The week fortnight that was #4

Okay, since I didn’t get a post up last weekend but still want to discuss things that happened in that week, I’m going to make this a rare ‘The fortnight that was’ to cover both. I think I’m going to stop apologising for writing less than I’d like to because I’m busy – since I seem to write it every week. Maybe when (if!) I’m not busy I’ll preface a long and involved post with ‘I’ve had plenty of time so this is really long’.

Crazy times

I was very busy in the first week of the fortnight – I know I say that a lot, but that week was even more frenetic than my usual level of busy-ness.

Monday night I was up in the hills trying on costumes for Arsenic and Old Lace; Tuesday and Thursday was rehearsal for Arsenic and Old Lace; Wednesday Friday and Saturday nights – and Saturday afternoon - was crewing for Jesus Christ Superstar. After the show finished on Saturday night we then bumped out¹ of the theatre and took everything to the Marie Clark shed at Golden Grove, and then went to the cast party – at which I stayed until 4.
Which, thanks to the change to Daylight Savings time, meant 5. And me with rehearsal at 1pm Sunday – and, more importantly (as it turned out) the inability to sleep past 11.

Despite that, though, I did find a few things to write about.

¹That’s a technical theatre term for when we move everything out of the theatre. Moving everything into the theatre is a called bump in – funnily enough.

Cast Parties

Well, it seems logical considering I’ve just been to one.

It’s traditional for the cast and crew to have a party of some sort on the final night of the show. Depending on the company – and the cast – there are sometimes parties on other nights, including after any show on a Saturday. Particularly if there isn’t a show on Sunday. Since I haven’t done any shows that run over three weekends I’m not 100% sure on what happens there but I’m going to assume each Saturday has its own party.

Now, these can sometimes be quiet, sedate affairs with a few glasses of wine and maybe a wedge of brie and some sensible crackers. Or, on the other hand, they can be wild, noisy drunken affairs where chaos and debauchery ensue.

I far prefer the latter to the former – and will probably continue to do so until I’m old enough to suffer too much from the ill-effects of too much alcohol and too little sleep.

Final night cast parties are often complicated by the fact that the show has to be bumped out (if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know what this means) first – i.e. there’s usually a bit of work to be done before the party can start. Sometimes this doesn’t take very long (depending on the circumstances) but most of the time it involves a fair bit of deconstruction, heavy lifting and shed-packing – since most theatre hires require you to be out that night; the next production is generally bumping in the next day and they can’t do that if your stuff is still in the way.

Some theatre companies have the crew take care of this while the cast go off and party, but I don’t really agree with that – unless it’s the kind of set where unskilled people are just going to get in the way and make everything take longer. But that doesn’t happen very often with the companies I work with these days – everyone pitches in to some degree, and there are at least a few cast members there at the very end, shoehorning flats and trucks³ and other random crap into a shed in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, technicalities of bump-out aside, cast parties can be – and, in my opinion, should always be - lots of fun. From my recollection, most of those that I’ve had have been good; only a small number haven’t. And there’ve been some amazing ones – literally still going well into the next morning (though you have to take into account that they starts either after a show or after a show plus anything from 1-3 hours of bump-out – so maybe 11pm at the earliest and maybe 2am at the latest) with people dancing, singing karaoke, or just sitting around, drinking and chatting.

The latest I’ve left a cast party was about midday the next day – the couple of us who were still left got kicked out because the host’s family had started to show up for their weekly lunch. But that’s not as impressive as it might sound; I’ve heard stories of them lasting into the following evening.

I’d like to go into this in more detail but I’ll have to point out (once again) that to try and explain a subject like the very complex sociodynamics of bonding amongst theatre casts (hmm, anyone looking for a PhD topic?) isn’t possible in a blog post like this one; I’ll put it on my (long) list for another time. But it comes down to this: doing a show with people can be intense and fun; this brings people together and sometimes makes them very close. Combine this with a party environment and it can’t help but be a recipe for a crazy good time.

² Another theatre term; it means a part of the set that has wheels so it can be moved on and off without much effort. Though ‘without much effort’ is a relative term, particularly if you’re doing a show at the Shedley Theatre in Elizabeth.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, if you haven’t heard of it, is a book by Susanna Clark. I probably could have posted about this in either of the previous two entries because I was reading it over that time period – it’s a damn big book – but I wanted to do it when I had more time to spend.

