Good and Bad Characters

 How is it that so many good characters, in literature and films, and probably in other works such as stage plays, are so dull? Just think of the princesses in Disney animation, such as Snowhite, just so flat and two- dimensional. On the other hand, the villains are generally far more interesting and complex and make more interesting characters, which, although we know they are evil in most cases, we tend to root for them and cheer for them usually. Think of Abanazer, the wicked character in the 'Aladdin' pantomime, or the Ugly Sisters in 'Cinderella,' they are more fleshed out than the flat and rather dull central characters of Aladdin and Cinderella. In Dickens, so many of his central characters seem rather uninteresting. Think of Oliver in Oliver Twist. He's at the centre of the story, things happen to him, but he never initiates anything. Similarly, with David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby. These characters don't appear to have any effect on what happens to them, it's the characters who revolve around them who do all the work of moving things forward. In that respect, they are somewhat helpless. It appears that they can't change the course of their lives or their story journey. At the heart of a good story, there should be a journey in the sense that the lead character changes during the course of the story, so by the conclusion they have learned something and in that respect, changed.

In any form of storytelling, you have to have some sort of conflict, otherwise, your story can become flat and routine. The main protagonist needs a character to work against, so a good villain should be the character who creates this conflict. It's rather like sandpaper. It takes off the rough edges, shapes the protagonist. If he/she can overcome their problems, then they will grow and by the end of their journey through their story, they will have learned something.

Some cliches are used whenever the author wants to make sure the reader 'gets' whether a character is either good or bad. Used a great deal in television drama. Think EastEnders or Coronation street or one hundred and one Hollywood blockbusters. Colour is often used, as regards clothing. Dark is usually associated with 'bad.' (For years in television westerns from what I remember from being a child.) The villain almost always wore a dark shirt or jacket. The goodies usually wore light-colored clothing.  Think Dark Vader in the Star Wars films. He's black. You can't see his face (generally, if you can't see a character's face, either because he wears a mask (as Vader does.) or dark glasses, usually highly reflective, he's the bad guy. 

Disney has recently been raiding their back catalogue to reinvent some of their villains, such as Maleficent, who is the bad fairy who didn't get invited to the princesses Christening in the 1950's animation, 'Sleeping Beauty' and given her own film, starring Angelina Jolie. More recently they have given Cruella De Vil, the villain who wants to make dalmation puppies' coats into her own fashion accessory, namely, her own coat, in the 1961 animation classic '101 Dalmations' and the 1996 live-action remake. It's as if they are trying to give these characters a reason to be the way they are. Backstories or 'origins' stories. Disney is busily remaking all their classic animation movies, 'Beauty and The Beast,' 'Cinderella', 'Jungle Book', 'The Lion King' etc etc. Really for no better reason than they have the technology to make them using such things as three-dimensional computer animation. Not actually an improvement on the original and, frankly, a lazy way to create films.

Some, what I would call 'classic' villains in some of the classic fiction have been weakened by being portrayed as comic in such shows as 'Oliver!' and 'Les Miserables.' Fagin, the pickpocket gang leader, is made out to be a comic character in the musical when he's anything but comic in the novel on which it is based. He's far more evil and contemptible than the portrayal in the stage and film adaptation. The same can be said of Thenardier and his wife in 'Les Miserables' where they are sort of knock-about characters, but with a villainous streak. Perhaps this watering down of these characters is to make these shows more palatable for family audiences.

Why do so many villains in fiction have sidekicks who are often portrayed as bumbling idiots? The two henchmen of Cruella De Vil in the original novel by Dodie Smith and then the Disney versions of 'The 101 Dalmations' are shown to be totally inept. In some ways this is just for comic effect, but why on earth would someone employ such totally incompetent?

So, to wind up. I think I have managed to give fairly good summation of why and how so many dull characters, usually the central protagonists in some stories are so dull, compared to the more rounded and complete characters of the villains. We, as the audience, tend to want to root for those characters rather than the limp central characters.

Working in Theatre- Part 3

I have talked about my first foray into stage management, starting at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham in February 1969 in an earlier post. I am working from memory, so excuse my lapses because what I am recounting took place a good 40-or more years ago. While  it's fairly fresh in my mind I have decided that I want to write something about my time in this before it all fades completely. Writing the last post, about summer holidays at Frinton-OnSea, has set my memory going as I used to drive from Colchester home to Bedfordshire  at weekends along the same road, the A120,  as we used to use on our way to Frinton  (Frinton is a relatively short drive from Colchester.)

