The Chilliwack Players Guild will be presenting its fourth radio play in January.
The Gallows Does Well was written by Austin Stone in 1956 and the guild will be reading it twice on Saturday, Jan. 13 at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre.
It was one of many radio plays he wrote for the British Broadcasting Corporation, but it was also the only one the BBC did not broadcast because it was too long and he refused to cut it, said son Ed Stone.
READ MORE: Chilliwack Players Guild brings first ever radio play to stage
“This is a premiere. It’s never been seen or heard anywhere,” Ed said.
When the guild asked Ed if he could also edit the play, initially, like his father, he was reluctant to shave off time.
“However, I soon realized that if I didn’t do this, the play would never ever be seen or heard live by anyone.”
The original length was an hour and a half, and Ed, along with director Astrid Beugeling, cut 15 minutes from it.
The Gallows Does Well, like the other radio plays that the guild has presented, is based on a true crime story. It takes place in 1876 and the title ‘The Gallows Does Well’ is a quote by one of the gravediggers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
There isn’t really much acting in the play, rather the actors step up to a microphone and read directly from the script.
Folio artist Maggie Saunders (sound effects) will be at a table on a riser behind the row of actors.
There are no recorded sound effects or music – all sounds are produced live onstage.
The sounds of gunshots will be made using a slapstick where Saunders ‘slaps’ two pieces of wood together that are attached by a hinge.
Placing her hands inside a pair of shoes, she’ll “walk” up or down a small set of three steps to mimic the sounds of going up or down stairs. The main character has a limp, so Saunders adds a slight shuffle when making his footsteps.
“We don’t want to do anything that’s caricature-ish,” she said. “The whole intention of the sound props is to create the magic.”
Other props she’ll be using include a miniature door, a train whistle, a carpet bag full of silverware, and iron and metal tools that, when slid against each other, sound like the locking of a heavy prison door.
“For non-visual people, they should be able to hear exactly what is happening” and identify the sounds, Beugeling added.
Since there are more characters than actors, some guild members will play two or three characters. They are all onstage at the same time so the actors use minimal costume changes – perhaps a different hat, or wig – to help the audience identify which character they are each time they speak.
“Because we have an actual audience watching as well, it tells the story so much better with costumes. It enhances it,” said costume assistant Yvette Howard.
In addition to the sound effects and costumes, images will be projected on a screen behind the actors, plus there will be live music by Judy Hill (piano), Clint Hames (guitar) and Emily Jou (violin).
The Chilliwack Players Guild presents radio play The Gallows Does Well on Saturday, Jan. 13 at 1 p.m. and again at 3:30 p.m. in the Rotary Hall Studio Theatre at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre.
Tickets are $15 and available at the box office, online at chilliwackculturalcentre.ca or by calling 604-391-7469.
The guild’s fifth and final radio play will be French Poison and will be presented in January 2025. For more on Austin Stone and his work, go to austinstonetruecrime.com.
Synopsis and author’s notes:
This play is based on the life of Charles Peace. Peace has ever been what is probably the greatest subject of interest of all time, to psychologists and criminologists alike. Primarily, he was an unscrupulous rogue, a thief and a murderer; yet, in a matter of seconds his whole personality could change from a Hyde of the worst order to a pathetic, almost lovable Jekyll.
Of exceptionally small stature and physique, Peace was immensely agile and had the strength of three men. He could talk cultures English, Cockney or the dialect of the Provinces according to his mood and surroundings, a great actor. Ugly as sin, he had an amazing power over women. His mind was as aesthetic as it was lustful and base; but his greatest love was music – and, in particular, musical instruments, almost any of which he could play passably well. Despite the loss of a finger in an accident with a pistol, he was incredibly skilful with his hands: in Madame Tussaud’s there is a magnificent cathedral, perfect in every architectural detail, cut and made out of paper and cardboard by Peace in the condemned cell.
There is no biography of Charles Peace. This play is faithful in facts and detail with contemporary letters and accounts. Of humble birth, it has always been a mystery as to how he acquired such education and culture as at times he undoubtedly displayed; whilst the man who actually witnessed his recital of the grave scene from Hamlet [from which this title is taken] died only recently.
Surely such a character, as Charles Peace is worthy of a full dramatization for Radio and offers unlimited scope for a first-rate actor.
– Austin Stone, 1956
Background on the radio plays:
This is the fourth of five radio plays the guild is presenting. The five plays, along with four others, were written by Austin Stone in the UK and all are based on true crime stories. They aired on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) around the 1950s. Stone was a crime novelist and BBC playwright from 1936 to 1955. When he died in 1979, a large box of paperwork was given to one of his sons and later handed over to another son, Ed Stone of Chilliwack, who put it in his basement and forgot about it for 11 years.
In 2014, Ed was working on his family tree. He had recently joined the Sardis Genealogy Group when he finally opened up the box in search of his father’s birth certificate. There in the box, amid notes and letters, were two unpublished book manuscripts and nine radio play scripts his father had written.
Ed met Astrid Beugeling at the genealogy group, which is how the radio plays made their way to the Chilliwack Players Guild.
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