St Mary's School Shaftesbury

See the photo gallery

This year’s Senior School production was The Visit  by Friedrich Duerrenmatt, a darkly comic play, set sometime in the 1950s, somewhere in Europe. 

When she was seventeen, Claire was betrayed by Anton, her boyfriend and driven out of her home town in disgrace.  Now in her fifties, she has become fabulously wealthy and is visiting the town, which has fallen on incredibly hard times.
Greeted with much excitement by the townsfolk, they are delighted to hear that she will give the town and the citizens the investment they need, but on one condition…

The production presented the audience on each night a highly physical  performance style creating grotesque characters and highly stylised set pieces of action.  The main stage design, as can be seen in the photos, was painted by Tessa, Catherine and Emily in the style of Chagall. The audience were seated between a long walkway linking the action of the scenes between the main stage, with its traditional proscenium arch and high gallery and the specially created small stage which represented Anton’s pathetic shop.  The production involved 43 performers (9 singers brought in from the Junior and Middle School) and 7 lighting, make-up and  backstage crew, to say nothing about the 23 pairs of yellow shoes (many thanks to Mrs Hobbs in the Textiles room!).

Lara created a dangerously powerful ‘Claire’ with a mature and commanding stage presence.  Flanking her were Lydia and Marina, unrecognisable as ‘Mike’ and ‘Max’ – Claire’s hired thugs. Opposite her, Catherine’s ‘Anton’ seemed at times the only sane character in the mad world of the play and her natural ease at playing Anton’s comic moments with great charm made the audience feel all the more for the way in which he accepts his impending murder.  Between the two, the figure of the Burgomaster, played by Phoebe struck a consistent air of manipulative insincerity.  Her vocal phrasing and measured facial expressions left the audience in no doubt of the sub-text behind all of the Burgomaster’s careful words.  The bumbling Police Chief played by Abi, performing in a broad Yorkshire accent, made it clear that there was no comfort to be had from the stereotypical ‘dependable Yorkshire man’: the threat and corruption was everywhere.  Even the Cathedral was no sanctuary as Pippa’s droning and oily Pastor did little to help.  Attempting to sway the conscience of first Claire and then the whole town, was Emily’s hilariously stylised Teacher, patronising one and all with a self-important tone of voice and disapproving glare through spectacles perfectly perched on the end of the nose.

Just as the audience were being amused by the assortment of bizarre characters, a surreal and disturbing note was struck by Matty and Tilly’s expressionistic portrayal of the two blind men, ‘Lobby’ and ‘Kobby’.  Every word came twisted in intonation and phrasing from their mouths as they writhed and scuttled around the stage, echoing each other or speaking and moving in unison.  Decima, playing ‘Bobby’, Claire’s butler, took theatrical excess to a new extreme in her camp enunciation and gestures which started from the body and flowed menacingly down to her finger tips.

The rest of the ensemble created the action and atmosphere as the townspeople slowly turn against Anton in favour of Claire’s proposal – a Billion Marks in exchange for his life.  The darkness of the morality and bleak conclusion that ‘everything can be bought’ was thought-provoking, whilst the energy and commitment of the performances so enjoyable to watch.  Well done, everyone.

Chris Sykes