The Stahl Theatre is one of the premium locations in Oundle School, focusing on producing plays and allowing actors to flourish in their favoured environment. A wide range of plays are performed, from historical dramas based on much-acclaimed novels, to comedic interpretations of much-adapted, evergreen classics. For those who love acting or drama, appearing at the Stahl can be the pinnacle of your time at Oundle, where you feel the most like yourself and are able to express that to the fullest. However, for the average viewer, the Stahl can help to provide a welcome hiatus from the working week: a chance to relax and enjoy a play or musical, potentially catching a performance from someone they know or simply enjoying the bright lights. A visit to the Stahl tends to be an enjoyable one, with the events of the play stuck firmly in the minds of those who experienced it.
Typically, 7.45pm rings the start of plays or events in the Stahl, with everyone piling in and searching for their seats. Once the audience has settled, the lights dim and the curtains are drawn back as the play itself begins. The opening monologue invites the audience into this new world, whether that be one with a Wonderland or one that eerily reflects our own. Everyone in the room is perfectly attentive, with their ears perked up and their eyes glued to the events unfolding on stage. There are pointed fingers thrown as recognisable faces are seen, by parents, friends or personal acquaintances. The hard light illuminates the stage and adds life to the performance of the actors, reciting their lines flawlessly as if they had been speaking from the heart for the first time. Obviously, this is the work of hours of rehearsals, but watching from the audience creates a sense that this is something natural, not practised and run through time after time. The play’s plot seems to unfold at a lightning pace, new characters and developments being introduced scene after scene, with the odd boy in a dress or child in a bear costume to arouse an outburst of laughter from the audience.
By the time the interval has arrived, it doesn’t feel as though half the play has happened already. Indeed, due to the performances of the actors and the technical work of the backstage crew, the play feels like a break in time and the audience can lose themselves in the world created for this play or musical. Time has well and truly flown by, with the interval feeling like an unwelcome intrusion into the experience that watching the play has so far evoked.
The break has ended, the audience have returned to their places, and the lights have begun to dim to black. Despite the initial unwelcomeness of the break, a stretch of the legs and a use of the bathroom has reinvigorated the crowd and brought the buzz back. Drowsy eyes are forced open by the events on stage, with laughter rippling through the crowd and only occasional intervals between each eruption. The plot has well and truly thickened on the stage as the actors swim through their script, awkward silences quickly cast away with moments of improvisation. The actors are truly the stars of the show in the Stahl. Rarely is there a play put on when their performances are unable to give the source material the justice it deserves.
As the minutes tick by and the play begins to wind down, the audience’s excitement is tempered. As the plot concludes, the frequencies of the laughs and claps decrease. Characters disappear off stage not to come back until the curtain call; numerous deaths take place on stage drawing laughter or audible gasps depending on the character who is affected.
And then it ends.
The audience is snapped out of its trance and all involved with the play walk onto the stage to take their thunderous applause, with the occasional white or red rose thrown from the adoring crowd. The audience leaves their seats, making their way back to their Houses or homes, or waiting to congratulate the various actors involved with the production.
Regardless of the play on show, the experience is largely similar. What a visit to the Stahl entails is an immersive event where one can simply enjoy oneself for two hours at the end of one’s day. Worries can truly be left behind, replaced with the unfolding of a handcrafted story that plays before your eyes on the stage of the Stahl Theatre.
