FOR many husbands and wives, working together should be avoided at all costs.
But for David Thacker, artistic director of The Octagon, Bolton, and his wife Margot Leicester, it is business as usual as they prepare to present a piece of classic American drama.
Following on from the huge success of the recent sold out run of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the theatre will present Tennessee Williams’ first great play, The Glass Menagerie, from next week.
Margot, who appeared in The Knot of the Heart at the Almeida Theatre in 2011 to critical acclaim, is playing the role of abandoned matriarch Amanda Wingfield.
The celebrated stage and screen actress, who is from Middleton and spent a period living in Bolton in the 1970s, said: “David has been running the theatre here for three years but I go way back.
“I remember it being built in the 60s.
“I just think it’s the most beautiful theatre.
“In all these little towns in the North West, Bolton, Oldham, they have got their own theatres which have been supported all these years.
“That’s a lot to keep going, it shows their real commitment to it.
“I think people should see it as they see their library, their swimming pool, it’s part of what makes a place somewhere good to live.”
Margot will be reunited with Kieran Hill, playing the role of The Gentleman Caller, who appeared at the Octagon alongside her in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 2011, for which he received a Manchester Theatre Award nomination for his performance in the category of Best Supporting Actor.
The pair, who have four children, met through working together 31 years ago, when David was running The Dukes in Lancaster, and it will be the 21st time he has directed his wife in a play.
Margot, who went to Bury Grammar School, said: “It’s great but it’s just, Amanda Wingfield, the character I’m playing, she talks a lot more than I realised.
“I thought, oh my God, she never shuts up.
“She feels that she had this wonderful youth, all these opportunities, living in the Deep South, courted by many young men.
“She fell in love with the wrong kind of man, a very unreliable guy.
“She’s a single parent who has brought up two children from a young age.”
Set in a cramped St Louis apartment in 1945, the regrets, hopes and frustrations of an abandoned family are revealed with the truth, humour and compassion for which Tennessee Williams is renowned.
David said: “I’ve always loved the play. I’m very keen on great American plays and I think they suit me very well.
“There are lots of things about American dramas that appeal to me and affect me really deeply and it’s been my experience that audiences generally love them, if you can do them well.
“They are very difficult to do well and they require extremely good acting.
“One of the things that affects audiences very deeply, I think, about many great American plays is they are very often about families.
“Looking at the difficulties and the heartbreaks and the struggles that families have but also the great love that exists within families. And the way in which people seek to overcome their difficulties and find some happiness and fulfilment in their life.
“If audiences identify with plays, they tend to be powerfully affected by them.”
Tennessee Williams created enduring classics of the American stage, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for both A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in 1955.
The Glass Menagerie became an instant and enduring hit when it appeared on Broadway in 1945, winning the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play.
David said: “The Glass Menagerie is one of his finest plays and it was the play that made him famous.
“It’s very moving and powerful, partly because it’s very much based on his own family.
“Although she is not identified, the character (Amanda Wingfield) is very much influenced by Tennessee Williams’ own mother.
“He writes about her with a lot of generosity but is honest enough to reveal her shortcomings.
“Tennessee Williams’ sister, who was called Rose, is very much the inspiration for the character Laura, who is played by the wonderful Fiona Hampton. Laura is his way of dealing with his sense of guilt because he left home and left his mother having to look after his sister who had challenges in her life.
“His sister, not that this is shown in the play, had a lobotomy. That caused him a lot of pain.”
Octagon newcomer Nathan Wiley, who appeared in last year’s BBC One production of Bert and Dickie and has performed on stage in Manhattan several times, will take on the role of Tom Wingfield.
The Glass Menagerie is at the Octagon from Wednesday, March 27 to Saturday, April 20. Tickets are £9.50 to £23.50, call 01204 520661 or visit octagonbolton.co.uk.
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