Three Chairs and a Hat's new hour-long musical ‘Evangeline’, by Nia Williams, comes to the Brighton Fringe this year with a week’s run at The Lantern Theatre (4—8 May). The show has a cast of one — Guy Brigg — and tells the rollercoaster story of a showbiz survivor, who starts life being abandoned in a cardboard box, eventually finds brief fame on the stage and then seems to sabotage her own career. Despite these grim circumstances, there’s plenty of humour and fun, and Guy plays every character in Evangeline's story, as well as portraying the divine Ms E herself from childhood to ‘late youth’.
'Evangeline began life as a secondary character — also played by Guy — in an earlier show, ‘Melody’, explains Nia, 'which played in several venues around the south and was due to be staged in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe — but had to be called off during the pandemic. I felt this charismatic but slightly mysterious character deserved some fleshing out, and I knew from his work in Melody that Guy would be brilliant at playing lots of very different characters and creating a convincing world with a very spare set and a lot of talent’.
Evangeline comes to Brighton after a debut production in Oxford, and will then be heading to The Glitch in Waterloo and finally to The Phoenix Theatre at Guy’s home town of Ross-on-Wye.
We caught up with Nia Williams to learn more about the play.
What can you tell me about EVANGELINE and the inspiration behind it?
This is the story of a musical theatre performer’s rollercoaster life, told by Evangeline herself. It starts with her abandonment by a loving but drug-addicted mother, and her discovery in a cardboard box by a self-styled Russian ballerina, and takes us through a tough childhood of touring and tumbling, to West End success — marred by her relationship with a coercive director and eventually sabotaged by her own rebellion against the submissive roles she’s been required to play at home and on the stage.
Evangeline began as a supporting character in Melody. What was it about her specifically that felt like it demanded a full-hour deep dive into her bizarre and rocky past?
Originally my intention had been to create a piece about the silent movie star Buster Keaton, but I felt too constrained by writing about a real life, and wanted more freedom to be imaginative. In my two-hander Melody, Evangeline was a singing teacher who drew out the secrets and mysteries of her pupil’s life; but she was clearly also a vivid, flamboyant character with an interesting back-story, and the scenario of an eventful life and show-biz career seemed to fit that character perfectly.
The show follows her from Baby Evie to a West End star to a self-saboteur. How did you approach mapping her musical style across these different eras of her life?
This is such a good question! For me, this journey through Evangeline's different circumstances and experiences was a great opportunity to play with different musical styles that appeal to me, from poignant ballad to melodramatic tango to upbeat Charleston-style to sassy jazz. I love trying to convey character and story through songs, and each point of Evangeline’s life suggested its own particular music.
How has it been working with Guy Brigg who performs all of the characters in the show?
I’d already worked with Guy on Melody — where he originated the role of Evangeline, but also played about 12 other characters in Melody’s story. So I knew how good he would be at creating a whole world with minimal props, set or costume. He’s also a very experienced director and choreographer, which was a huge advantage in a show that we were creating together — along with lighting designer Dan Knight. He brought so many ideas and thoughts to the show, while also being open to my suggestions, and all in all the rehearsal process has been great fun. I take my hat off to any performer who willingly takes on an hour-long solo script involving multiple roles, dancing and singing, and who does it with such enthusiasm, talent and good grace!
Writing a one-person musical is a unique beast. How do you use the score to make the audience feel the presence of the 'entire world of other characters' when there is only one body on stage?
My favourite kind of theatre is the kind that uses the audience’s imagination. It seems to me to be the real essence of storytelling, and that’s also how I see songwriting: a way of putting across a narrative or a character or a mood. In fact that’s usually the starting point of writing the music for me: what style, key, harmonies, dissonances, rhythms will best tell this episode of the story. It doesn’t always work first time, but when it does, it carries everything forward to the next chapter.
The description mentions 'high kicks and high jinks' alongside 'bruises and booze.' How do you balance the flamboyant comedy of a West End star with the darker, more vulnerable moments of her abandonment and sabotage in the music?
As a rehearsal and pit pianist, I’ve worked on a lot of musical theatre shows, and I’ve often been intrigued — and sometimes troubled — by the strange mix of escapism and darkness in many of their plots. I wanted to tackle that in this show, as well as the stark contrast between many performers' on-stage personas and their private struggles. Finding that combination of the upbeat and humorous, and the sometimes brutally dark side of Evangeline’s life was made easier by her own character as it emerged in the story: fragile but resilient, vulnerable but ultimately courageous enough to deal with the bad stuff and come back stronger, and with new belief in herself.
As both the writer and musical director, do you find the lyrics or the melody usually comes first when trying to capture a character as mercurial as Evangeline?
Sometimes the mood I want to convey suggests the musical style first; sometimes, I have a phrase or a lyric already in mind and build the music around that. And sometimes I’m completely stuck! In those cases, I might try and be methodical — write out in prose what I want Evangeline (or another character) to be saying, and then shape that into lyrics. But sometimes I might just hear a good beat or a nice shift of harmony on the radio or on a video, and that kicks off a new musical idea.
Three Chairs and a Hat has had a string of successes with Mrs Pack, Verity, and Dexter. How does Evangeline fit into the 'Three Chairs and a Hat' lineage, and how does it push the company in a new direction?”
All our work centres around characters and their personal stories, and Evangeline carries on that practice. It also follows the Three Chairs and a Hat aim of small staging and big imagination. This is the first time, though, that we’ve produced a solo piece, with one performer conveying the whole story and every character in it. This gives us the chance to be more portable and use more small-scale venues — but we’re definitely not abandoning the larger-cast shows, and have plans for more of those in the future!
You’re taking this show from Oxford to Brighton to London. Does the intimacy of a one-person show change the way you adapt to different venues?
My hope is that the one-person format will give us more flexibility in performing in different venues, for instance in adapting to new layouts, which would involve more rehearsal for a larger cast. We’re also hoping to take the show to a wider variety of venues, such as cabaret or comedy clubs, where we can squeeze in with more ease!
A West End star sabotaging their own career is a heartbreaking trope. Is Evangeline’s sabotage an act of fear, or is it her way of finally taking control of a life that was 'sold, stolen, and abandoned' by others?
Evangeline’s self-sabotage is really an act of rebellion — against her controlling partner, and against the role she’s been cast to play on stage, which sends out a message of submission. So although it does, in one way, destroy her success, it’s actually a first step in reclaiming control and self-respect, and finding her own voice. (The role and the message are inspired by a well-known musical with a deeply problematic plot, which most musical theatregoers should recognise …)
If audiences could walk away with one specific emotion or thought after the curtain falls on Evangeline, what would you want that to be?
I hope they would come away believing that they can find their own voices, and the courage to be themselves. I think Evangeline would say, ‘Don’t let anybody put you in a box.’ (And I hope they enjoy it!).
Evangeline plays at the following venues;
Oxford Playhouse - 15th to 17th April
Brighton Fringe - 4th to 8th May
The Glitch (London) - 24th and 25th June
Ross-On-Wye - 9th and 10th July
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