| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1983) was not a great success in Ealing. In spite of wonderfully rich language, good casting, imaginative masks and a great deal of energy, it attracted only small, not very enthusiastic audiences. It moved to Minack clifftop theatre in Cornwall. I was playing a small role as a hunting dog, regularly getting my paws stepped on by my attendant huntsman.
Sylvia Hyson, an actress of great warmth and superb vocal range, was playing Morgan the Fay. We knew she was ill, but she came to Minack and did the final dress rehearsal. We were amazed and aghast when we were told, firstly that she was in hospital, and shortly after that she had died.
Out of the hot, blue August sky, suddenly I was promoted to her role, and an actress who had come to do a bit of ASM-ing became the hunting dog with the permanently bruised hands. Alan Chambers, the director, dealt with the crisis very well. We had one small extra rehearsal (most of the company were on the beach and not findable anyway). Rona Christie and Jane Blackwell (stage managers) were decisive and supportive. All of Morgan the Fay's lines were put on a scroll-like paper for me to read, and blocking changed so that I could stand still a lot.
Faced by such a shock, and huge changes to the play before the first performance, the company snapped together. We injected a massive amount of controlled passion into the play, got through it, and played to appreciative full houses for the whole week.
I did my best to to copy Sylvia's timing and intonation, because the poetry was used to time the movements of the other actors in some of the prinicipal scenes. I also had to put on her sweaty costume and make it mine. Standing high up in that rocky auditorium, with the sea as backdrop, reaching out with powerful poetry to a hushed audience, there were times when I felt that Sylvia's spirit was inhabiting me and urging me on.
This magical feeling was enhanced by the perfect weather, with dark, sultry evenings, the very strong company feeling, almost like a spell, the nightly display of shooting stars; I even saw a merlin for the first and only time in my life.
During the week we held a remembrance service for Sylvia on the Minack stage. Alan Chambers found suitable poetry, and we all recited short pieces, and then we took a pink and white wreath in the shape of a pentangle (a symbol of magic in the play) and cast it into the sea.
I fell that something of Sylvia still inhabits that stage. I've never been able to go back.
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