Dried Fruits

I am now in the eye of the twister where all is calm and one can relax for a moment to watch flying cows or Helen Hunt. The past week has been a week of runs and blood. 'Run' is a luvvie term for doing the play in its entirety without stopping even when one of the actors gets clouted on the rim of his oversized glasses causing a nice gash above his right eye and a bloody run within the luvvie run. This happened on Thursday and during another run on Friday the actor who I shall refer to as 'Bill Sykes' whacked me in exactly the same place and opened up the cut again.

The one thing I have learnt from this experience is that my tissue is like tissue paper and my dreams of entering the ring as an underground, back-door, bare-knuckled, fisting gypsy prize-fighter were well and truly put to bed with a pillow on the face and a piano on the pillow. I blame decades of hydrocortisone addiction.

Bloody wounds aside the last week has gone relatively smoothly. It has been good to run the show from beginning to end and The Wicked Witch of the North has largely left us to it, aside from the occasional explosion of invective when I've gone down at the end of my line. Most reputable theatre schools have whole semesters devoted to going down as this is a sure-fire way of getting your hands on a big part however The Wicked Witch of the North transforms into an apopletic arsehole screaming antichrist whenever anyone has the audacity to downward inflect in his vincinity. I do know where he's coming from and it's all about keeping your balls in the air.

In most scripts every line one actor says is followed by another line unless it's the last line of the play when the curtain comes down and the audience depart to drink some wine and pretend they enjoyed themselves. When one actor has finished their line they are passing an invisible ball of energy to the next actor to polish one side of on their groin and pick at the seam before passing it on. If the ball comes your way and you fail to catch it you have missed your cue. If you don't immediately pick it up and throw it to somebody else you have driven a bus through your cue. If you hide the ball in your pants and claim to have never seen it and start crying you have dried.  'Dry' is a luvvie term for an opening night without any free booze however it also means forgetting your line. Experienced actors can cover up other actors dries by coughing, putting their foot on a chair or by cleverly asking the dried actor a question that cunningly has the line they have dried on concealed in it without the audience catching on. For example:

Clever actor playing Ophelia: 'Silly me. I've forgotten your name however I think it may be Toby. Toby or not Toby, may I ask this question?'

Grateful dried actor playing Hamlet: 'To be or not to be - that is the question....etc'

They are however on their own for the remaining 34 lines of the soliloquy unless they are an 'improviser' which is a luvvie term for actors who ask the audience to shout out toilet and gynecologist and then sing a song about it backwards.

Forgetting a line is not good however not cueing-up can be just as destructive to the theatrical experience. 'Cueing-up' is a luvvie term where-by you say your line as quickly as possible after the previous line, even if it means over-lapping the last few words of the poor sap who has the misfortune to be acting with you. But, wouldn't that mean the audience can't hear the start of your line? Indeed it would, unless you are an experienced actor and remember to always cap the line. 'Capping a line' is a luvvie technique where you say your line slightly higher and louder than the line before yours to pull the focus to yourself and away from the other actor as quickly as possible before the audience has time to think that they might be better than you. You will know you're watching a professional production of the highest calibre if every line is delivered louder and at a slightly higher pitch than the previous one. By the end of a really good show only dogs should be able to hear the dialogue although it will be far too loud for them as well. So remember, if at the end of the show the actors are not screaming at each other non-stop in falsetto you should ask for a refund because the play was rubbish.

This week is production week. 'Production week' is a luvvie term for going into the theatre to make sure you have the best dressing room and are not having to share it with an arsehole. Other people also do things like put the set in, rig things called pacifics, parcans and frennells, fiddle with their gobos and hang some clothes in our dressing rooms for us to moan and whinge about. It's usually a stressful time for all concerned, especially the director so I'm expecting spectacular fireworks and blood on the boards, hopefully not mine.