'Just learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture'

After months of working towards it, we actually performed ‘the play’ to the paying public last weekend. Whilst we have rehearsed over a long period, the rehearsals have been very occasional, only every other week or so, up to the last month. It’s not enough, and by a couple of weeks before I was feeling very under-rehearsed.

Our ‘dress’ had been more of a technical rehearsal, but had also demonstrated that quite a lot of us were shaky on lines. We planned a pre-performance speed run, which also had quite a few problems, with K and I totally drying in our first scene together. I have some very quick costume changes – of character and of time period – from 1913 to 1951 and back again in the space of a scene change, and until the day of the performance I hadn’t been able to rehearse with full costume and props.

All went ok until the middle of Act 2.

I start Act 2 as ‘Shirley’, 1950’s bar maid, complete with tight skirt and red stilettos. I finish that scene, and almost immediately come back on as 1913 suffragette. As I dashed back on, E hissed ‘in the performance, can you remember to change your shoes!’ I looked down to realise that my suffragette was very visibly still wearing the bar maid’s red shoes.

As the audience began to fill the seats, we hoped they were feeling generous, as it was quite a nervous cast who gathered ‘back stage’*. It was a relief to see that we had a full audience, as weather was lovely, and we had picked up some of the day visitors.

As it turned out, the performance went much better than the run through. There were a few shaky moments, where people were reaching for lines, and apparently two pages were missed out of one scene, but as the rest of the cast didn’t spot it, I doubt that audience did. In one scene the actor playing opposite me and I swapped lines, but we got through it.

It ran much more quickly than we’d expected, as we'd never managed a full run without stopping before, and very quickly, we were at the last scene, and then the curtain call. As we stood waiting to go back on, one of my fellow cast members whispered ‘this is my favourite bit’.
‘What?’
‘The end. It means we’ve got through it!’

I knew how she felt. I know it still needs a lot of work, I know we (I) could be so much better, but I also remember how terrifying, and how exhilarating, performance is, and why I love it so.

Here’s to the next performance, in a little over two weeks time. Now, where did I put those lines?

*Given that we were performing in a medieval castle, there wasn’t actually a backstage area