Not with a bang

My drama class came to an end last week with ‘An evening of monologues and (one) duologues’.

As we arrived, everyone was asking, ‘how many are you bringing?’ ‘none’, ‘none’, ‘one'. By the time we were ready to start, we had an audience of 3 guests, the other class members, the admin staff, the adult education organiser, and the tutor’s daughter who she’d press-ganged into attending!

We certainly had variety – from Ariel in silver boots and with tinsel in her hair, to Blanche DuBois complete with table, candle and herb cigarettes – and worried looks from the staff who feared that the smoke alarms would go off, a Welsh Nora, a bit of The Dumb Waiter, a couple of modern pieces, and my Mrs Sullen from The Beaux Strategem.

No one forgot their lines. J, who’d legged it two weeks ago, did turn up, but just to watch, and so K gave him my camera to take pics. And as he wasn’t familiar with it, we got a few pics of people just as they left the stage, who then had to be asked to go back and pose. As a performance, it didn’t run like any other that I’d been in, but for many of them, it was only the second time that they’d been on a stage, so they did well.

Afterwards, as we drank the wine, the discussion turned to ‘what next?’ For some of them, seeking out some ‘am dram’, for others, that’s it, they’ve done it now, for one, a ‘career’ as a Jack Sparrow look-a-like. For me, I just don’t know. I do know that I need to do drama, in some shape or form, so I hope that my slight rant about all the theatre projects being for kids and there being nothing for adults went home. I doubt it though.