Lou came up from Brighton to see the show tonight, and I’m very happy she did so. It felt like a special thing. She got it.
All the rules and the tradition and the hierarchy and pomp of that remarkable school, and right in the centre is that Speech Room. Portraits of prime ministers staring down at the stage, a sense of history. A difficult acoustic there, and oh it is a very revealing space. As a performance space it really is just bodies and voices. You can’t hide. And voices can get lost in the echo without precision and support. But… it’s where so much began for me. Camille in Flea in her Ear directed by Martin Tyrrell. Behind closed doors, that room transformed into a very safe play space for me, and I found terrific freedom there back when I was a boy, over the course of many plays.
This evening with the full moon above the chapel, I poured my heart into Antony and not only were there old Harrow School teachers there, and Lou, I had a drama school teacher there too! We had three people who were in the third year at Guildhall when I was in the first year, and to cap it off, one of the incredible beings who made up the tight knit teaching group that helped so many young Guildhall actors learn to … to do it better. Martin Connor. The same as ever despite the college committing suicide via giving them all the heave-ho simultaneously a few years ago. The Guildhall lot were all there to support Ollie as Julius, I was as surprised to see them as they were to see me. But I’m so glad they were there. Blood moon, and so many intersections of shared blood in my life thus far.
After the show the inevitable plaudits and speeches and I’m happy I’m sober – I wouldn’t have wanted to drink the red wine they were serving anyway judging by the smell of it, but I’m sure I’d had put some away and then remembered I had my car. There up on top of that hill on such a warm September night, I don’t really know exactly what energies I was moving around or where or why, but there was some channeling going on in that building, and it felt positive and bright. I’m still crackling with something now. The cats knew it, they are sitting on the bed squabbling for prime position. It can feel draining to radiate heart and text like that, and often it seems logical and necessary to cut the edge out with booze when finished. Tonight I feel different though, like I’ve done a ritual and now I can rest feeling charged but not itchy, enervated and like I’ve shifted a blockage of some sort.
And on top of everything else, that’s Marc Antony learnt. I’m sure it’ll come in handy some time. Meanwhile … … back to the drawing board. Oh joy.
AlBarclay 