(Verona, Edinburgh)

I’m useless at goodbyes.  Ergo, in a rare lapse of scepticism (and to avoid any real confrontation with my newfound unemployment), I turn to the tear/typhoon-stained pages of my diary for the final performance of our Romeo & Juliet:

 

There is a labyrinth in Edinburgh called the Royal Botanic Gardens, and deep within its tactile bushes is Innverleith House — final resting place for our beloved camper-van.  A fittingly regal place to conclude the tour.  We’re treated to the most beautiful sunset ever: angry orange arcs bouncing over cushions of lilac cloud, in turn torn through with bolts of golden sunshine. 

 

(This paragraph I have frenziedly inked out.  This is the kind of dross my English teachers used to crucify me for)

 

Entire cast in shambles.  Voice-boxes shredded like fine Veronian Parmesan.  Spinal dislocations to make Richard III seem well-aligned.  Immune systems spluttering like a Montague at a brawl.  But here at the final hurdle, the ferocity will come.

 

(The ferocity will come?!  Cripes, preserve us from thespo-babble)

 

Edinburgh is bedlam with the babbling hordes of the fringe, and our little production up here on the hill seems a meek little mouse atop a box of mewling cats.

 

(Evidentially shopping for metaphors on a very tight budget that day)

 

Open-air Shakespeare in June is all larks — but here on an icy wet August at the top of a Scottish hill it feels like lunacy.  Clouds disgorge somewhat hackneyed lashings of hail and snowy-water.  Shirts rip open as bodies slam into sodden floorboards — comedy and pain fleck performance like mud on long-suffering costumes.  Each scene gets the weight of something happening for the very first and last time.

 

(Should not the scenes have had this before the last show?!  Crikey…)

 

Capulet party wildest it’s been.  Mercutio and Tybalt’s death-dance almost romantic.  Paris sweeter, more sincere in his desperation to win the mysterious young heiress. Peter (character played by entire company) is expelled in one final cameo — the severance of servants serves severely.  Receive my (second) fatal sword wound.  Lie dead among the final speeches, feel undeservedly proud of them.  Try not to flicker eyelids.

 

(Who would’ve thought that a sentimental tour diary would conclude on the word ‘eyelids’?  Ah, but wait — a final footnote)

 

The tour’s recurring dream pops up again: The character of Romeo —not an actor, but the centuries-old Veronian that Shakespeare inked up— begging me to put up more of a fight at the tomb.  Why?  So that when he finally gets to Juliet, she will have awoken — and they can finally be together. 

 

There you have it — direct from the feverish mind of an actor on his 72^nd and final performance.  Note the latent guilt on that last paragraph.  Bidding farewell to these characters feels like stamping on Queen Mab, and her little carriage too.

 

There is one consolation in this Globular goodbye: the Bard’s greatest love story very seldom appears just the once in an actor’s career. 

 

A presto, Verona. –>

(Verona, Germany)

We’re faltering through a devilish matinee at the infamous German Globe (angry metal cousin to its wooden Bankside counterpart). Our platinum-plumed host suggests we play a game of ‘Secret Friend’ to buff up our spirits. This involves comedy moments of Friar discovering chocolates amongst his props, Nurse throwing a surprise party in the interval, and our stage manager discovering her name written on every sheet of toilet paper in the ladies’ loo. It concludes with ushers blowing bubbles over us at the curtain call.

Frivolity aside, a tall, thin space differs greatly from the wide-open estates we’ve been used to, and feedback suggests frustrations with watching an outdoor production in a Germanic Rapunzel’s Tower - the galleries mutter and cough if they feel they are being ignored and schoolchildren appear to be being issued with stink bombs on entry. Some actors resent this overt criticism. Inverting this aggression, I turn to our friend, the anecdote.

Christopher Plummer was once distracted mid-performance by a man in the front row, resplendent in a bold white 70’s suit and very obviously reading a copy of the play. Discarding his Edelweiss charm, Plummer broke character and spat:

‘If you haven’t read the play then you shouldn’t bloody be here!’

Come the second act, the man’s seat was empty. Afterwards Plummer discovered the story behind the ignominious ejection — the man had recently served a lengthy prison term, and decided that a spot of theatre would assist his cultural and social re-inauguration. He solicited a charity shop for attire — one thing he did know was that people dressed up for the theatre. Wary of ridicule, he bought a copy of the play to help him follow the story. Plummer’s eruption seemed a genuine outburst towards someone who did not belong in a theatre, and, taking it as such, he left.

Heart-crackling. Nobody can put their foot in their mouth like a spoilt film star. And nobody can resist presuming that White Suit = Twerp.

So what do we do with all this inter-proscenium aggression between actor and audience? Where —as a band named after an unappetizing vegetable once sang— Is The Love?

In our mountebank days the glimmer in the eye of an audience member was tantamount to a mouthful of oats. When did actors stop being gracious servants and start encouraging Stockholm Syndrome? On the other hand, the penalty that primitive storytellers were subjected to (instant death should any of the listeners fall asleep) seems a little harsh, especially in a bad Chekhov. In training we were told to expect that whatever we did, twenty per cent of the audience would dislike our performance. That seems generous. Then again, I’ve just endured an entire year of drama schoolers mock and deride Kenneth Branagh’s performance in Ivanov; a conspiracy that smacks of jealous sham-cockery, methinks.

I suppose we shall have to remain friends, actor and audience, if either of us is to thrive. Perhaps, however, a game of Secret Friends would be the most peaceable arrangement.

