The Work in Progress

Michael Pinchbeck and Tony Pinchbeck present a work in progress of The Post Show Party Show at Preset, Dance 4 on Tuesday 5 February 2008 at 5pm. You are invited to the party. The show. The post-show party. The Post Show Party Show. Whatever it's called. You're invited.
Image: Julian Hughes

The Concept

We are backstage. We are offstage. We are standing in the wings of the story. We are inviting you to help us to remember. We are pretending to be characters in a musical. We are pretending to be ourselves. We are pretending to be each other.

Michael Pinchbeck will work with his father - Tony Pinchbeck - to recreate the post-show party at which his parents met in December 1970. His mum was a nun. His Dad was a Nazi. It was an amateur dramatic version of The Sound of Music. At the post-show party, the men sang songs they had written backstage and the women danced. Arthur Hunter, who was playing Baron Elberfeld, collapsed leading to the end of the party and the beginning of Pinchbeck’s parents' relationship. It wasn't until afterwards they learned he had died.

The Post-Show Party Show starts at the end of the show and the beginning of the post-show party. Taking place somewhere between then and now, onstage and offstage, to the real-time soundtrack of The Sound of Music, the piece explores notions of performance and the nature of the father and son relationship. Reliving the real life event and revisiting the songs the men had written backstage, The Post Show Party Show asks what is professional and what is amateur, what is present and what is absent, what is dance and what is not dance.

Image: Julian Hughes

Photoshoot

Rehearsal

Image: Julian Hughes

The introduction

We are at a post-show party. Tony and Michael are dressed in 70s clothes. They serve Shloer. There is a buffet table with 70s snacks. A hedgehog with cheese and pineapple on sticks and mini-sausages etc. A record plays on a record player - The Sound of Music. There are sixteen stools onstage / offstage. When everyone has a drink Michael stops the record abruptly. Tony steps forward to address audience.

Tony: Is there a Doctor in the House?

Michael: Ladies and Gentlemen please return to your seats and keep calm

Tony: The party’s over

Michael: The show has begun

Tony: Scene One

Michael: The Prelude

Tony: My name is Tony

Michael: My name is Michael

Tony: I am his father

Michael: I am his son

Tony: I will be playing my son

Michael: I will be playing my father

Both: We are father and son

Tony: This is the show

Michael: The the Post-Show Party

Tony: The Post-Show Party Show

Michael: Show them where we are

Tony: We are at a show

Michael: We are at a party

Tony: A post-show party

Michael: The show is over

Tony: The party has begun

Michael: We hope you enjoy the show

Tony: The party

Michael: The post-show party

Both: The post-show party show

The Synopsis

For people who don’t know the story my Dad has written a synopsis

In pre-war Austria at Nonnberg Abbey, Salzburg, Maria a young novice Nun wants to aspire to Holy Orders but is constantly distracted by the Musicality of the surrounding Hills and other fascinations. Her Mother Superior is sympathetic and decides to place her as Governess to a local family – 7 children with a widower father, Capt Georg von Trapp, who is engaged to a Baroness, Elsa Schraeder, and is a naval disciplinarian. He has a regular friend, Max, who is often found staying with him.

Georg is a staunch Austrian and has no love for the threatening Nazi influence. Georg’s eldest daughter, Liesl (16) is fondly attached to local telegraph boy Rolf Gruber who is about to be recruited into the Hitler Youth machine and, being only slightly older than Liesl, tells her she is still rather too young.

Maria arrives to find a family tension among the children, desperate for their father’s attention and love; she quickly befriends them, guides them with music, home-made clothes and outings and other favourite things and generally brings warmth to the whole house. During a family party at which Georg ruffles a few Nazi feathers and the children perform a specially prepared song, the Captain comes to realise this and that he has become attracted to Maria, a fact which the Baroness is quick to spot. She manipulates Maria’s sudden departure from the house.

Max, who is as cynical about love as he is about politics, and has no strong political conviction, is engaged in preparing a Concert for the community and wants the Children to take part as the von Trapp family singers. He is still an Austrian at heart though showing a neutral attitude to the imminent Anschluss.

The children are pining for Maria while the Captain and Elsa proceed with plans for their marriage. Maria has gone back to the Abbey convent, but Mother Abbess persuades her that convent life is not to be used as an escape from the realities of life and love. Maria returns to the family, to the children’s great joy and Elsa’s realistic chagrin. The Captain declares his love and they marry in style at the Abbey.

