Annie Get Your Gun

There are several different code words and actions that can be introduced either one at a time or simultaneously. Once introduced, anyone in the circle can choose to implement one on their turn.

After a couple of rounds you can start omitting actors if they make a mistake. When there are only two players left, stand them back-to-back for the shoot-off to decide a winner. They should form guns with their hands. Tell them the ‘fire’ word you’ve picked (this can be anything you chose, for example ‘Annie’). Then say a series of other words (it’s fun to chose things that start with the same letter or sound like the word you’ve chosen, for example ‘ant’, ‘aga’, ‘army’ etc). Each time you say a word the two players take a step forward (i.e. away from each other). Once you say the ‘fire’ word, the two players turn and shoot by pointing their ‘gun’ at each other and repeating the word ‘bang’ over and over again. The person who runs out of breath first is the loser.

A difficulty in musical theatre for performers is the unreality of bursting into song. This simple exercise encourages actors to respond intuitively and unashamedly to music, and recognise its ability to communicate complex emotions instantaneously.

Pre-select several very different types of music (not only differing musical genres, but different tempos etc) to play on either the piano or CD. Ask the actors to walk around the room. Play the first track and ask the actors to respond physically to it. Encourage them not just to adjust their walk but use their whole body. Allow time for this to be fully explored and then gradually work through the remaining tracks.

Discuss the power of music and how the students felt when each piece was played. Relate this to the songs in Annie Get Your Gun. Berlin is a master at writing songs that convey information both about the character that are singing but also the situation. For example, consider the contrast between the Hicksville, simple ‘Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly’ which perfectly encapsulates Annie’s backwards upbringing, with the up-tempo spark of ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ which represents the glamour of Buffalo Bill’s show.

Set up a simple scenario of conflict between two of your actors and ask them to improvise the scene. For example:

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  An employee arrives late for work and his boss is waiting for him.
  
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  A schoolgirl refuses to give up her seat on the bus for an OAP who challenges her.
  
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  A groom has just said the wrong name at the altar and tries to apologise to the bride.
  

Once they’re in the middle of the scene put on a piece of music and ask them to allow it to affect the scene. Their initial response will probably relate to the dynamics of the music; a loud, fast piece will solicit an angry response for example. Change the music to something that really contrasts, and encourage them to respond also to the genre of music. (An up-tempo, light song might turn the scene into silent comedy. A heavily orchestrated, classical piece may turn the scene into a hammy melodrama.)

Allow every student to have a turn. Lead a discussion about how the music affected the scene and therefore the power of a score on a musical theatre audience.

This exercise is a quick and easy physical method of getting actors to consider characterisation. (It also helps ensemble members to be specific when defining the differences between their various roles.)

The aim of step one is to clear the actors’ heads and physically neutralise them, ridding themselves of their individual quirks.

Once you feel the actors are focussed, begin to ask the following questions. It’s useful to offer a few example answers to each question to encourage those who aren’t as imaginative (see character’s age example below). Allow enough time for the actor to consider and implement each new thing before moving on to the next. The actors should keep walking throughout. End each question by saying: ‘Allow this to filter into your physicality.’

How old is your character?

Now ask the characters to progress from walking around the room to doing simple activities. The following are just examples.

Finally, the actors can begin to interact with each other. Firstly, instruct them to walk around the room again greeting each other as they pass. Then progress to improvised conversations. It’s a good idea to give a context such as Pawnee Bill’s party from Act 2 of Annie Get Your Gun.

This exercise is a fun way to explore relationships.

Follow step 1 from the previous exercise but ask the actors to walk around the room in character instead of neutrally.

Whilst still walking, ask each actor to pick a character in the play who is the most dangerous (this is the ‘bomb’) to their character and the character who can offer their character the most (this is the shield). The appropriate characters might not be immediately obvious or explicit from the script and the actors may need a moment to weigh up the options. It may be helpful to remind the actors that they should consider physical, emotional and mental dangers/needs.

It’s a good idea to discuss any revelations which the game has produced afterwards. Actors may be surprised that a certain character was using them as a ‘shield’.

This exercise is designed to encourage students to consider the power of the visual language of theatre, whilst also examining the play’s themes. Some professional theatre directors also use it to help their cast identify the play’s components (both themes and plot) near the start of rehearsals.

Split the cast into at least two groups. Give each group a defining moment from the play; the students shouldn’t know which moments the other groups have been given. The best moments are those which contain dramatic conflict between the characters. Each group has two minutes to create a tableau [frozen image] which conveys that moment. The time limit encourages team work and a physical, rather than intellectual, response.

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  When Frank loses the first shooting match to Annie.
  
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  When Annie shows Frank the medals she has won.
  
