Former CovSoc Membership Secretary, Terry Kenny, tells us the fascinating story of his experiences acting in the Cathedral. Terry writes….
When the Cathedral was consecrated in 1962 as well as a Music Director, it also had a Drama Director and for many years fostered the production of plays in the building. There was a particularly strong youth section.
In 1962/63 I was in my final year at Coventry’s Teacher Training College, now the Westwood site of Warwick University. It was usual for the 2nd year drama students to present a play for assessment at the end of the autumn term. The assessment play for December 1962 was a new version of ‘Everyman’ to be presented in the Cathedral using the entrance to the Chapel of Unity as the stage focus. I do know that a great deal of time and money was spent on preparing the production, the costumes particularly and liaising with the author who had definite views on how it should be produced.
As a 3rd year student I was not involved in the production until a week before it was due to be performed. One of the members of the cast left college rather abruptly and I was asked to step into the breach. Fortunately I didn’t have any lines to learn as the character to be played was never seen but only heard, the Voice of God.
I seem to remember that there was only one full dress rehearsal on the day of the production. It was a beautiful sunny day in early December, the sun streaming in through the Baptistery Window, flooding the Cathedral with light and creating a warm environment. With the choir I was ensconced in the first right-hand alcove in the Chapel of Unity, armed with a small dimmer board. At the beginning of the play, I was to move the lever of the dimmer board, the ensuing light filling the Chapel with golden light and then speak. The Chapel is a wonderful echo chamber and I am quite loud naturally, [those who know me will confirm this]. The effect was powerful.
Come the evening of the performance, the sun long gone, it was a cold December night. The heating was on in the Cathedral. Unfortunately, the Chapel of Unity is heated by hot air blown through vents situated in the alcoves. With my mini-dimmer I was standing directly over one. The play began, I moved the lever of my dimmer, the light flooded the chamber and I spoke. Now anyone who has had to compete with the noise of an air conditioning system will know what I am going to say next. Yes, the audience could hear me but it sounded more like thunder rumbling around rather than a coherent speech. God may have spoken but no-one could understand what he said.
My second encounter with acting in the Cathedral came about ten years later. Bob Prior-Pitt [alas no longer with us] who was the Drama Director was producing a modern version of the mystery plays called ‘The Fall and Rise of Man’. The production was planned for the space by the West Door with the audience sitting on three sides. The set consisted of moveable boxes which could be moved to depict different scenes. The cast played multiple parts, my most prominent roles were Cain, [who killed his brother], one of two soldiers [who massacred the innocents], and Caiaphas, the High Priest [who condemned Jesus to death]. Does anyone see a pattern here?
Again rehearsal in the Cathedral was limited and our first full rehearsal introduced us to the dreaded seven second echo delay. We had been told about it but until you have experienced it, you cannot fully appreciate the effect. It is amazing how much you can say in seven seconds and in the Cathedral when you speak a line, seven seconds later, your words ripple down the length of the building as clearly as you had just uttered them. That in itself would be difficult, but of course you then get the echo of the echo, the echo of that and so on until it finally peters out by which time you are contending with the next bit of speech. It is like a succession of waves relentlessly hitting the shore. You are the surfer trying to rise above and ride them out. How we actually came to deal with the phenomenon, I can’t remember but somehow we did. The production was successful and was followed up with a short run at the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth.