My once a week blog resolution has been well and truly broken before the end of January due to being in regular employment. I never know what to call myself usually however at the moment I am definitely an actor and not just any old actor, I am a real adult professional theatre company actor working with the cream of New Zealand acting talent and being directed by one of the two legends of the New Zealand directing fraternity.
Suffice to say I don't really know what the fuck I'm doing.
I'm working on a play called 'Le Sud' and didn't really have to audition properly for my part because my good and loyal friend Mark Hadlow whispered sweet nothings into the directors ear and after a bit of a chat and a read-through I was offered the role straight away. For a fleeting monent I felt like a star, like Jude Law, who doesn't need to audition for anything and gets scripts, parts and au pairs tossed in front of him willy nilly every day just begging for Jude to give them a good seeing to.
This all happened last year and just over two weeks ago I sauntered to the Auckland Theatre Company rehearsal rooms for the first read-through with a flat white in my hand and the tightest little white ring I've had for ages. I was absolutely shitting myself and it was only the fact that my arse had turned itself into a brown hole busily sucking all the confidence from my body that kept me from driving Miss Daisy in front of an array of theatre luminaries and the director who shall not be named.
Read-thrus, (I can't be bothered spelling it properly anymore), are usually a doddle and if I had been doing one in Christchurch I would have worn a skivvy, smoked a stogie and thrown a tantrum before the end of the first half however up here I was a quaking, sweating, heaving bundle of torment and tears. I was so bloody nervous and wasn't quite sure why. The other actors were lovely, I had met a few of them before, I had met the director before socially and he had been lovely and anyway, it was just a read-thru and they're a bit like first dates where the more you fuck up the more endearing you look. I managed to say most of my lines in the right places and then all the arty people talked about design and costumes and lighting and other things that make us actors look better.
The first three days were quite enjoyable because the writer was with us and we were workshopping the script. It's a political farce I suppose and as such is constantly updated according to the events of the moment. We all sat around and I squeaked up my two cents occasionally in between running to the toilet to see if Jessica Tandy was ready to come out. I love the process of script evolution so I found all this to be very interesting plus there was no pressure on me to perform so I could sit back and nod and smile and pretend I was Jude Law at a nanny academy.
On Thursday January 14th 2010 it all changed. Two understand why I'll need to fill you in on a bit of New Zealand theatre history. Before 1950 there was no theatre in New Zealand except for plays directed by Nagaio Marsh when she was bored with writing her crime novels and the output of The New Zealand Players, who were directed by Richard Campion, who may have been related to Jane Campion who directed 'The Piano' where you got to see Harvey Keitel's knob for the 14th time.Two young men who worked as actors for these people decided to go to London and studied acting at LAMDA and RADA respectively before embarking on acting careers in the mother country. One starred in a musical by Lionel Bart about Robin Hood called 'Twang' and the other stayed on at RADA to teach stuff.
Then they came back in the 70's as tyrannical directors. One settled in Auckland and one settled in Christchurch.
I have never been directed by the Wicked Witch of the South however I have been in his presence many times. I brushed passed him on the stairs dressed as a shellfish once and he exclaimed, 'Oooh, young boys in make-up, it's just like a brothel.' I closed my shell and ran away. I had heard the stories of how he would reduce actors to quivering husks of self-doubt on a daily basis however I'd never experienced his powers directly.
I don't know what was going on in theatre London in the 50's but the principle of 'break 'em down, build 'em up' must have been pretty popular as the Wicked Witch of the North had the same raison d'etre. I had heard the stories and thought I was ready...
I was not.
And on that note, hopefully like the end of a Da Vinci Code chapter where you're all gagging to find out what happens next, I shall stop. It's late and I've got to go over my lines for tomorrow.
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