Eugène Ionescu’s The Chairs calls for two very hardworking actors and, well … a lot of chairs.

How many chairs you fit on to the famously small stage of the Old Fitzroy? Gale Edwards, who directing a new production of the Theatre of the Absurd classic, has it all worked out.

“At last count, 43!” she laughs, adding that she tried for more. “Our designer, Brian Thomson, made a wonderful model box for us in which he made 50 tiny chairs, all different style and individually painted. So typical of Brian! He’s so thorough. But it turns out we can’t get all of them in.”

That great mass of furniture, built-up piece-by-piece as the The Chairs unfolds, forms the central image of the play – one as iconic as Samuel Beckett’s lonely tree in Waiting for Godot.

Which begs a question from anyone who knows how cramped things are backstage at the Old Fitz: where are you hiding all those chairs when they’re not on stage?

“Ha! I can’t tell you that,” Edwards says. “That’s all part of the fun.”

iOTA (left) and Paul Capsis. Photo © Jasmin Simmons

Written during the long aftermath of...