libraries aren't just for reading books, you know

Even though I no longer have to pee in the basin, the theater I am currently working in is not exactly luxurious. Despite the proximity of a loo this time, our dressing room is worse because there is only one. For six actors. Last time there were two dressing rooms for four actors. See the difference? Smell the difference, more accurately.
Oh, what one puts up with in the theatre....

We have already had to cancel a Sunday afternoon performance due to a lack of audience. The accepted theatre rule is that if there are more actors than audience members, the show is off. Well, we didn't even have to count - there was no ONE audience member, so we had tea instead.

Tonight, we had a good-sized house. Exciting stuff! I was so wound up afterwards that I walked home and then walked past home and beyond. Eventually I zig-zagged back home and decided I needed to go for a run. Now, please understand that I am no runner. I love doing sport - read: fitness & dance classes - but running is not something I usually do voluntarily, although I used to sprint for my school. Sprinting is different - I can sum up the interest necessary for a quick dash, but anything longer bores me and thus...I don't know what to do with myself when that little (sane) voice in my head says: "remind me why I want to make my lungs burn??"

Tonight was different though. I really needed to get rid of excess performance energy and I think living in a small space is getting to me. Not having a garden is getting to me. Not having a car in which to sing at the top of my voice is getting to me. So I found myself running and jumping and stretching and dancing and swinging off the bars and poles of the esplanade of the Bibliothèque Nationale François Mitterand like a moegoe at 22h40 tonight. For an hour I ignored the stares of people crossing the esplande where I was doing push-ups off the walls and later on, I ignored the sniggers of people using the foot-bridge where, bathed in pink lighting (cool idea, no idea why it's there) I made it my business to "footloose" like Kevin Bacon to a soundtrack of Annie Lennox (is that even possible? Oh yes, it sure is), The Counting Crows & Dave Matthews.

I'm thinking... maybe it's time to seek out Africa's wide open spaces again?

Shit to you too!

You know how we say "break a leg" to actors before opening night and other live shows? Well, not bothered with breaking legs and the like, the French wish you shit instead.

Je te dis MERDE!

Pardon? You say shit? What have I ever done to you for you to wish me kak for opening night?

But here is where this charming good luck wish comes from: in Moliere's day, people rode chariots to the theatre... pulled by horses. Thus lots of audience members meant lots of chariots outside, which meant lots of horses in front of the theatre and therefore lots of horse-poop. All this shit amounted to lots of money for the actors, so SHIT IS GOOD.

The first time anyone ever wished me shit was when I was working with a famous French actress my age. I was getting her fit for a role she was being directed in by John Malcovich and she never liked the idea that her personal trainer was also an actress. So when she once said:

Shit for your play on Friday

I just stared at her blankly and thought "I've always known you're a bit superior, but this really takes the cake. Talk about putting someone down without batting an eyelid!". She saw my look of utter disbelief and quickly explained why she had said that, without giving me the back story on the expression. I left, feeling very suspicious and confused - seriously, that shit does not sound good. But now I know better!

PS It is bad luck to thank the person who wished you shit. A simple "yes!" will do in reply.

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UPDATE: The BF pointed out that I used a word in the French sense in my post...did you find it? Sorry - 'chariot' should read carriage or horse-drawn cart. Not chariot in the Roman sense. Ooopsie...

Panic-shmanic!

Last night was the premiere of the French play I am currenty appearing in. Given that I had been called in at the last minute to replace one of the lead actresses after 5 months of rehearsal and only got the benefit of 10 rehearsals in total, I was suitably freaked out about how Friday night might turn out.
So, here is how to went: before my first entrance onto stage I suddenly took fright and grabbed the thigh of the actor waiting next to me and whispered:

is it me next??

He nodded very slowly and squeezed my hand in what I presume he thought was a comforting fashion. Well, turns out, it was (a comforting fashion AND me next). Once I was up there, all was well. I didn't fluff any lines and even remembered to act a bit!

That was followed by a costume change and my Next Challenge: signing while speaking a French text. When the director found out I signed, she wanted to use that in her play.

Oh, but I don't know French Sign Language (LSF)

said I.

No matter

said she,

use South African Sign (SASL) or whatever you like!

That's all well and good, but essentially amounts to speaking two languages simultaneously - French with my lips, tongue and voicebox and Sign English with my body. Plus, I hate speaking when I sign because the voice always has to wait for the pictures you're painting in the air to catch up... and it sounds stilted and slowed down. To make things that little bit harder for myself, I put in some British signs that I picked up during the short film shoot in London in December with the deaf actors. Then 3 days ago, I found a French Sign Language DVD and rushed through the dictionary chapter picking up bits and bobs of French Sign as well. So my signing is very schizophrenic as it darts and dives from SASL to British SL to LS Française, all in the space of one sentence because I've picked the most visually interesting signs and jumbled them. BUT: it all went swimmingly!

