Evening Times

Backstage World of Secrets...

by Maureen Ellis and Barry McDonald

Behind the modern, brick facade and hot pink foyer of the Citizens Theatre lies a labyrinth of Victorian corridors and machinery normally out of bounds to audiences. It's in this 130-year-old Gorbals building that a steel ring once used to hold a dancing bear still adorns a dressing room wall. It's where 30 antique trapdoor pulleys gather dust and rust, and the spoils of shattered chandeliers lie glittering in the foundations.

These peculiarities and more got writer and director David Leddy thinking. His promenade performance, Sub Rosa, would allow the public access to the hidden, historic spaces, using backstage areas as a spine-chillingbackdrop to a "deliciously gothic" tale of corruption and revenge. Only, little did he know that such a spectacle would involve an 18-month consultation with health and safety officers and fire chiefs.

"It's quite a scary thought," he says of the creaking floorboards in the 'paint frame' - a tall, thin, glassroofed roofed room used to decorate sets in bygone years. "I wanted to have someone swinging from a trapeze, but they said I couldn't because the weight and force of someone swinging could pull down the cog supporting it.They said, 'look at the walls - they're rotten'. And you look up and go 'yeah, they are rotten, but that's why we like the look of it so much'. It's a great paradox for aplay in which someone burns to death on stage!"

The result of negotiations - strictly limiting numbers on each tour - could serve to make Sub Rosa, a legal term for "secrecy", even more unnerving. Groups of just 15 people will be led around the backstage spaces of what David calls the "The Winter Palace". Two tour guides will lead them into the lighting store, the confined spaces under the stage, the costume store, and ascending to the heights of the upper circle. The 80-minute production stops at five locations along the way, where actors relate the latest episode in a narrative written and directed by Leddy, a former director of Glasgay!

The heroine of the story is 12-year-old Flora Mclvor, one half of a music hail Siamese twin act with best friend Violet. But when Violet burns to death as she's just about to go on stage, Flora plots to avenge the tragic and untimely death of her friend, and to wrestle control of The Winter Palace away from the manager Charles Hunter.

The snug upper circle bar, closed to the public for around 30 years, is the domain of actress Alison Peebles, or rather her character Mrs
Thorn. Alison won't say too much about the shrewd and worldlywise wise matriarch for fear of giving away the plot, but has been amazed at the reactions she's had so far to the more disturbing and ghoulish elements in the script. "It's interesting, because it's the power of storytelling," she says. "Nowadays, when you're satiated by action films and bloodshed and sex, this is pure storytelling and you don't see any violence, gore or sex, but it's all there. In that space, you really get a sense of generations of audiences and performers, and all the other theatres in the world. It's amazing."

Opening in 1878 as HerMajesty's Theatre and latterly the Royal Princess's Theatre, it took on the name Citizens Theatre in 1945, and underwent refurbishment with a new frontage for the Year of Culture in 1990. Esteemed Hollywood names such as Pierce Brosnan, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman and Rupert Everett have all trod its boards.

Sub Rosa, meanwhile, will reunite Alison with her High Times co-star Cora Bissett, in a cast that also boasts Angela Darcy, Louise Ludgate, David Magowan and Finlay Welsh.

In a sneak preview of the route and storyline, it's understandable why the theatre's managers have stipulated a minimum age of 16 and stated that it's definitely not for the squeamish or those who would have difficulty climbing a great number of stairs. For those who do brave the warnings, it's a glimpse behind the scenes of a theatre unlike any other in Britain.

"So many theatres have ripped out all these old Victorian mechanisms and built new additions which function much more smoothly," says David. Alison adds: "The fact that they've kept a lot of the original work backstage says a lot about the love of the theatre. "There's been a real genuine respect and love for the building."

16th January 2009