–>

(Verona, Herstmonceux)

Actors’ Arithmetic:

Over the past 72 performances I have ‘died’ a total of 144 times.’ Of these, half of these deaths have lasted 10 minutes, and half have lasted 20.’ That’s 2160 minutes —or 36 hours— of playing dead.’ This is the equivalent to lying motionless onstage for the duration of Romeo & Juliet eighteen times over.

Ever wonder what goes through the minds (literally and metaphorically) of these poor, deceased spear-carriers?’ Of course you did!’ Well, here you go:

Waiting For Romeo

A play for culicidae

The play is set in the lolling hills that swell around Herstmonceux castle, East Sussex.’ The foremost tower of the castle rises up like a Sphinx’s head, and the long drawbridge that teeters over the moat spills out like some great dragon’s tongue. At the end of the drawbridge lies a powder blue and yellow camper-van, where a performance of Romeo & Juliet is concluding.

In the foreground of this scene, a mosquito lounges in the blood-drunk stupor that mosquitoes are wont.’ A second mosquito appears:

VLADIMALARIAL

Nothing to be done!

EZZZTRAGON

Why do you sound so surprised?’ You’re a bluzzy mosquito.’ We’ve not exactly reached our evolutionary Enlightenment, have we?

VLADIMALARIAL

Nothing to be done grub-wise.’ Not a vein in sight.

EZZZTRAGON

No blood?

VLADIMALARIAL

Not a prickle.’ Met a security guard with a nice sweaty neck, but finding a blood vessel on him was like finding fashion-sense on a dragonfly.

They laugh at this popular mosquito-joke.

EZZZTRAGON

Have you tried that play?

VLADIMALARIAL

Light entertainment is hardly a reliable source of protein.

EZZZTRAGON

No, I mean, have you tried sucking blood from the actors over there in that play?

VLADIMALARIAL

What do you bluzzy take me for?!’ Have you seen those swords?’ What am I, some kind of kamikaze arthropod?’ Some sort of bee?’ And those awful, reckless gestures — sawing the air with their big fat hands…I’d get myself splattered.’ Look, if I play my cards right, I’ve got fifteen-to-twenty fruitful days ahead of me.’ I can’t fly that risk.

EZZZTRAGON

Calm down, you’re acting like you’re carrying dengue fever.’ Look — any time now, one of them will lay down dead.’ Trust me, it happened in Act One too.’ Then you can buzz off and stick your sucker in.’ They don’t even swipe you!

VLADIMALARIAL

What do you mean ‘they don’t even swipe you’?’ They’re humans.’ That’s what they do — they swipe.

EZZZTRAGON

In some peculiar evolutionary balls-up, they don’t care what you do when they’re laid out on that stage.’ They don’t even move!’ They just lie back and let you gorge.’ I’ve just had a right old munch of Juliet.

VLADIMALARIAL

So what’s left for me?

EZZZTRAGON

Well, there’s that effete one fighting Romeo.’ He’ll probably go down soon—

VLADIMALARIAL

Boom!’ There you go!’ Good old Romeo!

EZZZTRAGON

He’s all yours!’Go make a milkshake out of that crazy homo sapien.

He does so.’The mosquitos unite merrily in dance and song etc etc.

THE END

–>

(Verona, Poland)

It’s been a very usual sort of a day.

We’ve laid the eponymous scene in a cavernous forest gully; audience are scattered on fallen tree trunks. I stab Mercutio and escape through the crowds, tripping over a Wolfhound the size of a motorbike. It growls at me and I hiss back. It whimpers. The soaking boards of the stage outmanoeuvre Paris shoes, and, snatching flowers for Juliet, I slip and shoot horizontally upwards. Cue slow-mo sequence in which I manage to sling the bouquet to Juliet mid-air, which she deftly catches. I land on my rump, bounce back up, and a moment of theatrical biography is ensured.

After this the company assemble on the cusp of the Baltic sea for a shivering swim and a dance by the makeshift fire. We play parlour games and wrestle in the sand. Internecine animosity is set aside as the sun dips and the bonfire begins to fleck and ember.

A very usual day. But now I have to drag myself back to the hotel. Why?Because civil bloody war’s afoot, that’s why.

If we compare a production to a city-principality, then I suppose you would have to appoint the director as Monarch. The producer would be Chancellor, the actors Militia, and the designers would be the Musicians, Artisans and High Priests to attend to sound and lighting. The play itself, then, should be the principality’s Constitution. Which means that a consensus of agreement on what this constitution constitutes is of royal import. When the constitution is disputed - or disreputable -, civil war erupts.

Now I’m back at the hotel spending enough on phone bills and internet rental to buy a small Polish brewery. A play I have written is being produced back in the UK, and I’m concerned that the producers and director will theatricide each other before I get to rehearsals. Principalities and productions both require a kind of ferocious peace — when your writer’s overseas and your producers, director and actors are barely on speaking terms, the exquisite, tempered texture that collaboration offers becomes androgynous gloop.

I suppose the arcane metaphor of the principality appeals because in the old days, a writer submitted a play. These days, writers submit drafts. And each time you rewrite your draft, you’re a different creature. Each moment alters our composition. We’re made up of such shifting ideas and sympathies — the old adage runs:You can’t step in the same river twice.

So whilst my cast howl at the moon down by the waterside, I’m tipping sand out of my shoes and wondering how to pull a fractious production back together. I can only take heart in another old adage:If you want a job done well, give it to someone with too much to do.

By the way, where does the playwright sit in our principality? The Architect, for better or worse. And if he’s built his principality in a disaster-area, you’d better hope he’s remembered to install storm-drains and a superlative sewage system. –>