14 Jun 2007

Nearly done now

We have now only 4 more shows to go, and then a week of destroying the place. The end is well and truely in sight - however not quite as in sight as the festival office would have me believe because they told me that todays cheque is the very last. Yeah, whatever, i think they may find several very angry boys if they try and pull the wool over our eyes in this particular area. Getting payed is what we do best, certainly a lot better than the work we do.
Getting payed is the only reason anybody would actually put up with this job.

Things are getting much cheerier here, everybody can feel the weight has been lifted, the end is now well with our grasp. After tonights show is over, then the last 3 shows will be a doodle. On Saturday we will start to load out the first of the shows, then monday will be the final get out, before we start to strip the theatre of everything and stick it back in the van for storage.
Can't wait to get the hell out of here.

5 Jun 2007

Huzzah for a few hours off work

Man oh man, this is one hell of a gig. I'm actually over the moon to get a real lunch break, the kind that normal people enjoy, a whole hour (plus travel time) so I've gone off site and into town to enjoy the first proper sunny day in ages. I'm relaxing with a coffee (real and not instant, ooooh) in the company of people who don't work in theatre. Amazing. And I get to update my blog too, give you all a little bit of a lowdown on the vibes A la Wexford.
Where do I start?

Well, Hell week was excactly that, 10 days of pure savage hell. In at 1pm and home to bed by 6am, for 10 days solid, lots and lots of mental work. Rehearsals, turnarounds, fixing stuff, rehearsals, turnarounds, fixing, fixing fixing, Lots of sets came to us that needed to be totally modified to fit the venue, stuff needed to be totally rebuilt, the works, utter mayhem. On top of all this we had an utter arsehead of a director called Keith Warner, who was a very very obese man who acted like a spoiled little brat. He demanded everything, from 3 rehearsals a day for 3 weeks, to every pie in the whole of wexford. He was an insufferable cock of a man, who everybody hated and was very very glad to see the back of. What a little baby he was, and he sat in the front row spread over 3 seats like the proverbial beached whale. People called him the Fat Controller, I personally referred to him as the Roller (because he was a Fat C%!@).
His show is the pig of all shows, made entirely out of steel and polystyrene, it looks like an enormous cowshit, weighing into a total of more than 4 tonnes - perhaps he asked the designer to build a show that Keith could see himself in.
Anyhoo, I could slate this awful man until the cows come home and you all get very bored, but I can't be bothered to waste another moments thought on the pig, and would rather forget that he even exists.
The other 2 shows are great, they go in and come out quick and easy in comparison. There is an Italian company who do a ballet/opera which looks great and involves lots of men and women running around in Y fronts doing pirhouettes and a dummy that is the spitting image of Margeret Thatcher (no lie, the photos will be up here some point soon). Also we have a very straight Opera Opera called Rusalka, which is OK if you like opera (personally I can't really stand the stuff).

We have now got past the worst of it, the publice dress rehearsals went very well, the opening nights are all over and done with (more about one of them in just a few paragraphs), the rich bigwigs have all been in and enjoyed their stupidly expensive night of "culture" - which no doubt they didn't understand, appreciate, enjoy or even care about, but they got to arrive in their limousines wearing ridiculously overpriced DJs, drink vast amounts of stupidly expensive champers, fall asleep in their seats and then go and tell their rich friends about how incredibly cultured and marvellous they are because they had a night at the opera darling. Cynical? I really don't think so actually.
The irish times has given most of the shows rave reviews and we're packed out all the time, which I suppose must mean something, but I couldn't give a monkeys at this point because my whole body hurts. Oh and we got to neck loads of free champagne and generally misbehave ourselves in front of loads of rich tossers (my personal technique being turning up to a swanky black tie affair in dirty dirty clothes, paint all over my hands and under my fingernails, smelling like a dogs bottom and standing by the champagne table with hands full of champagne glasses going "more, no more, more please, give me a bottle, go on, well you won't give me a bottle hey, so I'll take 8 glasses instead, try and stop me" and chasing the people who have trays of canopes in order to stuff my face. Great craic. It's about time we got a bit of perks from this bloody gig.

So more on the opening nights. Well one in particular I might add. There was a moment of slight embarassment and no mistake. Allow me to fill you all in.
Picture the scene, the opening night of the second show. The whole festival is totalling the 4 million euro mark by now, the rehearsals have all gone perfectly for this one (in fact it has been the easiest shows all round, no worries).
Opening night, big wigs, media, dignitaries, politicians, businessmen, celebs, rich rich people paying 120 euro a pop, board of directors, blah blah blah, the works. The top of the show there is a huge white cloth across the whole front of the stage (a Kabuki cloth). One of the dancers performs a shadow dance behind the cloth to open the show, then on the cue the line is pulled and the Kabuki cloth drops to the floor to be pulled away and the show continues.
The show starts, the dancer performs his shadow dance, the cue goes, the string is pulled, the cloth soesn't drop, the string is pulled again, again and again. Nothing.
Oh
The show is stopped (Stage Manager goes out front and says, oops, technical hitch). We all have to go out in front of 600 people and bring in the bar, re-rig the cloth sharpish and pull the bar out again (to a bit of applause from the assembled masses). The show starts again, the shadow dance, the cue, the pull of the string (we all cross fingers, clutch our balls, pray, whatever) and the cloth drops. Almost. A few feet of the cloth are snagged and it just hangs there, big and white and right in front of the bloody show. Oh dear.
The show stops again, we walk out front again (very pleased to be dressed in black with hoodies to hide our shame), bring in the bar quick as possible, take the sodding thing off and get it the hell out of the way, then fly the bar out ASAP and scuttle off to cry in the corner. Shame of shames, on opening bloody night of all things. Well, to add a bit of hilarity to a generally shite situation I managed to pull off a classic Timbo Moment. As we flew out the bar, we tied the rope off and scuttled away quicksmart. Clumsy numpty here gets the tail of the rope caught round his foot and trips up, falling head first through the door to backstage, right in full view of all, with a stifled "hwuurgh" thud.
Oops again indeed.
Ah well, the lads enjoyed it and still have the odd little dig for it, but at least it made a bit of light of a generally poor and embarrasing situation.

Heads haven't rolled yet, but I have no doubt that they will do (as soon as we have no further purpose to this festival).

C'est la theatre. It's live, it buggers up from time to time.

Anyhow, I'm going to get myself some lunch and then go back to work again to listen to lots of loud people singing about god knows what in Czech.

love to all