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  When Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill realise that both shows are broke whilst discussing going into partnership.
  

Ask one group to stay frozen and invite the other groups to look at their tableau. Ask for suggestions of what moment the group are trying to capture. Once it’s been correctly guessed (or you’ve admitted defeat and asked for the answer) ask the audience for suggestions on how the story of the picture could be clearer. The performing group should adapt their picture according to the suggestions. Keep taking suggestions until the tableau captures the essence of the moment and can’t be distilled further.

Bring the groups together and ask what themes were suggested by the tableaus.

Ask the groups to pick one theme which has been suggested from their scene and to create a tableau which represents it. Tell them to take it out of the context of the play you’re rehearsing and think imaginatively and non-literally. Give a time limit. Repeat Step 2.

There’s a difficult problem of tone in the play for a director. There’s a lot you could cringe at. I think you have to let the odd cringe through, but the dialogue has to be very terse and comically buoyant and I was interested to see if I could make it work.

The original production’s politics are very right-wing. The sexual politics are in the dark ages, it’s clearly racist and what it says about the function of theatre is dreadful [presumably as a force of entertainment rather than social change]. The original script is very wearying to read; it’s pretty terrifying. On all points of the compass it’s very difficult to re-conceive the production.

I don’t think there are any Native American actors in the UK so I’ve cast ensemble members irrespective of their ethnicity. I’ve purposefully portrayed those characters as having the highest intellect and status of all the roles, turning the stereotype on its head. I guess it’s a postmodernist⁸ joke. There’s an underlying theme in the show that in order to earn your living you might have to subscribe to the incorrect way that society might portray you [such as Sitting Bull, see chapter 9]. There are more amateur productions of Annie Get Your Gun than any other musical, but I don’t particularly like the versions I’ve watched on YouTube as they don’t deal with these controversial issues. However, it’s very difficult to do a show like Annie Get Your Gun which is both appropriate for the usual Young Vic audience whilst simultaneously appealing to a West End musical theatre audience who hasn’t previously been here.

Yes, that’s exactly what the show is about. It’s endemic in shows of the time; all the characters are in the Garden of Eden. If you came to America in 1946, usually your life has been awful beforehand, and you had to believe that America was God’s country. In God’s country everyone has a moral centre, everyone has opportunism, everyone is childlike (but not childish), open and luminous. And that’s a good guide for what the playing style of the production should be. It’s the opposite of Stanislavsky and Naturalism in every way. That’s the question of tone I was talking about early. And it’s a very unfashionable playing style too, which is interesting.

The composers of 1940’s musicals were Eastern Europe and Jewish so their orchestral sound was Viennese, very rich. Someone suggested I do a Country and Western version of Annie Get Your Gun but that’s a huge betrayal of what Irving Berlin was, which is not far from Lehar [Hungarian composer of The Merry Widow]. In order to recreate Berlin’s Broadway sound, it’s better, in my opinion, to have four pianos which can be excessive and sound all the harmonic world of that score. Years ago, I sometimes played the piano in places like the Half Moon Theatre [East London fringe theatre, now closed]. One time during a production of Guys and Dolls there was just a piano, bass and drums and I remember thinking how weedy and feeble it sounded in comparison to the original. Our four piano version might have a black and white palette but it does have a very strong relationship with what the original orchestral score should sound like.

No, not really. The production came out of two things. The first was the pressure to do shows that have music in them as they contain the maximum expressiveness of the human body and mind. I classify all our music theatre work together, whether it’s a play with songs, a musical, an opera or dance. The second prompt was Jane Horrocks who appeared in our production of The Good Soul of Szechuan [by Bertolt Brecht], with Richard Jones directing, and she said she’d like to work with him again at the Young Vic. I thought about what would be a good show for both of them and also be the kind of thing they haven’t done before, which is part of the Young Vic’s brief. Annie Get Your Gun is an odd piece; it’s light and could just be called an ‘entertainment’, but beneath that is a contentious and complex structure. It’s fundamentally about the nature of commercial relationships, whether that’s between men and women, or entrepreneurs and Native Americans. The original script is on to something about show business, the business of showing things, but it doesn’t quite deal with it, it flirts with something complex. I guess what we’re hoping to do with the show is think a little bit about how all that’s changed in the 50 years since it was originally done.

I don’t like to think of target audiences as I don’t think of people in that way. That said, I think I’ve noticed over the performances so far that there are people who’ve not been before, from a different part of London, and that’s great. But I prefer to think in terms of numbers: I would like lots of people to come. The point of the seats being so cheap (compared to other musicals) is the hope that people will come who wouldn’t be able to afford to go to West End theatres. However, West End theatres charge double what we charge and the best shows are sold out every night so obviously there is money to spend out there. It does mean we’ve done more extensive marketing, and have higher financial targets, than usual.

