright moving into new territory, exploring
new ideas and pushing the idea of the theatrical spectacle in the round
about as far as it will go. It also divided critics and Ayckbourn supporters
alike and can be viewed as a watershed for the writer. From this point, the
suburban house-bound comedy that dominated his early career becomes
increasingly rare.
The play was premiered in 1981 and was drawn from Alan’s own experiences of
boat-trips and his view of the dangers posed by the average British man
taking to the water. It was also borne out of his disenchanted view of the
country at the time and of the “nebulous hate” he saw emerging in aspects of
society.
Way Upstream is undoubtedly a moralistic play, dealing with issues of
good and evil for the first time in Alan’s work. It features his first truly
evil character in Vince, whose motives and actions are carefully left
unexplained. It is also his first allegorical play and even ventures into
the territory of fantasy as the Hadforth Bounty travels up the River Orb to
Armageddon Bridge. The play is ripe for interpretation from a biblical
response to the view that Emma’s journey mirrors the development of women in
modern society to it being a contemporary Peter Pan. It is also a play about
ordinary people and how they respond to extraordinary situations and about
how people in relationships are inextricably connected. It develops earlier
ideas about the use and abuse of power. It is also an adventure and a piece
of theatrical spectacle.
However, Way Upstream’s early fortunes were blighted by two issues;
the National Theatre production and the labelling of the play by some
critics as a political piece in favour of the recently formed Social
Democratic Party. Of the latter point, the writer Michael Holt pinpoints The
Guardian critic Robin Thornber as being critical in this perception with his
quote: “Philosophically, it’s a plug for the soggy centrism of the Social
Democratic Party.” In retrospect, Thornber’s critique tells us more about
his own political leanings and his desire to imprint them on the play, than
his ability to make an incisive or objective critique of the play. Way
Upstream may well be about the state of the nation, but it is not about
the political state of the nation.
There are two other points which rather tarnish the political interpretation
of the play, not least Alan has always maintained he is an apolitical writer
and is not interested in party politics. The second is the SDP party came to
prominence in 1981, the same year as Way Upstream was written. As
Thornber would well have known - having extensively written about the
playwright - Alan’s writing process begins months before he actually puts
pen to paper. Assuming Alan did not radically alter his methods, the
groundwork was laid months before the SDP party began to gain real media
exposure or attention.
Alan had been threatening a water-based play for many years, but realised it
was now theoretically possible. The reason was due to the Stephen Joseph
Theatre in the Round’s position on the concrete ground floor of an old
Boys’ Grammar School. He could flood the stage and should the banks break,
the only thing he would drench would be the theatre. He began writing the
play shortly before rehearsals began and his production team were only told
of the scale of the challenge awaiting them - flooding the auditorium,
building a watertight and movable boat, creating a localised downpour – a
mere month before the play was due to open!
The play had relatively few technical problems, although the final technical
rehearsal was completed just 25 minutes before the play’s opening
performance. There were odd delays during the run, but no performances were
cancelled and it was a technical triumph.
From the critical perspective – and ignoring the perceived political
influences - the play’s ideas seem to have largely been lost in admiration
for the technical achievement and the first full nudity seen at the
Scarborough theatre;
the regional newspapers particularly obsessed with the idea that a naked
body could appear in an Ayckbourn play on a Scarborough stage. This even
generated a minor flurry of negative and positive letters to the local media
and Alan himself.
The play was a sell-out success in Scarborough and was already scheduled to
open at the National Theatre in August the following year. There,
unfortunately, its reputation for many years was sealed for all the wrong
reasons. What is largely forgotten is, before this transfer, the Scarborough
company took the play to the USA to the Alley Theatre, Houston. The play was
staged on water without a hitch and received a largely enthusiastic response
– although certain sections of the audience took exception to the nudity.
And so the play transferred to the Lyttelton at the National Theatre with
grand ambitions. The story behind the play at the National Theatre is
well-chronicled, but in brief: the designer, Alan Tagg, had created a far
more technically ambitious production and one that, in retrospect, the
National could not cope with. Errors were made – largely due to financial
pressures, the need to have the play in repertory and the way the National operated at the time – many of which were
either predicted or warned of. The water-tank was built of rigid, but
brittle fibre-glass that also had to easily be assembled and disassembled; the boat was too complex; the production was
over-staffed; extraordinarily the play was in repertoire and so on. Critically, the tank cracked and gallons of water
poured into the electrical switch-room beneath the auditorium. Alan had left
rehearsals, convinced the play was in good shape; when news of the
production problems and the proposed solutions reached him, he returned and
refused to allow the production to go ahead. He cancelled previews and the
problems with the production overwhelmed the play. By the time it did open,
the press arguably, who had already had a field day with back-stage issues,
were not really interested in what the play was about or, ultimately,
whether it was any good. Reviews were largely critical, although the public
were loyal and very receptive to the play. But for years afterwards, the
play became associated with the fact it had flooded and practically closed
the National Theatre.
Despite its extraordinary history – or perhaps because of it – the play has
remained popular and is staged more frequently than one tends to imagine. It
can be done on a dry stage and has been tackled in this form by both amateur
and professional productions. It has even been staged several times as an
outdoor production on a river in a real boat. The play was adapted for
television by Terry Johnson and broadcast in 1988. Although a competent
adaptation and well-remembered, the film places undue emphasis on the
violence of the piece and much of the humour was lost.
Aware the play now had so much baggage it was being judged unfairly, Alan
made the decision to re-stage it at the Stephen Joseph Theatre on the play’s
21st anniversary. While still technically extremely impressive, it offered
the opportunity to re-evaluate the play in a production that satisfied Alan.
The critical response was excellent, the play judged on its merits rather
than just as a notorious technical tour de force.
Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2009 |
