Foggy and Dull

Today started really foggy and dull. I think you best describe it as a 'dead day.' Typical November day. I seem to remember a very appropriate poem when I was at school called 'November.'

It's by Thomas Hood and here it is:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November! 

Quite brillant and descriptive of the sort of day today was.

It must have had a profound effect on me if I remember it from school, so I'm grateful to the English teacher who must have introduced me to this poem. Also whichever teacher first introduced me to William Shakespeare at some stage of my literary education as I have been a real lover of his work ever since. Hamlet in particular is a play which intrigues me and still has a very strange power which is with me to this very day. Not much I don't know about it as a piece of theatre or literature.

Sunny but cold

Today is one of those typical autumn days. It's bright and sunny, but underneath it's quite chilly. There is a nasty wind which makes it a good deal colder. The trees are rapidly loosing their leaves, but at the same time the leaves are turning the most amazing range of colours. One of the wonders of Milton Keynes. Whoever laid out this city in the late 1960's-1970's had the foresight to plant many trees. As you drive around this place it's often difficult to imagine that there are so many houses as most are hidden by trees growing along the grid roads.

Alice Neel painting inspires me to write!

Last Saturday I went on a creative writing course at Milton Keynes Art Centre in Great Linford and lead by Deborah Fielding. As part of the course I wrote the following which was inspired by the above painting, which is called "Nancy and the Rubber Plant" by Alice Neel.

The rubber plant had been a present. It took up almost half the room, which made things worse. To say it was unwanted would be stating the obvious. But how do you dispose of an unwanted present, particularly one which seemed to dominate the sitting room so obviously?

It had come from Steven's mother, but Nancy hadn't got on too well with her, which didn't help matters. She thought Steven was being controlled by the woman, and he was pretty well terrified of her. Shat she said had to be adhered to totally. So when she had arrived ove afternoon with the wretched rubber plant, Nancy's face had turned ashen. She'd hated the thing from the start. She had stuck it in the corner of the room and shoved the armchair in front of it, as if hiding it would somehow make it disappear. But Steven had looked after it, as if it were a child, watered it, cleaned it, suing a special rubber-plant leaf-cleaning fluid he'd managed to discover in a garden centre and generally fussed over the horrid plant. As a  result it had just grown and grown. Nancy had hoped that it would just die, but it didn't. It seemed to her that it had a life of it's own, that if she sat in the chair in front of it, it would somehow attempt to strangle her, or poison her, perhaps wrapping a branch round her neck until she was gasping for breath, or it stuck a poisoned thorn into her arm, which was absurd, as the plant had no such thorns. All this was in her imagination. But Steven just shrugged all this nonsense off, telling Nancy she was becoming paranoid.

Steven's mother had never really liked Nancy. She's told him that he could have done much better than to marry beneath him, which was why she'd imagined such awful things of his mother and her wretched present. Perhaps next time she'd bring them a venus fly trap, so that would DEFINITELY seal the deal!

She'd been watching far too many late-night horror movies, particularly those directed by Roger Corman,  and especially the sort which had carnivorous plants in them, the one which came from outer space, or the one where humans get turned into cactuses or something and end up having ridiculous green faces with prickles sticking out all over the place, or that one where pods keep appearing in peoples gardens, rather like huge pea-pods and people get taken over by yet another alien race from the planet Zog.

Perhaps she could chop bits off the rubber plant, so Steven wouldn't notice, so eventually the horrid plant shriveled up and died. But, unfortunately, Steven spent too much time fussing over the awful plant, so he'd see immediately if a leaf or a branch was removed. Just to keep his MOTHER quiet, because when she came to visit, which was quite often and on the least pretext, she'd look at the plant to see how it was doing. So Nancy was stuck with it and it seemed  that there was no way on Earth could she think of to get rid of the evil thing.

Working In Theatre- Part 10

I'm skipping forward slightly. I have mentioned in an earlier post a production of a play called 'Hadrian VII' which I was involved in whilst working as a D.S.M. at Ipswich Theatre. I also worked on several other productions, several of which I was responsible for The Book. As I've already mentioned in earlier posts, the job of working on The Book is important to the  smooth-running of any production as you are more or less totally responsible for such things as cueing lighting, sound, spot effects (door slams, glass crashes and other live off-stage sound effects.) as well as making sure the actors are given 'calls' via tannoy for their next entrance (as they are usually in either their own dressing-room when not on-stage or the actors' waiting or 'common room' (called 'Green Room' for some unaccountable reason, although if I did a Google I expect I could find some explanation as to why 'Green Room' in particular.) At Ipswich there were three lights that you had to use on the prompt desk in order to warn either the sound or lighting operator that a cue was coming up. Generally you have a red and green light, with red as a warning and some 30 seconds to a minute later you give the green when the cue comes, usually taken from a line in the script or a movement that an actor makes on stage. At Ipswich there was a third light, I think it was blue. You gave the red light and the operator would flash the blue to show that he/she was ready. On this particular show I was working on I gave the lighting guy a red light and was expecting a blue light to show he was standing by. After around 20 seconds I hadn't got anything back via the blue light and was panicking slightly. There were seconds to go before the lighting cue was due and still nothing. I got up off my prompt-corner stool and shot up the metal ladder which lead to the lighting box (actually on a sort of deck over the prompt corner.) to discover that the lighting guy was sound asleep! I had to make the fade up, or down, myself, using the ancient lighting board, while the guy was snoring soundly! I then had to return to my prompt corner, but it was a hare's breath in my timing and climbing the metal ladder otherwise the cue wouldn't have happened! Such are, or were, the joys of working in repertory theatre!

I worked The Book on several plays at Ipswich, 'Plaza Suite' by Neal Simon, 'Time and Time Again' by Alan Ayckbourne and 'The Matchmaker' by Thornton Wilder (which is the basis for the musical Hello Dolly!')

