Mea culpa

Latin for “my fault”, I believe.  One of the aims of this blog is to record the process of moving towards performance.  I have found it very difficult to motivate myself, and so inevitably have fallen behind; this post deals with the final rehearsals, the get in to Bold Theatre, and our first performance!  So quite a lot of catching-up to do.

On Tuesday, we were back at Wembley, with ladders, huge dice, and all.  The good thing was that we now have a clear idea of how long the play lasts.  Foir quite a while, Hamed and I had been concerned about the length, but I should have been aware of how much the running time shrinks when you finally put everything together; it runs at just over an hour.  Which is perfect.

This brought us to Saturday the 13^th of June, and our first performance.  A tech run first, and luckily it was clear that Rhys, the technician there, was very comfortable with working with companies like ours.  Pleasingly, he appreciated the fact that he had a detailed script, and a ready-made soundtrack.  We did both a tech run and a dress run, with time then for food , and some rest.

As I had predicted, we were nothing like completely full; the tickets were bookable, but free, which does not lead to audience commitment.  Nonetheless, we had a good enough number… which included Val’s sister, niece, and great-niece, her brother, and some friends from Thame. All of them had most positive things to say, which was reassuring.

The performance itself could not have run smoother. Even so, I was still uncertain, but the response afterwards was hugely positive, so I guess I should have been more relaxed about it.  For some weeks, I have been uncertain that the production would achieve all that we wanted it to. It may have been that rehearsals have been especially chaotic, not really giving me a clear idea as to how it might transform in performance. I had been particularly concerned that the boat scene, in which we fashion the skeleton of a boat using ladders tied together with cloth snakes, would create the right com bination of danger and flimsiness, but several people commented on how effective this was.

And now we can afford to take things easy… until next Saturday’s performance.  Today’s performance, that is, at the time of writing – another reason for the mea culpa title. This time at Wembley. There had been some thought of having an additional rehearsal during the week in between, but we decided that a rest was of far greater importance.

One aspect which had a big impact on things was the weather, A heatwave has struck Europe, and we have not escaped this. (In fact, since the performance, it has increased to a dangerous extreme, so it was just as well we managed to perform before the worst of it.

The venue was very different, being the home of Punchdrunk Immersive, a warehouse type space which hosts educational visits which involve local schoolchildren in drama activities, As su7ch, it is more both a store of interesting props and items, and a flexible space that can be explored. So not really a theatre at all really. But they do allow other groups to perform and rehearse there, provided they keep the numbers down; we were restricted to a maximum audience of 50.

Once we had all assembled – it took some a bit of time to find the venue, and it was all the more difficult since Wembley was hosting a huge concert, starring Harry Styles, the singer. But we went through a similar procedure to last week. There was no technician this time, but Chiara had managed to gain access to try out the sound cues. There were a few stage lights, but these were pointed in random directions, and we were not allowed to move them, so although the place had its own atmosphere, and we were able to carve out areas for performance and audience, we would have to rely on our own acting (augmented by our really quite effective soundtrack) to carry the story.

It is not easy for me to judge the performance, and how it measured up in contrast with the show last week, as I was too focused on not making a mess of my own performance. But Val saw both, and her opinion was that this was a more confident and assured performance; I am happy to take her word for it. The au8dience certainly seemed engaged, though I was a little disappointed with the slightly subdued reaction.

From a personal point of view, one of the most disappointing aspects was that I had to rush off at the end; we had guests who had come to see the show, and the warning was that if we did not get out in time, ahead of the concert, we would all have to experience a huge wait. This meant I made only a cursory contribution to clearing up, and was not able to stay and say goodbye to the cast (or take part in the final photograph.) All the more annoying, then, when we discovered that we had had plenty of time. I just have to hope that people do not think I was avoiding the clear-up out of some sense of entitlement. But there is nothing that I can do about that now.

And so, for the time being at least, Snakes and ladders is done with. Although I have found it stressful, especially in recent weeks, it was a great success. In particular, it gave Hamed the chance to tell his story, I think he remains a little disappointed, and I recognise the feeling: a desire for this to be the show that somehow propels him into recognition. Life rarely works like that, I know only too well, but that does npt prevent one from having dreams.

Zhvan will be taking a break for a littler while (though we may have one final wash-up workshop) as I am off to India again shortly. But people are keen to carry on (I think) so we will have to think about what comes next.