Rollercoaster

I am going to have to address this sooner or later, or it will not get said, but this is a blog which reflects my thoughts and experiences as they occur to me, and the one that is consuming me at present is the wild rollercoaster ride of emotions that I am experiencing, from the highs of excitement and anticipation, to the depths of despair and despondency.  All connected, of course, to the production of Aesop.  In contrast, the teaching side of things is a complete high: I am in control, the work is manageable, I do not have to rely on anyone else (apart from Himanshu driving me there, and the staff at each campus able to put a class in front of me.)

The highs of the production are those moments which most nearly replicate the same situation: the times when I am directing a tightly-focused group on stage, teasing out the details which bring a performance alive.

But for the rest?  The crowd control, the organisation, the management of large groups of people, persuading the cast to come to rehearsal on time, and to behave professionally when they get here, the props, the stage management…  I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope.  For in all of these things, I am feeling almost totally alone, that I am the one who has to manage all of these things.

Not quite, for in a couple of areas I have been able to delegate responsibility to others.  Perhaps these too have managed to expand rather more than I might have wished, but better too much than too little.  Music is the prime example, where increasingly Oswin and I are most definitely on the same page, and I can leave all of that to him: to organise his own rehearsals, to do exactly what I have asked of him, even down to writing  the music.  If the orchestra is rather larger than I would have imagined, and I had not really thought of a choir at all, then that is just another way of expanding the scope and reach of the production, and so all to the good.

Similarly, lighting is something I have been able to delegate; heaven only knows how I would have managed this if I had not stumbled upon Mohit (the school has no idea how much money he has saved them, and how much of a burden he has taken from my shoulders.)  There is a certain amount of blind faith, of course, that he has the experience and expertise (and time) to pull this off – lighting necessarily comes in the final stages of a production – but, as with Oswin, we are most definitely on the same page.

Costume has proved a real challenge, and again, only time will tell whether Ali and his team – he runs a clothing store, so is not a member of staff at all – will be able to deliver what I had in mind.  It has most certainly not been the modest affair I wanted, with every character now having a hand-made costume made for them (and having to contribute to the cost, but that’s another story.)  But at least it is now someone else’s responsibility, and is not one of the things that is keeping me awake in the middle of the night.

But if those are the peaks, where are the troughs.  This is where the discussion becomes more delicate, since again it comes down to naming names, and that then at least sounds like personal criticism.  It is certainly not intended to be; if I blame anyone , it is first myself, and then CMS, and then maybe India.  But anyway…

Props are giving me headaches, not because of what they are – they are a relatively minor part of any production – but because they have an impact on what does matter to me: the acting.  The person who has been assigned, or has taken on, responsibility for this is Medha, whom I like personally and very much admire.  But she has to try to organise all of this from her office – apart from any other consideration, she is eight months pregnant.  She also has a full-time job to do.

She is absolutely doing her best, trying to find the props I ask for, (sometimes literally from the cupboard in her office.)  She sends me pictures, which are sometimes very difficult to decipher, and sometimes of very little point – of some rope, for example.  And she sends them to me.  But there is no-one at all to organise them at that point.  They go backstage somewhere, and are usually then ignored, unless I ask someone to fetch them – a far cry from the regular practice and familiarity that actors ought to be achieving by now.  Actually, it should have happened weeks ago, but we are where we are.  There does not even appear to be a budget for props, and we are scrambling around in dusty prop stores in the bowels of the building to find anything.  The school can spend a small fortune, and hours of time, taking enormous care over the production of the programme – what they call the brochure – but seemingly cannot buy me a small megaphone, or a toy watering can.

But who is there to look after them.  One of the students did offer to be assistant stage manager, which is the name of the person who would normally take charge of such things, but she was far more interested in the title than actually learning  what it might involve.  Understandably, given her age.

I have asked for a stage manager, and there is no-one with the experience or authority to take this on, or if there is, I do not know who that might be.  The ladies who are there do act as chaperones, register-takers, messengers, and are always as kind and supportive as they can be.  But…  One particular question keeps me awake when I ought to asleep: who is going to manage the cast backstage during the performance?  Where are they going to come from?  Do they have the slightest idea what is involved in such a thing?  The Afghan refugee children  I directed in Greece managed all of this entirely for themselves, but perhaps their awful experiences had prepared them for such a relatively minor thing.  I fear the children in the cast have nothing like the same discipline, focus, sense of responsibility, talented and likeable though they are.

I do blame myself for not communicating all of this early or clearly enough.  Though there is still some time, and everything in theatre does focus on the last minute, even more so with children and schools, even more so in India.  It will all be fine, I am sure; it (nearly) always is.  Things will happen, people will suddenly realise what is required of them, the pressure of time will have its effect.  And I have been here before, though possibly not on this scale.

The show must go on.