Now in this particular play there are several points in the action when some of the characters come 'out front' and 'break the fourth wall' as they say and speak directly to the audience. Usually they are alone on stage and no other characters appear until they've made, in some cases, some quite long speeches, some of several pages. When you are responsible for The Book, you will have been in all the rehearsals from day one, and carried through all the requirements of being responsible for the actors as regards prompting them. Most of the actors would have learnt their lines thoroughly and be virtually word perfect by the second weeks of rehearsals (depending on what length of time the rehearsal period is.) I kept a strict eye on the actors getting their lines right and as a result would prompt them where necessary. 

During this particular performance (I think it may well have been a mid-week matinee, but I can't remember exactly as it's some 40 years ago) all went well enough. Now the actor who played the central male character of Vandergelder (I'm not giving his name here as I don't want to cause embarrassment, but I think it's only polite to not to do so, as you will understand.) was somewhat renowned for his drinking habits. I'm talking alcohol and not tea or coffee, obviously. I had experience of this when working on other shows he was in. On  this occasion, when The Half was called (the period in which the actors are expected to be in the theatre and getting ready for the performance. It is actually 35 minutes before 'curtain up', which gives five minutes before the show starts and 'Beginners' are in place before the curtain rises on the show.) I would go round and check that everyone was in their dressing room or in the Green Room, but this particular gentleman would usually be found in the threatre bar downing a pint or two and generally 'propping up the bar' and certainly not preparing for the play's performance as I would have hoped. At around five minutes to curtain up he was STILL in the bar and not ready, but as he didn't go on until half-way through the first act it didn't really matter. Anyway, I wasn't happy about the situation but there wasn't a lot I could do about it.

As I've mentioned, there were several fairly long speeches which a couple of the characters had which were spoken directly at the audience. It was quite important to the plot that Vandergelder and Dolly Levi don't meet immediately. She has a long speech and goes off and then Vandergelder comes on and he gives several pages of dialogue. Most performances all goes smoothly until this particular afternoon the actor playing Vandergelder had had more than enough alcohol to sink a ship. He starts his long speech, and seems to be slurring his lines somewhat, and fluffs slightly, to such an extent that I have to give him a prompt. Something which anyone on the book dreads, as it's never always certain if they can hear you, or whether the audience is aware that you've given a prompt. I was taught that you only give a couple of words and the actor, if he/she is capable, soon gets back to the script and carries on. This actor didn't seem to take the prompt, so  I was forced to give it again, but still he didn't pick up and carry on with the line. He just seemed to go round and round, repeating great chunks of his long speech. It was very stressful and difficult for me. The actress playing Dolly was waiting off-stage for her entrance, and it's important as I mention that they don't meet at this point in the play, so she can't go on and 'assist' with the actors lines (ie, improvising or something to get the actor back 'on-script.') Anyway,  she was stamping her feet  and coughing to try and get him to continue his speech, but by now he had gone round and round with the same bit of script.  I think by now it wasn't just that one actress who was trying to get his attention, but several other member of the cast as well as stage management. I don't remember exactly how the situation was  eventually resolved, but I think he may just have got to the end of this confounded speech and gone off -stage so that Dolly could enter and the play continue. But it was quite a difficult situation. I'm not sure what the audience would have made of it, but if it had been a matinee there may have been very few people in the audience and they may not have noticed.

Irritating Cold and Cough

For the past week or more I have been developing a really annoying cold. Carol came home from the Academy with a cold so I suppose I caught it off her, but I expect she got it from some child at the school. I remember when I was at school, as soon as the autumn term started up, having been on holiday for around six weeks, and we'd gone back to school, I almost always came down with some bug or other, so it's to be expected, particularly when you're working closely with a group of people such as school children. The same happened with the time I worked in care, there is always the chance that you will catch something from those you are caring for.

The cold turned into a cough. The cough got worse and worse. Having had a heart attack I am always wary of getting flu or colds and this more than ever since the week before my heart attack in 2006 I had suffered with a really bad bout of bronchitis, so you can see why I was beginning to get concerned. At one point, having had a really bad coughing fit, whenever I breathed in I got something of a pain in my chest. Carol suggested making a doctor's appointment. It is far easier to get to the  Ashfield Medical Centre in Beanhill before the surgery opens at 8.00 a.m., rather than phoning. It can take something like 30 minutes to get through, so driving there and getting in the queue that forms outside the door is easier. So on Thursday morning we drove to the surgery and got there at 7.45 and stood and waited. Around half-a-dozen brave folks already there in front of us, but at 8.00 sharp the doors were opened and we went inside. I managed to get an appointment immediately and was seen by Doctor Hilmy at 8.10. I was very impressed as I've never been able to make an appointment so rapidly, thus preventing all the unnecessary and annoying waiting that you might otherwise expect, or getting an appointment later in the day and so meaning you have to return to the surgery. My name came up on the digital display and we went into the doctor's surgery and the doctor prescribed me penicillin capsules. He then said 'have you had your flu jab?' I said I hadn't, but was expecting a letter from the surgery telling me I was due to have one. As we walked into the surgery we saw posters and a display on the very same subject, so it was quite obvious that they were about to give those of a 'certain age' (i.e. myself, over the age of 60.) and with 'certain health issues' (i.e. such as heart problems.) Any I was expecting him to say 'you can make an appointment with the nurse for your jab as you go out,' but he did it there and then, which neither of us was expecting. I was more than impressed as it meant that it was at least out of the way.

We then left the surgery and went to Asda and had breakfast. Fried bacon, egg, sausage etc etc for £2.50 seemed a very good bargain. We had some other shopping to do and then got the prescription made up by the pharmacy and went home.