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Halifax and then home
Posted Friday, May 08, 2009
Halifax and then home.
Sound track : Chocolate City by Parliament.
'Playing the moor ,near Ilkley Moor'
Dean Clough -sounds like a wanna be Vegas act from Derby, but it's actually the name of the huge building where the Northern Broadsides residence lies. The Viaduct theatre is an underground ,dark , cobbled space with bleachers style seating on either side of the stage. I'm only presuming that the actors have to effect a kind of mental tennis match to make sure that their action is seen by the paying punters.
I'm looking forward to blocking the play today - one of the most invigorating aspects of working with Barrie is this thing of touring a variety of theatre spaces ,not just Victorian Proscenium arches but in the round,thurst stages and Traverse ;each one demands a different playing style- Prosc arch is more presentational, in the round seems more intimate and flowing, thrust is just damned awkward and I'm gonna find out the deal with traverse today. Judging from the size and accoustics of the room ,I'd say a more naturalistic, intimate performance was called for. Good.
I'm very tired at this stage of the game, so it's probably good that this is the last week-we've got no matinees ,but an extra show on Sunday at 4 o clock -so that'll be gangs of fun. We've never done the play on a Sunday before -if the Church bells start ringing during the fight scene in Cyprus it'll be great , I'll be there yelling 'Silence that dreadful bell ,it frights the isle from her propriety!' at the top of my voice.
I saw Barrie Rutter ,the esteemed actor /Director and all round good egg , performing in his one man show last night in the Gallery at Dean Clough. He reads the poems of Larkin, and Marvell, and Ted Hughes and Adrian Mitchell and of course Shakespeare -also Mike Harding and Yeats -and takes the audience from birth to death. There were funny poems , moving poems , ruminative poems and sexy poems and of course limericks which almost brought the house down , the one about the lady from Sale in particular making the man in front of me squirt beer out of his left nostril.
I've really enjoyed this stint of working with the Broadsides crew , I've grown to know them as a group and as individuals and they are a really good bunch of people who know how to have a good time whilst also respecting their craft. We had a 'Bloody Hell we've just done two shows , lets have a party' party last week, and went to a restaurant organised by Conrad Nelson (plays Iago) -when we arrived there were some fabulous sketches of the cast done by a friend of Con's called Rob (?) , who'd illustrated us at rehearsals -dark,moody , drawings in a very Graphic novel style -Othello as seen by Frank Miller almost -so one of these sketches was at each place setting . Also was a band area set up near the window of the restaurant:some congas , guitars and microphones.
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Well ...we ate (a lot) and drank ( a fair bit) and then the music began. Conrad had invited a friend of his who has just contributed 4 songs to the new Robbie Williams album...this guy plugged his guitar in and began to play , he had a lady friend with him who played the electric fiddle. Richard Standing (plays Cassio) got on a guitar, as did Chris Pearce (plays Herald) These guys didn't stop jamming til 3 in the morning -nearly everyone sang something -The most glorious moment for me was when Chris P played 'I bet you look good on the dance floor' by the Arctic Monkeys (v. good version actually and Jess (Desdemona) ,Maeve (Emilia) and Kay (Company manager) who were all stood outside in the street having a crafty puff ,started to do crazed windmill dancing at 2 in the morning , giving it major league laldy in the middle of the night! It was quality. I love that compulsion to dance , even when you don't want to -you just hear the opening chords of something (I'm thinking Andy Cryer (plays Montano) and the opening gambit of Teeenage Kicks -very funny , lanky ,bendy dancing that had me in hysterics -and of course me and the opening bits of 20th Century Boy by T.Rex! How bout that - I jumped on the congas and gave it thwack for the whole tune...and once I was on the drums , it wasn't long before I was on the mic drunkenly giving it -'If I could stick a knife in my heart, spill it out over the stage..would it satisfy you ' etc ...(Why am i not singing the songs I know? Why am I singing Rolling Stones songs...what's the matter with me? Just how pissed was I?)
What a top night.
Anyway , I gotta go now ...I got rehearsals at one...learning how to play Actor Tennis on a traverse stage -wish me 'break legs'
Peace
Len.
listening to : Priscilla Ahn (wasn't she great on Later with Jools Holland the other night)
Reading : Martin Chuzzlewit
Losing the will to will to live with : The Fantastic Four /Squadron Supreme/Ms Marvel /The Fall out from the Skrull invasion (it's all a bit dull)
Liking -Superman on New Krypton /Ultimate Spiderman/Daredevil (just how are they doing this?) Gravel/No Heroics/
re reading Barry Ween by Judd Winick/Powers by Brian Micheal Bendis/
Saw recently : Collateral with Cruise and Foxx (pretty good -the usual Micheal Mann visuals ,quite a good story that didn't really resolve ,but good to see Cruise playing someone unlikeable again...Frank T Mackie rules!)
and also a film with Audrey Tatou called Priceless about a money grabbing beauty and the handsome ,broke ,bar tender she accidentally falls in love with. Pretty funny , lovely to look at ,but like a lot of Romcoms these days -slightly fell out of my head the second it was over. Ah well, such is life , hanh?
I wonder what Dave Sim's doing these days....?
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