The Anschluss occurs while they are away on honeymoon, and the concert goes ahead on their return. To avoid a command from Berlin to take up a post in the German Navy Georg sings with the family at the Concert and escapes before the final curtain via the Convent. Rolf, despite his former affections, is instrumental in getting the chase under way, but the Nuns find ways of immobilising Nazi cars and Mother Abbess bids the entire family godspeed as they “Climb Every Mountain” to Switzerland and safety. Everyone lives happily ever after.

The Pratt Family Singers

A gentle but spirited musical protest by Male members of an Amateur Operatic Society* at the lack of involvement in the choice of its annual production viz. “The Sound of Music” – presented as a cabaret item at the Society’s post-show party in Lincoln in December 1970. [This event, although containing tragedy, was to change the lives of at least two people in a very happy way for ever.]

MAX : Excuse me, Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement that concerns you. “The Sound of Music” like the Kalsburg Festival has come to its conclusion; except of course that you don’t know quite what that conclusion is. We have all enjoyed the wonderful and successful production over the last two weeks, but I would like very humbly to suggest that you have not quite heard everything. And so, at tremendous expense and at very great personal danger, I ask you to give a very warm welcome to The Pratt Family Singers…

[Enter chorus, singing to guitar accompt.]

ALL : The hills are alive with the sound of music,
With songs they have sung for a thousand years;
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music,
My heart wants to sing every song it hears;

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the bird that rise
From the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh as the chime that flies
From a church on the breeze;
To laugh like a drain when it gurgles on
Through the sewers broad and deep,
To slurp through the night
And stop people getting their sleep.

We take to the pills when our hearts are lonely
We just can’t conceive – what else can we do ?
Our hearts are quite sad with The Sound of Music
For we can sing too !

CAPT : Maria, darling, will you still love me when I get old ?
“MARIA” : Why don’t you get old and see ?

CAPT : I am Sixty going on Seventy
There’s life in the old dog yet;
Better beware, be canny and careful
Better go see the vet.
You are Seventy going on Eighty,
Baby, you’re just my type.
Even though you are slightly askew
You’re certainly over-ripe.

Totally unprepared are you to face a world of Men;
If I were you I’d think it wise to start all over again.

You need someone younger and wiser
Telling you what to do
I am Sixty going on Seventy,
I’m nearly past it too !

“MARIA” : But how did we get into this mess ?
CAPT. : It’s a very long story…….

ALL : Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start.
When you read you begin with ABC
When you sing you begin with Do-Re-Mi.
Do-Re-Mi.
Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti…….

Dough, the cash that caused it all
Ray, the driver’s mate who got
Me, a nice young innocent girl,
Far away in some dark spot.
So, I had to call for aid,
“La !”, I shouted all in vain;
“Tee-hee !”, he cried, “I’ve got it made !”.
Now he’s short of Dough again ! [& Repeat from “Dough”]

MAX : But, Captain, if only we’d been properly advised

ALL : ILL ADVICE, ILL ADVICE
Every moment you haunt me,
Right or wrong, What a song,
Only serves to taunt me.

Blossom of snow,
What a blooming show,
Blooming show this autumn;

ILL ADVICE, ILL ADVICE,
What a lesson we’ve taught ‘em.

[ & Repeat]

CAPT. : Yes, Max, but how can we put things right ?
MAX : Listen, and I’ll tell you.
[to audience]Are you all sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin…

MAX : No little chorus to sing have we,
No chance to show our great repartee,
ALL : How can men survive ?
MAX : Still, though our musical souls still ache,
We’ll carry on for the “County’s”* sake,
There’s a table to shift and a bed to make;
ALL : That’s how men survive.

ALL : On with the desk, then take a short rest
Till it’s time for Act One Scene Five;
Then, oh my Heck, it’s all hands on deck,
And the stage teems with men like a bee-hive.

Not very far off the beam are we,
Quaint and bizarre as a team are we,
Well-dressed young men of Propertee,
We’re keeping our hopes alive,
Dashing young men of Propertee,
We’ll make sure men survive.

CAPT. : Well, Max, if that’s the way you go about it the sky’s the limit.
MAX : How do we get there, Captain ?
CAPT. : We all know that. There’s only one way.

ALL : Climb every mountain, search high and low,
Follow every by-way, every path you know
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream.

A dream that will need all the love you can give.
Every day of your life, for as long as you live.
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream.

[& Repeat from “A dream”]

THE END

[* County Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society – the “County”]