Now I’m back in London I can’t quite fathom that I woke up in Wales. We all had breakfast and played a game of cricket in the sun. “Actors Vs Tractors.” The local team won, of course, despite my corrupt umpiring. I couldn’t play so I had no choice but to umpire. I realised they’d get our innings total almost immediately if I didn’t call their sixes fours. Nobody seemed to mind.
I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve done myself an actual injury of some sort. But I’ve had enough people on my back (figure of speech thank god) telling me to go and get it checked that I’ll get a book and head to a&e in the morning. Now the adrenaline is out of my system I’m left not wanting to move very much at all. Yawning and laughing are out. Sneezes are hell. Thankfully according to the internet, if it’s a bust rib it’s only bad for a few weeks. We shall see about that.
Three of my friends, perhaps mimicking shades of my own brand of home brewed ridiculous blind kamikaze optimism have made comments like “It’ll be valuable for you to have to take things slowly for a while.” Problem is I doubt I’ll manage. I expect I’ll find the right cocktail of high grade pain medication, and trade my pancreas for still being able to jump on tables. Although maybe… maybe I’ll be smarter than that. After all, I didn’t go skinnydipping last night. I made it to the river with everybody else but even in the state I was in a little voice cried “Your dressings are still on you ridiculous moron. And you won’t be able to pull yourself out of the water.” Stupid inner voice. But fair. I shouldn’t take risks right now as my poor long suffering guardian angel is limping around with two black eyes. And skinnydipping in an unfamiliar river drunk in the pitch blackness with a fucked back and dressed wounds technically constitutes a risk.
Macbeth feels good though. Early stages. We are learning and refining the game while introducing new players to how it plays live. The two shows we have had have deepened our shared knowledge. Now we’ll go back to training, and before long I hope I can say that there’ll be some shows in London, on the old pop up basis. Past projects have run in such a way that you can take whatever other acting work comes as all the parts are shared many ways, but if you are free you can put yourself in the mix. It’s one of the reasons there are so many of us. We are likely to go back to that way of playing. The advantage is that we can then pursue our careers outside of this fellowship and know that it’ll be there when we’re free. The concern is that you can never predict who you’ll play on any particular night so inviting family is a crapshoot.
Already at The Willow Globe there was a feeling of shared ownership of the work though and shared connected spontaneous invention. I was glad to be a part of these beginnings. And which other company would immediately think of it as an interesting advantage having a slightly injured actor in a major role?
I only took one photo today. Anne-May stayed in Wales. She’ll be staying with a local family, exploring, and then hitching a lift back to London. The kids who saw the show were thrilled they get to keep her. It’s like when you come to the zoo and your ask if you can take one of the animals home. Here they are, taking one of the actors home. It’s unlikely she’ll eat them alive. She’s a vegan.
AlBarclay 