Text 1: Curtain up at the old printworks, by Marcus Dean

An original contemporary newspaper feature.

A disused printworks does not immediately suggest itself as a theatre. Its concrete floor is uneven, square pillars interrupt almost every view and passing trains make the high windows tremble. Nevertheless, on Thursday night, the Haleton Players performed The Long Road Home there to an audience of 240.

Their usual theatre had closed for urgent repairs six weeks earlier. Rather than cancel the production, director Laila Morton accepted the printworks owner’s offer of the empty building. The cast soon discovered that scenery designed for a stage looked tiny against the vast walls. Four volunteers spent a weekend hanging black curtains to create a smaller acting area, while Laila changed the actors’ movements so that no important scene took place behind a pillar.

There was no heating. Audience members kept their coats on, and volunteers handed out blankets during the interval. Whenever a train passed, the actors paused without leaving character and continued once the noise had faded.

Beforehand, some ticket holders had complained about the change of venue. By the final scene, however, the building was completely silent. The audience then rose to applaud, and dozens remained afterwards to look around the space and speak to the cast.

‘At first, the place seemed to be fighting us,’ Laila said. ‘By the end, it felt as though the audience had helped us turn it into a theatre.’

Text 2: A performance above the stables, by Beatrice Cole

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1891, an actor describes a touring company’s performance in a small market town.

My dear Florence,

We arrived at Elmbury expecting a proper hall and found instead a long room above an innkeeper’s stables. Our painted castle would not pass around the narrow staircase, so Mr Vale sawed its wooden frame into three pieces and joined them together again upstairs. The floor sloped so badly that a table rolled towards the audience during rehearsal. We stopped it by fixing strips of wood beneath two of its legs.

A draught entered through a broken window and extinguished the lamps beside the stage. The innkeeper lent us two glass lanterns, which we placed behind sheets of coloured paper. Their light was poor, but at least the audience could see our faces.

We feared nobody would come because rain had filled the street with mud. Yet every bench was occupied, and late arrivals stood against the walls. They hissed splendidly whenever Mr Vale appeared as the wicked uncle and laughed so loudly at my servant’s disguise that I had to wait before speaking my next line.

At the end they demanded our final song a second time. Several farmers even stayed to carry the pieces of the castle downstairs and load them onto our cart. We began the evening wishing ourselves anywhere else, but left believing Elmbury the warmest town on our tour.

Your loving sister,

Beatrice

Using information from both texts, explain briefly what difficulties the performers faced and how the audiences responded.

You should make it clear which text you are referring to.