And a busy week too; three performances so far, and one more to come.
We began with a scratch performance cum premiere cum dress rehearsal to the Monday Club, a support meeting for asylum-seekers in the Wembley area, at Park Lane Methodist Church, their regular venue. It was the first time we had performed the whole show properly, but actually it was remarkably slick. Unfortunately, it did not get as many laughs as I wanted (and had anticipated), largely the result of the majority having very little grasp of English, so many of the jokes passing them by. Plus the general fact that small audiences find it difficult to laugh (and bring attention upon themselves), a situation made more marked by the different cultures on display.
However, everyone did seem to enjoy the performance, with sufficient physical theatre to transcend the language barrier. What surprised me rather was the fact that some people were clearly moved. I knew we had created some strong comic moments: I was more surprised at how sad the two characters’ situations would turn out to be. A product, no doubt, of its tragic antecedent, the original Godot play, but I was very pleased that this effect had not been lost in translation and adaptation.
We drove from Wembley to Hayes, to prepare for our next performance of the day, at the Beck Theatre in Hayes, the same theatre that had hosted our production of No Waiting just over a year ago. Hamed in particular had been desperate to return, for the Beck is a proper theatre, with a stage, a raked auditorium, changing rooms, a backstage, and all the technical facilities one might expect. And the welcome we received was as warm as ever.
But our visit was not as successful as last time, chiefly because there was such a disappointing audience: small, scattered, and with all the inhibitions (see above) that being in a small audience can bring. Despite this, the performance itself was once again virtually flawless, and the feedback we received afterwards was most positive. Despite the fact that not enough people are getting to see the show, we do seem to have created something of a hit.
And on Wednesday, we took the show on the road. Instead of Roji travelling to London to join us, we went to Dorset to present our show there, as part of the Portland and Weymouth programme for Refugee Week. The venue there was a teetotal pub, the Dry Dock, which now acts as a sort of community venue. It did provide a marked contrast; two days previously, we had had a whole theatre largely to ourselves; today we had to share a small pub with old ladies drinking coffee.
At first, I feared that we would be playing to almost no-one. The afternoon programme also included a singer and guitarist called Tim Fawkes, and he gamely played song after song to very few people listening, despite the fact that he was very good. There was also a talk by a lady who runs a project collecting and using the stories of displaced people, chiefly from Ukraine; and a brave singer from the Bibby Stockholm, who treated us to one beautiful song and then disappeared; and all of these had a very scant audience indeed. However, just before we began our play, as if on cue a small crowd of about twenty or so from the barge wandered in, and suddenly we had about as big a crowd as we could have managed in the space.
And the show itself, despite the physical constraints – the lack of space, no lighting to focus attention, an audience scattered around – was probably their best yet – they are really growing into their roles as they become more confident. And for the first time, there was a lot of laughter, with both the script and the physicality receiving some appreciative response. This was reassuring – I was sure it was a funny play, and this backed me up. But once again, it was the desperate sadness of the underlying message that got the most powerful response.
And one more performance to come: on Friday we perform in a studio theatre in Hackney.