Once the pressure was off and I got into the non-signing part of the play I did have a brain fart. Spoke one line and then stared hard at my partner, to try and let her know that I had officially blanked on what came next. She stared hard back and then eventually picked up from where I would usually have finished. It was only ONE line though, so not too much of a gaping hole in the text. And then, in the last scene (with the thundering applause already in earshot :-), I fluffed a line. The line just BEFORE the one that is my usual nemesis, my total undoing, because it has the most unforgiving arrangement of French consonants possible for an anglophone tongue. In anticipation of getting my tongue ripped out of my mouth by THAT line, I switched the word-order of the line before and had to (un)gracefully switch it back to preserve the meaning.

Okay, but now all that has happened and it's done with and the show goes on. Now that I am no longer terrified, I can enjoy the ride.... oh and as luck would have it (or Murphy; we're quite close) there was a guy in the audience who is fluent in French Sign Language. Well, wouldn't you know it! However, he was so gratified & moved to see signing in a hearing play that he loved what I did. (That's what he told the director at any rate). Although he admitted he couldn't understand all of it for it was a mix. Bless. (And now I sound like PEAS! Bless!)

preview....

whewwwwwwww.....we made it.
Teacher's preview was last night. It was a success. After the calamities of the last few days, this is a) well deserved (all the stress, panic and hard work paid off!) and b) very, very neccessary because it was getting ugly. So, YAY!

We had an interesting role-reversal thing happening in our theatre. Instead of having a diva in the cast... we had some diva-action from the backstage and lighting crew! Us actors (there are only 4 of us) are a surprisingly well-behaved foursome. We were sometimes very crap on stage during rehearsals (I speak mainly for myself), but we could all learn a thing or two about how to be SERIOUSLY touchy from our lighting-designer (bless him, he did a GREAT job - once he got over his 'creative differences' with the director). So while the director and lighting designer were making decisions about light and dark and trying to agree, a mini-war broke out between the assisstant director, production manager and stage manager, who were all involved in scene-changes during a run-through. Between scenes 5 and 6, the stage manager was just about ready to push the set over and 'stage' a walk-out (fun pun alert!), hissing bitchiness at her colleagues and competing with the refusal to co-operate in the lighting box. I was awestruck.... how is it that actors have such a bad rep???????

We'd better throw a huge hissy-fit tomorrow, or we won't stand a chance of being taken seriously! I had suggested a cat-fight in the dressing-room to my co-star this evening - with scratching and shrill shouting to scare the boys in the dressing-room next door - but her reply was: "You're scaring me. I'm not good at being bitchy." Clearly, she won't last long in this business! :-P

An Evening at the Mark Taper Forum

One of LA's most prestigous theatres is the Mark Taper Forum. And since a friend taught me a little trick about how to get affordable tickets (he, he - it's perfectly legal, you just have to be in the know...) I was able to go and see a play there!

For some reason, however, I ended up at 'Senior's Night' as I seemed to be the youngest person there on a Sunday evening. There was an excessive amount of shuffling, whispering and coughing going on throughout the play. Towards the end of the performance, someone's medication started wearing off. This lady, sitting on the far right of the stage, started remarking on the action rather loudly. In an emotional moment, the lead actor brought a photo onstage to give to his niece - we all knew who was in the photo, but we were patiently waiting for the actor to tell us himself. After all, that's what he is paid to do. Well, this lady wasn't waiting for anyone. She yelled out, " It's the BROTHER in the picture." She was so proud of her helpful contribution that she continued to reveal ALL from the sidelines until her peers eventually shut her up. When the cast received a standing ovation, she pointed that out to them too, lest they didn't notice that the audience was on their feet. Who says the theatre is dead? It may be on it's last hip-replacement legs, but quite dead it ain't.

Exits & Entrances

I saw the world premiere of a South African play in LA a while back. Athol Fugard's EXITS AND ENTRANCES played at the very tiny Fountain Theatre. The play is autobiographical and interprets Fugard's friendship
with Andre Huguenet, an Afrikaans actor from Bloemfontein. Obviously, the backdrop is apartheid
South Africa and how each one tries to make sense of the circumstances they live in (a closet homosexual
Afrikaner actor and a playwright who wants to make a difference in his crazy country).

Great script, good performances - bummer neither actor
was South African or had ever been there. The actor
who played Fugard travelled the world DURING his
performance. He started somewhere in America with a
slight twang in his accent. Then he travelled to
Ireland and brought us the Northern and Southern Irish
accents in turn, passed through London's East End with
the Cockneys and brushed Australia on his way to New
Zealand, but somehow NEVER managed to come close to
South Africa! Well, I guess the route from the US via
the UK to NZ doesn't exactly pass by Africa. Although,
it was awesome how he managed to straddle several
continents in one sentence.

Obviously, your average theatre audience really knows
a good thing when they hear it because after the show
two girls dashed straight up to the actor and gushed,
" Your accent was GREAT!"
Thanks, but which one in particular?