As I write this, the run of a play I was in has just ended, and I am in trouble. It seems that despite my tutor’s love for Renaissance literature, being in a Renaissance play wins me no sympathy. And so I have some essays to write, and some grovelling to do. But, sadly, my tutor is not the only person to whom I must apologise. The day before the show starts, we began our dress rehearsal. The props weren’t there and our lighting person had the flu.
Halfway through a dwindling scene littered with forgotten lines, we were kicked out of the Burton Taylor. Time was up. We all headed to the pub, and we sat down. And we looked at each other. And each face had the same word on it: Fuck.
The next day came, and with it the promise of the impending evening. The first show is not something I will address with full, excruciating detail in this column. Which handily implies the terrible reality so I don’t have to.
I am usually generous in my tales of woeful embarrassment in order to indulge my columnist urges. But even in the face of such masterful and unquestionable art, some things are just too much. It was when a character who had just died slunk back onto stage to do a multirole (we hadn’t realised that by cutting a scene, we had cut all the time she had to get changed) that the cast bubbled over. Hysterics ensued backstage.
The dreaded final act approached. I clicked the gun. Where a reverberating gun shot was anticipated, silence. No sound effect. This was the last straw. Blurs of humiliation reconciled me with the darkest demons inside of me. I stood onstage, and internally prepared myself for the sleepless nights to come. I burst out of the stage door apologising profusely to my friends. But apparently that is not allowed. “It was really enjoyable,” said Actor Friend, who had come down especially to watch it.
Oh dear God what have I done? The ceremonial post-show pint was difficult to swallow through the hysterical choking sounds the cast make. But once it was swallowed down, it did aid in some swift masterminding. An act was cut, and a day later the play was fine.
I just hope the audience of our one-off parody don’t have the memory soldered in front of their eyes. Because if they do, any dignity this Bexisten-
tialist once had, is lost for good.
