Bath’s Ustinov and Egg theatres are staging ‘Life Savings’, a two-part drama based on the real-life memories of the cast members. Steve Wright gets personal.

The actors have never done anything quite like this before, and I think they are nervous. One of them said jokingly, ‘I came here to get away from life, not to act it out.’ But I think they’re getting a lot out of it.” This is playwright Adam Peck who – along with a director and a bunch of non-professional actors – is going through an unusual process in a rehearsal room in Bath: creating a piece of theatre from those actors’ own real-life memories.

‘Life Savings’ is a response to the children’s short story by Allan Ahlberg, about a 70-year-old woman who, throughout her life, saves her memories in boxes, to be relied later on. Adam, a Bristol playwright best known for his brilliant adaptation of the Bonnie and Clyde story, has collected memories from his cast and rewritten them into a series of subtly interlinked monologues. In fact, ‘Life Savings’ is a show in two parts: Adam and director Sita Calvert-Ennals are creating Part Two with Theatre Royal Bath’s Engage department for Adult Creative Learners, while another writer (Toby Hulse) and director (Lee Lyford, he of the recent ‘Ben Hur’, on which Sita assisted) are working with a group of 12-13-year-olds on Part One. Sound design for both shows comes from Sam Halmarack, the Bristol musician and performer who’s just given us some of Mayfest 2011’s most memorable moments.

“I have interviewed the eight actors, workshopped lots of personal material with them, and worked that into a script where they can re-live their memories of their own varied lives,” Adam explains. “A lot of it is biographical: I have actually created very little, just crafted and re-told. Which fits in with the work I have been writing for myself over the past year or so – using myself or ourselves as the subjects of our plays, rather than some king in a foreign country 300 years ago, or three sisters in Russia, or a clown in a tent.”

The end result is a series of short scenes which tie together in terms of theme, rhythm and more: interspersed monologues that act like an ongoing dialogue, even though they are unrelated in subject or tone. “The piece is essentially about a group of people coming together to a special place where their memories are stored, so they can re-live those memories – in private (i.e. unheard by the other actors) but for the pleasure of the audience.”

The show, in short, is about as ‘devised’ as a show can get: created by the performers from their own lives. How does this process feel? “I love using biography for material, especially when the people who provided it will be acting it,” Adam enthuses. “It feels very genuine – you know that they are talking about their real lives, not something that someone else has made up for them to say.”

Of course, the themes to emerge are many: but an ongoing one, says Adam, is memory itself. “How memories creep up on you and surprise you and make you think about things you maybe don't want to think about. How we never really leave our experiences behind. How some memories are sad and others uplifting, and how they all form a sort of backdrop to our here and now.”

“It looks at what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget – and what happens when we revisit old memories,” adds Sita, the director. “It asks: is growing old all about looking backwards and being young about looking forward, or are we essentially always doing both?

“It’s a piece about a collection of life experiences woven together with some magical moments. Because the stories are all true and are being told by their owners, I hope they will carry a pathos and authenticity that a traditional script would not. The piece has a narrative arc, but it is mainly the actors playing themselves telling their own stories. It is a little frightening for all of us, but this process seemed to get closest to what this piece is about.”

Sita, a TRB associate artist who’s been involved with Engage from the start, is enthused about the Engage strand. “I think its an incredibly exciting, growing department. Having been associate director on ‘Ben Hur’ for a year and watched the journey of some of those participants from the beginning workshops to the end show was extraordinary.

“For years, I have thought how sad it is that there is so much high-quality youth theatre provision – and yet for anyone over 18 wanting to act, their only option is amateur dramatics. Engage’s success comes from its higher aims and production values. They want to offer a genuine professional experience. The mix of actor training classes, one-off workshops and productions is a great way to keep developing those who want to act – whatever age or ability.”

LIFE SAVINGS WAS AT THE USTINOV AND THE EGG, BATH FROM TUE 21-SAT 25 JUNE. FFI: WWW.THEATREROYAL.ORG.UK FOR REVIEW CLICK HERE

Copyright Steve Wright 2011