I’ve seen Claire before but never worked with her. She’s the BSL interpreter up here. I watched her sign one of the history plays with Min.
This evening and tomorrow matinee we get to share the stage with her. 24 actors will collectively tell the tale of Othello. Some will work harder than others, but all will get breaks. Shakespeare is very very careful about that. If his leading actors have an incredibly heavy scene to do, he wheels on various other curious voices for a few scenes just so they can recover. This acting lark can be hard work in the big scenes, and Shakespeare in particular. There’s a thing that happens the first time an actor plays the lead – sink or swim. We can get used to a line through the play like this gift of a one I wrote about the other day. If you’re a lead in something like this you have to WORK and if you don’t the whole show suffers immediately. Our leads all did the work bless them. It’s a shift, your first lead, and one you never forget. These huge parts, they take their deserved rest in the show, they have to keep their light burning, they come on refreshed if it’s Shakespeare, but often not as well as they might be as the director might have cut the recovery scene. “Why is this scene here? It adds nothing.” *pant pant pant*
Claire was on stage with us the whole time. She played every single part in Othello. BSL is a physical activity. She must have been shot to hell at the end of the show. They’ve translated it into sign language, she’s learned it, and she is relaying it live, and it must be such hard work. “How do you maintain your energy?” one audience member asked her afterwards. “Nerves,” she replied.
This company keeps adding to experience. I’m so happy they make the show so accessible. It only makes our experience richer.
I’m back at the cottage, with the oven on reheating a curry. Two shows tomorrow but not as early a start as today.
Full moon today in Taurus. Bullish. Bright. Hard. We had a show stop. “Is there a doctor in the house?” A panic attack, we are told. No surprises. We are water. This moon is pulling us. So in the interval, finally, taurean, Jules Fin and myself moved the bundle into the place I had prepared in the substage. Better to just guerilla than try to organise. It is dry dry dry. There’s no risk of badness and now it hangs next to where we all get into the lift to go sing about how God is with us. The Gods eat beauty. We have prepared this banquet in a bundle so they eat the contents of the bundle instead of eating us. They have consumed much already. The rest of it is under us, grounding us rather than pulling us up. A better place as we shift to the last week. Sweet Avon the Green Eyed Kiss (mcbundleface) stupid internet is in the right place.
AlBarclay 