As the weeks whistle past ( Week ten!! Where's it all gone??), we find ourselves swimming in a soup of plays; costumes of various sorts hanging about to remind us of play one, conversations & preparations about play three, perhaps a script from the first knocking about like a talisman, all while performing play two. The lurking script is a bit like when you were doing exams at school, when you walked around with text books in your bag in some kind of faint hope that all the facts inside would leach through to your brain by osmosis. So with the script; if it's sitting there on my dressing table then the part will be in my head. Honestly. I should know better! Well, we'll find out on Monday whether it's still there when we do a Bedroom Farce run on the set before doing the show properly in front of an audience that night. Can I remember Susannah?
In the meantime, we still all share the same dressing room despite being in different plays and the lovely Maggie Tagney- a veteran of several seasons here at TbtL- has to prepare herself for her lead part in Colder Than Here, a very beautiful & moving story of a family coming to terms with terminal illness, while three of us, Jessica Ellis, Zoe Mills & myself all goof about in 'preparation' for Dry Rot. No we don't really, but the combination could be that odd if things had been different. Instead we get along really well, as Maggie is to us 'our' Delia from Bedroom Farce and her other character is something that ghost-like passes in & out of the dressing room. As she enters and leaves getting into character, she picks up odd snatches of Dry Rot over the show relay and has a little chuckle before heading off to join the other cast members of Colder Than Here in more somber mood. She also has to contend with me climbing into my Sergeant Fire costume, which must be a little off-putting. The studio cast also have the unique privilege of having to be taken to a holding room before their show begins, as access to and from the Studio is the same way in as the audience. Like condemned felons they get lead off by Stage Management and tucked away ready for lights up. Jess & I will be in that world when we get in with Roma & the Flanellettes in five weeks' time. It'll be great to be in such an intimate space. All of us in the Dry Rot cast watched the second dress of Colder Than Here on Thursday and it was fantastic, really moving stuff. Great to be invited in to a closed performance like that! It's just such a joy to be working in a theatre that has two such contrasting plays on in rep. Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous! A rollicking farce and a moving, powerful drama.. take your pick. In a little over a month's time, the full Summer 2012 smorgasbord will be ready & waiting for you to taste! That's if we manage to keep all our actors in one piece. So far in Dry Rot just about everyone has head-butted someone else accidentally or been head-butted. Let's not think about all the cuts & bruises and near-falling off the stage moments. All part of the consummate professionalism that oozes from every pore here in the cast. I do actually mean that! We work hard to reduce actual risk, but live theatre always produces minor bumps and bruises, they're inevitable. I don't want you to go away thinking that we're crashing about like a herd of near-sighted elephants. Not all of us anyway..!
Meantime, I can't quite believe we've come so far already. All around in my lush digs the trees & flowers are bursting forth, birds are nesting like crazy & those hills & fells need to be climbed! Lots of plans are being made in the company for all sorts of adventures when we have a little free time again & fingers are being crossed for some more sunshine..please! Personal goals are being set. We have a trip to a petting zoo (don't ask), the seaside for obvious reasons, Ruskin's place, a whisky distillery (purely scientific research), World of Owls, etc etc. Sadly Cars of the Stars in Keswick closed down last year and cleared off to Florida.. Hey ho! There's still the Pencil Museum.
Typically, weather-wise the last few days have been wet to say the least so the hills have vanished beneath dense cloud; now I know why they talk of rain forest when they describe the vegetation in places here.. so glad I got my wellies! And waterproof trousers.. and waterproof jacket.. and central heating and fleece.. ( It's flaming June so why not?). The incestuous ospreys ( look it up! ) are busy raising their chick and I keep hoping an otter might pop its head up in the Greta at some point. Maybe next week I'll get up a bit early & see what's out there before heading in to rehearse Roma... maybe.
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