It’s unusual that a director of a musical like Annie Get Your Gun would talk about tone. Richard is a master of aiming for a delicate tone and yet the resonance, if he gets it right, is very powerful. It’s like the surface of a lake; it needs to be still and totally controlled. There might be big fish swimming around in the bottom of the lake, you know they’re there but they don’t disturb the surface on the lake. The job of a director and cast is to find the core humanity in whatever play they’re doing. The definition of a bad play is when you can’t find what is real in the material because it isn’t there. Richard’s way of talking about that is tone. He means finding the sensibility, the original impulse of the writer.

We knew we could only do the show if we were able to crack this problem, and with the agreement of the Berlin’s estate of course [who control the distribution of rights]. I don’t believe the writers were racist. I believe the way in which they tried to express the humanity of the Native American characters was to write them as Jews. It is shtick [Yiddish humour] – Jewish, New York gags. How conscious of this the writers were I don’t know, but it’s pretty clear to me that they were saying that the Native Americans in the Wild West show shared a common humanity with everyone else. The evidence of this is that the characters can make as good and as intelligent jokes as the other characters. The difficultly is that our knowledge of the reality of Native American experience is different from what it was 50 years ago. You can’t talk about Custer’s last stand [see chapter 9] in the way you could before the publication of ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’ [seminal work about the history of Native Americans, written in 1970 by Dee Brown]. We now know a lot more about the appalling history that underpins American life. I’ve been guided by Richard and the research, improvisations and workshops he’s done to find a way we could present those characters with adequate dignity and intelligence, but without disturbing the tranquil surface of the lake. Peter Stein [German theatre director] said that if he read a play and felt he understood it then he didn’t see the reason to direct it. Part of the reason to do a play is to come to terms with it.

The American Dream is the assumption that anyone can become somebody through Capitalism. This contradicts the assumption of the UK which is that we’re all bound by the class we’re born into. The flip side of that is that America also imprisons more people than any other country and executes nearly as many as China. Annie Oakley expresses the American Dream in a very particular way. Richard has mentioned to me that it’s almost like she has autism. She’s a girl from the sticks but she can do this one extraordinary thing. She has one aspect of genius. It’s like Rain Man [1988 film about an autistic man] but with shooting instead of mathematics.

We like to talk in terms of racism and sexism. The job of art is to go beyond that. It’s the death of art to think in those terms. It’s another kind of enslavement of the mind that there is some orthodoxy which we have to follow. You can approach law-making and journalism in that way, but not art. To understand the reality of experience is to understand that all suffering is the same, that the suffering of women is just as bad as the suffering of men and blacks the same as whites.

I don’t think we’ve sorted the end yet. I mean obviously we know its fine to create shows that the audience disagrees with but I don’t know what that would do to the tone in this production. If I were producing this in a commercial theatre I guess I’d be saying it’s got to end in a way where the audience leave feeling satisfied. And maybe I should do that with this Young Vic production too. That said, one of the most successful musicals in the West End and on Broadway at the moment is Billy Elliot [about a working class boy who dreams of becoming a dancer, set against the backdrop of the miners’ strikes] and the great thing about that show is that it says difficult things that you wouldn’t expect to find in a musical. I think the success of Billy Elliot isn’t despite that, but because of that.

He’s located it very approximately in the 1940s; there are actually all kinds of eras in there. The change of setting is to suggest to the audience that they can look at the piece in a new way. Richard uses the phrase ‘comfy snooze’ to describe shows he disapproves of; he’s at war with the notion of an audience sitting back and relaxing. He wants maximum consciousness and maximum attention from his audience.

I teach the music to the cast and ensure they know the musical notes and how we want them sung. Then I work with the Musical Supervisor to work out how we’re going to use music for scene changes and introductions in order to create the correct mood, and how we’ll play that. I also rehearse the members of the band. For this production, I’m also playing the piano and conducting when I have a spare hand. Often the M.D. would just conduct during performances.

The history of the four pianos is that we were originally thinking of doing it with just two pianos and various other instruments. But then Richard and Ultz [Designer] were contemplating placing the two pianos along the front of the stage but weren’t sure where on the stage to put the rest of the instruments. At which point Jason [Musical Supervisor] suggested that we could make a big musical statement and just have four pianos. It means all the music is in one colour but you can do exciting things with stereo sound using the two pianos on either end whilst the two pianos in the middle concentrate on playing rhythm and tune. Just having pianos is also reminiscent of the self-playing Player Pianos which were used in western saloons. Taking an untraditional approach to the musical suits the Young Vic’s style.