Rain, rain, go away…

It was pouring this morning, but then again it pours on quite a lot of mornings; it is the monsoon season after all.  But clearly today it was worse than normal.  I had very nearly arrived at school when I received a phone call telling me that school had been cancelled for the day, because of the rain.  As I was virtually at the gates, I decided to go in anyway and try to have a meeting with Medha.

Chaos reigned at school, with buses, taxis, autorickshaws and motorbikes jostling for spavve with schoolchildren, and a man on a loudhailer telling everyone the news.  It had not been CMS’s fault; all Lucknow schools had been cancelled about twenty minutes before on the orders of the District Magistrate, no exceptions.  School opening is always busy, but now there were children making their way back to the buses that had just disgorged them, children on their phones trying to call back the parents who had left them and gone, children and parents trying to find each other.  Madness, caused by an abundance of caution (and to be fair, there were parts of Lucknow experiencing serious flooding.)

I did have a productive meeting with Medha regarding props, along with the lady who had spent quite a lo0t of time making some, and most were inappropriate.  There was, for example, an apple, made of cardboard, covered in shiny red foil complete wth two paper green leaves (extra fancy!)  But as this was to be used to be popped into Young Pig’s mouth rior to him being led away for slaughter, not really the thing I wanted.  It was a good thing I had forgotten to mention Donkey’s carrot.

I did get given a tour of the various places in the basement where props were stored, but there was almost nothing that was any good for me.  We needed a mobile winch which Donkey uses to get Goat out of the Hole, looked at various unsuitable items, and in the end the works manager agreed to make one.

It was agreed that the afternoon rehearsal would go ahead, despite the injunction, though we did have to arrange this surreptitiously – caution which went out of the window when In had to field various requests for information, and then apologies for absence.  It soon became clear that the rehearsal was rapidly becoming, literally, a washout.  Confirmed by the eventual attendance of three out of twenty odd.  By chance, there was one single scene that involved Lion and Boar, so at least there was that.  Lion is really struggling with his lines, and asked if he could wear his glasses.  Puzzled, I inquired further.  It transpired that he had “smart” glasses, and wanted to use them to project his lines onto the lenses.  Or lens.  Or however they work.  Definitely a new one for me, and just as definitely turned down flat.

Spent a good bit of the evening dealing with an issue regarding a member of the cast, which annoyed, angered and depressed me.  Inevitably, it sorted itself out, or rather we sorted it out.  But it did not make for a restful evening.