One way and another, something of a frustrating day. We made a later start, with a 6 pm time set for opening. Officially, this was also our first night, but since we had not yet run the play with all the different components in place – a set, and some sound effects, it really could not have been considered as such., despite the fact that we had half a dozen members of the audience, chiefly Atala’s sister and her children. But almost inevitably, we spent the majority of the afternoon faffing around with the set, the props… So any hopes I might have had of having a run during the afternoon disappeared.
But what distressed me particularly was the lack of thought about sound. It was fortunate that the TV company had been there yesterday, for two of the sections they filmed had music to back them, so through force of necessity some suitable pieces had been selected. But I have been saying for some time that we needed to find a piece to complete the show. The play ends with a celebratory dance, which Binyam needed to choreograph, since it needed an Ethiopian feel, but it was soon clear that not only had he given no thought to this, there wasn’t even a piece to accompany it. And when he started to work on a piece that was entirely reliant on them creating the dance with nothing more than a percussive chant, I did become more than a little annoyed, for I knew there was not a chance on earth that they would have the confidence to deliver such a thing without loads of practice… and the performance time was approaching. So Binyam found something on his phone, some sort of (very vague) structure ws established… and that would have to do.
To be fair to Binyam, he had been relying on Alazar coming up with something, and it is clear that he feels seriously let down. I have to agree. With the exception of creating the rather sharp little poster (and it is little – he presented me with something about the size of a banknote) he has actually contributed virtually nothing. It is true that he is busy for much of the time, but he must have known that would be the case.
After a pep talk and a warm-up, we were off. And actually, they had clearly listened to my instruction that they should remain calm, for they were settled in their opening places in good time. Far more than Binyam and Beza, who were looking after the sound between them, and were in a bit of a state.
“Dress rehearsals are supposed to go wrong,” to quote Thame Youth Theatre’s first show. “That’s what makes for a good performance.” On which basis there are grounds for optimism, for there were quite a few things that went wrong. But that was to be expected. What annoyed me most was the fact that Binyam really did not do a very good job with the sound, in particular adding in stuff off his own bat that we had never discussed, which to my mind detracted from the performance. And, unsurprisingly, the final dance and bow was a mess. But at the end, the cast were pretty buzzy when we reached the end, and this was not the time to deflate any of that – I had already told them I would give notes tomorrow. In many ways, the performance was much as I had assumed it would be. And I have been through enough productions to know that miraculous improvements can occur. But we only have the one chance to get it right, so it’s a serious case of crossed fingers.