Anyway, about the book – it’s brilliant. It begins in England in the early 1800s – but it’s not our England per se, since in this England it’s acknowledged that magic once existed – not just conjuring tricks but epic, powerful magic – and that the northern half of England was ruled for three hundred years by a powerful magician king named John Uskglass (aka The Raven King and about a few dozen other names).

But it’s been several hundred years since anyone in England has done any ‘real’ magic, and those who call themselves magicians are either street hustlers or gentlemen who study ‘theoretical magic’, which means they gather together and talk about the real magicians of yesteryear.

Then Mr Norrell, who can do – and has been doing, for some time – ‘real’ magic, appears. After he performs several acts of magic the people realise that he is telling the truth and, albeit at a gentle pace, the role of magic becomes important to the nation once again.

Some years after Mr Norrell appears, another man, Jonathan Strange discovers that he, too, can ‘do’ magic, and eventually becomes Norrell’s apprentice – a task made difficult by Norrell’s secrecy and reticence to grant Strange access to his immense and unique library of books of magic (as opposed to books about magic – the difference is significant); Strange is forced to ‘invent’ his own methods of casting spells, which turn out to be quite successful.

Throw in a few dozen other characters – including real-life historical figures such as King George III (the one with the madness), the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron - and a subplot featuring a powerful, malicious fairy known as ‘the gentleman with the thistle-down hair’ and the result is an epic story about passion, rivalry, duty and love. Oh, and magic. Lots of magic.

Now, while this might be enough for some people, it wouldn’t – necessarily – be what would ‘float my boat’, so to speak. I don’t read much fantasy anymore, so to view this on plot alone would probably cause my eyes to glaze over.

What makes this special is that it’s written in an utterly enchanting prose style and imbued with some of the driest, tongue-in-cheek humour I’ve ever encountered. Imagine if Jane Austen and Charles Dickens somehow had a love-child who grew up to write a little like both of them – but who also had access to a time machine in order to travel to the early 21st century and study contemporary English humour (in the form of, say, Blackadder and/or Yes, Minister) before zipping back to put pen to paper.

Clark uses the archaic spelling for such words as ‘chuse’ and ‘connexion’ and ‘shewed’ – which I cannot help but adore. And – best of all – the dear lady loves footnotes.⁴ There are literally hundreds of them throughout the book.

I won’t go into any more detail; I’ll just recommend to anyone who a) likes their literary fiction a little genrefied⁵ or who b) likes their genre fiction a bit more literarified⁶. However, it is not an adrenaline-charged rollercoaster ride of excitement. It’s 1006 pages long and there are large sections where not a great deal happens (relatively speaking). At times it’s descriptive simply for the sake of being descriptive. But for me that’s a positive rather than a negative, simply because I enjoy the prose style so much.

⁴So - as you’ve probably guessed by now - do I.
⁵This is a word I made up.
⁶So is this.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Matt Byrne Media is doing this show at the moment; the first two weeks were at the Goodwood Institute/Mayfair Theatre and the rest is on at the Shedley in Elizabeth. I got to see it on Wednesday night, and it’s great fun. Basically, it’s as the title suggests – a spelling bee, American style. There are six contestants with two adjudicators and an MC – and a few other characters doubled by the nine performers.

But they also get four audience members up to be competitors in the ‘bee’ – I got picked – who go up on stage and sit in the seats with the cast. This gets worked into the story and the ‘guest’ spellers stay on for as long as it takes for them to get eliminated. I managed my first two words but got stumped on the third; while I knew how to spell the word it turned out to be, I wasn’t sure (based on the definition – you always ask for the definition) if that was the word I needed to spell – basically, I took a gamble and lost. It’s not all about spelling as such – you actually have to know what the words mean and in this case I didn’t. Still, I wasn’t too put out – I had to sit still while and be quiet while on stage and I’d far rather be in the audience, laughing.

I wish I’d got antidisestablishmentarianism (one of the other guest contestants did) – ‘cause I know I can spell that out loud. Sure, it’s long but it’s phonetic. You’ve just got to keep track of where you’re up to.

Anyway, my spelling aside, it’s certainly worth a look if you’re up Elizabeth way – or even if you’re not and feel like making the trip.