 I finished in Cheltenham in the December and almost immediately got a new job working at the Rep in Colchester. I had Christmas at home and then went off in early January to begin work. The company was in the middle of a run of the annual pantomime, 'Aladdin.' I was able to see this from the audience, as I wasn't immediately called on to work on this show, which gave me a week or two to 'find my feet' as it were. Having been a 'Student A.S.M.' at the Everyman in Cheltenham, I was now officially a fully-fledged A.S.M. (Assistant Stage Manager) and now part of a team which consisted of several other A.S.Ms, D.S.M., Stage Manager and Production Manager. Michael Ashton, who had been Artistic Director at Cheltenham had also been Artistic Director of the Colchester Repertory Company. I like to think, but I'm not sure whether this is true, that it was because of this connection that I got the job.

Colchester Rep in those days was based in a very cramped building, converted from an art gallery in the 1930's.  This was located in Colchester High Street. It has since been replaced by the Mercury Theatre, built in the early 1970's. I remember it had it's foundation stone laid by Eric Porter, or else he 'cut the first turf' or whatever they call the first stage of  work on a building. He was in the highly successful 1960's  B.B.C. costume drama series "The Forstyte Saga" playing Jolyon Forsyte. The stage was very small. There was very little wing space and the back wall, which was curved, was as far as the stage went. If you had to cross from stage left to right, or vice versa, you had to go UNDER the stage. There was no stage door. If you wanted to get in to the theatre from F.O.H (front of house) you had to go through the men's toilets (!) There was a door which linked from front of house to back-stage through the toilets. When I was first shown the way, I thought it was very odd to be taken through the toilets, as you can imagine! You had to climb through a window in what was the 'props' room in order to get out of the theatre from the rear and go through a graveyard to get out to the street.There was no room above the stage for 'flying', that is, there was no grid on which bars could be suspended on hemp ropes so that scenery could be hauled up and hidden from the audience view. It was, of course, possible to suspend lighting and a certain amount of 'masking' as in other theatres, but if you were doing a show which required cloths, as in a pantomime, they had to be 'rolled' rather in the fashion of a window blind, but on a far larger scale. This was how most of the scene changes were done in 'Aladdin.'

The show which followed 'Aladdin' was 'Beyond The Fringe' which had been hugely successful in the early 1960's and launched the careers of Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennet, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore. I got involved with the rehearsals for this, which included 'propping', going out and finding items which would be used during the show's rehearsal period, as well as setting, striking and generally stage managing the actual performances of the show.
"Beyond The Fringe" has some very famous sketches within it, including "Take A Pew", "One Leg To Few" and a really brilliantly funny pastiche of  Shakespeare. Of course we didn't have the original cast in our production. As with most 'rep' productions, which are, in effect, re-stagings of shows which have run in the West End, but have actors who have to be very versatile and play a range of different roles over a number of productions. I believe Giles Block was in the company when I was at Colchester, but I'm not sure whether he was in "Beyond The Fringe."
One of the productions in the season was "Billy Liar" by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall.  This was an adaptaion of a book by Keith Waterhouse, and has since been made into a film, starring Tom Courtney, as well as a musical, "Billy" which starred Michael Crawford and was quite successful when it ran in the West End in the mid 1970's. It was also the basis for a situation comedy starring Jeoff Rawle. This was the first time I was responsible for 'The Book" for a show. This is the duty of stage management and whoever is responsible for this is not only in charge of prompting during rehearsals and the actual performance, but also for the general running of the show from the prompt corner, giving cues for lighting and sound, but also making sure the actors are on stage in time for their entrances. You are responsible for the prompt copy which has all the moves the actors make which are given during the blocking stage of rehearsals, which usually take place in a space away from the theatre, such as a church hall, although most modern and well-equipped theatres have their own purpose-built rehearsal spaces within their main buildings or can be some way away from the theatre. You are responsible for making sure the actors get their 'calls' for rehearsal, costume fittings and other things connected with the production. Another member of the stage management is responsible for sitting in during rehearsals and taking note of where props are used as well as where they are set, and then, later on in rehearsal, producing these props, from whichever source, hiring, begging or borrowing from local businesses around the town and taking care they are not broken or even stolen and then set in the correct place during rehearsals and then when the play is running in the theatre.  During the run of the play you have to 'call' the actors via Tannoy, giving the actors time to get to the stage where they may be waiting to go on, in their dressing room or the Green Room, the actors waiting room or common room if you like. I still don't know why this is referred to  as a Green Room, but it is a tradition of theatre for it to be called that. It isn't generally because of the colour as most of the Green Rooms I've been in over the years have never been painted or at least decorated the colour  green. It may be that green is a peaceful colour, but I'm not sure.