"The Norman Conquests"
Alan Ayckbourn
Umpqua Community College, 1990
I had a great time playing the title role in Alan Ayckbourn's "The Norman Conquests" at Umpqua Community College.
Ayckbourn wrote three interlocking plays, with the same six characters, over the same hours of a single weekend; each full-length play takes place at a different location at a country home -- the dining room, the living room, or the patio/garden -- at exactly the same time, so the entrances and exits from each play supposedly dovetail. Unlike Ayckbourn's "House and Garden," which can be performed by the same cast in adjacent theater spaces at the same time, it is probably physically impossible for a cast to do all three "Norman" plays simultaneously, so the three plays are done on different nights and the audience comes to the show three times.
Lacking the time or resources to do all three plays, UCC did one play made up of what the director decided were the best scenes from all three plays. (I think we started in the living room, moved to the garden, had a raucous dinner scene, and finished up in the living room again.)
What I remember best are the tremendous laughs in the show, my good friend Robbin Cartier (who played Ruth, the wife Norman was cheating on), and Gerrard Cress, a fine actor who played brother-in-law Reg (he is also seen on the page devoted to the UCC production of "Annie" as FDR) and died only a couple of years later of HIV he had contracted from a blood transfusion.
And one other thing. There's a development fairly early in the play when Annie, the younger sister of Norman's wife, has rejected his advances, and he gets drunk by himself, rolls himself up in a rug, and passes out. In the next scene, he's out cold while other characters step around him and talk.
(In other words, I was rolled up in the rug like a log, with my head pointed straight downstage at the audience and a stocking mask pulled down over my face. One thing I discovered was that, in such a position, not having to act or think about what I was doing or about to say, I could actually hear all the funny lines being tossed around me, and it was extremely hard to keep from laughing, myself.)
Annie happens in, sees me there, panics for a moment, and lifts my head in an attempt to revive me until the other people explain the situation. "You mean he's just drunk?" she says indignantly, and drops Norman's head.
When that moment came, I threw my head back as hard as I could so it smacked the stage with a loud thud. The audible gasp from the audience every night was one of the sweetest sounds I ever got to hear as an actor.
By the way, in the photo at the top? That's Norman yelling at his mother on the phone.
WHAT THEY SAID
"...the cast fires off several jolly good rounds that had an opening night audience of about 75 in stitches. The production is well worth a look see because it's fun and because it brings Ayckbourn to town. ...In the title role, David Loftus plays Norman's mischievous glee to the hilt. He's so lithe and loose that he nearly takes wing. His physical style sets him apart from the rest of the cast -- and flighty Norman indeed must contrast with this quintet of stodgy Brits. But above all, Norman's passion for life and each of these women is sincere, a quality unfortunately lacking in Loftus' characterization." -- Linda Schnell, The Roseburg News-Review, Nov. 10, 1989