The Cracked Pot
by Blake Morrison
The play was first performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in February 1995, with Barrie Rutter, John Branwell, Kate Rutter and June Broughton among the cast. A version of Heinrich von Kleist’s Der Zerbrochene Krug, normally translated as ‘The Broken Jug’, The Cracked Pot shifts the action from eighteenth-century Utrecht to Skipton, circa 1810.
The plot concerns the breaking of a jug – its owner, Martha, believes the guilty party to be her daughter’s fiancé, and she wants the local judge, Adam, to have him convicted. But there are strong hints that Adam himself is to blame, and we watch him desperately shifting suspicion away from himself. Unfortunately for Adam, a visiting magistrate from Manchester is watching, too – will Adam get away with it? Kleist’s comedy has echoes of Oedipus, where the hero conducting the investigation is himself guilty of the crime, but the tone is resolutely comic.
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Cast & Crew
Cast
Judge Adam ………………………………………………………….Alex Farkas
Judge Walter ……………………………………………………Frank Boocock
Bright …………………………………………………………………..Chris Morris
Martha Rudd ……………………………………………………..Tracy Rontree
Eve Rudd ………………………………………………………………….Jo Hough
Tommy Dixon ……………………………………………………….Ian Crickett
Leslie Dixon …………………………………………………………..Andy Hoyle
Aunt Bridget ……………………………………………………Elizabeth Beech
Meg …………………………………………………………………….Emma Sykes
Stage
Director ………………………………………………………………John Rhodes
Stage manager …………………………………………………Brent Andrews
Set design …………………..John Rhodes, Ken Wright, Keith Begley
Set construction ………….Keith Begley, Jan Wieringa, Verity Mann
Sound……………………………………………………………………Luke Settle
Lighting …………………………………………………………………Jake Scott
Props …………………………………………………………………Helena Tinker
Costume …………………………………………………………….Edwina Rigby
Prompt ……………………………………………………………………Jill Woods
P.A…………………………………………………………………..Elizabeth Beech
Directors Note
The Cracked Pot transports us from Delph to Skipton and back in time to the early l800s. By today’s standards the breaking of a jug is not a very significant occurrence but more than 200 years ago to Mrs Rudd it was a major disaster. She wants justice and takes her case to Judge Adam who, unfortunately for him, is being observed by Judge Walter Clegg. If that was not enough, Judge Clegg is a Lancastrian from Manchester. The play gives us an insight into how justice was dispensed in the Dales and also the Lancashire/ Yorkshire rivalry which had the same intensity as it has today. This is the first play I have directed for Saddleworth Players and would like to thank all who have been involved with it. Everyone has worked extremely hard and I am sure the fun we have had in rehearsals will transmit to you, our audience. J.R.