The Rivals, Wednesday 10th to Friday 12th October, New Theatre, Exeter
Young and vibrant theatre company Creative Cow is touring the country this autumn with their much welcomed new production of The Rivals.
Katherine Senior, one of the three founder members of Creative Cow, spoke to Phonic FM.
Katherine plays Mrs Malaprop in the show. The Rivals is directed by Amanda Knott.
What is The Rivals is about?
The Rivals was written in 1775 by Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan who also wrote The School for Scandal.
It tells the story of a day in the life of a circle of socialites swooping in on the fashionable city of Bath: to take the waters, find romance and have a jolly good gossip.
Mrs Malaprop delivers her famous twisted phrases. Lydia Languish has ample suitors foisted on her, but is busy falling in love with Captain Absolute. Sir Anthony Absolute is hilariously ridiculous as his explosive father. The young lovers are suffering from proposed arranged marriages and the old from misdirected love letters!
Confusion, duels, madness and mayhem ensue …
Why did you choose this play?
The Rivals is a play we all know well and felt we could do justice to. We work as a tight ensemble company, something that’s good for this fast paced and funny play.
Tell us about the company and your philosophy. What is it that drives the company’s creativity?
The core company is very small, just three creatives- two actors and an artistic director. It means the artistic drive and philosophy is crystal clear- to create honest and powerful pieces of theatre.
There has never been a need to sit down and discuss an aim or mission statement as we came together because we simply wanted to produce quality productions and the ‘style’ was born out of an utterly organic process.
There is no money behind the company which means although we really have to juggle the finances, we never have anything to lose, which gives us a certain amount of freedom to do what we want.
The core company has bucket loads of tenacity, passion and creativity to always deliver top notch versions of classic plays on a shoestring.
So why ‘Creative Cow’?
The name Creative Cow came about because our director, Amanda, lives on a farm in the valleys of Devon and her husband is a rare breed cattle farmer. We rehearse on the farm, literally.
The Rivals has quite a substantial set and we need a lot of space for this show. Luckily for us, it’s still classed as summer months (although you wouldn’t think so!) for farmers, so the cows are out in the fields, which means we can squat in their winter abode, which is a very, very large cow shed and yes, it’s outdoors! When the sun is shining and it’s warm, you feel very lucky rehearsing in such beautiful surroundings. When it’s torrential rain, however, you have to wear an additional layer of clothes, work harder and shout louder.
You have an association with the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford for this production. Can you tell us more about this?
We have been touring to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre for three years and they are very keen to help us in any way they can. Of course, theatres are struggling with funding across the country so there is no financial support from the theatre but their knowledge of other receiving houses throughout the UK, endless advice and the resourceful props department is of great help to Creative Cow which also receives no public funding.
What do you hope audiences will take away from your productions – and this one in particular?
We always hope that audiences will leave the theatre feeling uplifted and they had a great night out. Hopefully it will encourage people and especially youngsters to continue going to live theatre and enjoy the atmosphere it brings.