The fat lady has sung

[angelophile]

Well, that's the play over with. Spent this morning striking the set - the most depressing part of any production. Multiple people spend literally days constructing and decorating a set and in a couple of hours, it's all disassembled, usually with a fair share of brute force and ignorance.

My moustache has gone the same way.



We had an excellent Friday night performance. Much of that was down to the audience - which tripled to over 150 people. In greater numbers, people seemed a lot more willing to react - they were laughing and responding from the very first and everyone got their share of the laughs and appreciation. There was a minor glitch where one very short section got skipped, but it was covered and the audience probably didn't even notice. My sister came to see it and thought the whole cast were good with no weak links and I don't think she was just being polite. A few people saw me in the street the next day and commented how much they'd enjoyed it, and a few more comments were passed down from other people. Everyone gave their all, mostly because of the audience reaction and problems were minimal, although I had a prima dona moment when the lights came down too early at the end of the first act, leaving me unable to run up the stairs screaming "CHARGE!" like I normally do, since doing it in the dark I'd have broken my neck. It flawed an otherwise spot-on performance, but things still went very well.

Saturday night was... well...

Okay, we had another good audience - around 110 - but they were less responsive to start with, so things didn't lift in quite the same way. Some things were smoother, however, and after a while the audience started to get into it. I think it was probably my best night, personally, in terms of performance, although a couple of my entrances were slightly fluffed by my starting to speak before I was fully on-stage. Nothing important. Managed to get blasts out of my bugle every night, which was my major worry. In fact, it all was going swimmingly until our least reliable member got on-stage...

And this is where I'm going to start sounding like a drame queen but he totally... fucked... up.

Basically, he went onstage with his fly undone. No biggy. However, halfway through his scene he noticed it, STOPPED, got up, said to the audience "oops, my fly's undone!", grinned at everyone, then realised he'd forgotten his place, took THREE prompts and still couldn't get the line, totally broke character and said "You'll have to speak up!" to the prompt and then came off-stage LAUGHING proudly at what he'd done. Then asked the lead, who had been in the scene with him, what he thought of it and was surprised when he got the response: "It was SHIT."

This is after he'd casually announced he'd rewritten all his lines so they "flowed better."

I, personally, have never been in a play where the lines flowed more perfectly. The script is brilliantly written and the sheer arrogance of the man for thinking he knew better and being completely oblivious to the fact that everyone else will have learnt their cue lines and by changing them, he was fucking them over, was staggering.

So... there was an atmosphere in the bar afterwards and he never appeared at the aftershow party - I suspect because everyone slipped out without informing him where it was held. In conversation with a group of the players, someone mentioned that he'd made "the list". What list, I asked. "Oh, the list of people I'd never go on-stage with again." I concur. He's now made my list, after doing three shows with him and each progressively worse, I've had enough. Sadly, I'm even suspicious enough to wonder whether he left his fly open deliberately so he could do that and get a laugh, as he wasn't getting any others.

So, good night, ruined by one actor being an idiot. But, he'll now find himself out in the cold. Two producers are already refusing to work with him and now Tony, who produced this play, will probably follow suits, and if not then the cast will simply refuse to work with him. Sad because the guy has great stage presence, but the critic for the local-ish newspaper was met coming out of the show and confided that in twenty years of reviews, it made number two on her list of serious faux pas. Number one being a guy who, unable to get through an entrance, picked up the set and moved it out of the way.

I hope that doesn't reflect on all of us in any review. Personally I hope she tears him apart as he genuinely still believed he'd done everything right, even after we'd all told him he handled it about as badly as he possibly could have done.

Anyway...

That aside, the cast were pleased with how it went and it was one of those plays we all seemed to have genuinely enjoyed doing. Some material is hard work, though fulfilling. This play was simply a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have had a blast with it. The after show party was a lot of fun and finally wrapped up about 3am. Good company and good conversation, a number of very positive and flattering comments from my fellow actors and the producer and a really fun time.

Whatever we do next, I hope I enjoy it half as much.