Saturday 24 July 2010

Last Night





The ambiance of the professional theatre had it's expected magnificent result! The whole company raised their game, and the show took off like a rocket! It is astonishing how altered the cast's perceptions are when faced with a stage the size of a small West End Revue theatre, a professional crew who use all the right jargon, preset lights, sound check and amplify, and use their own haze machine !

The smell of the backstage is so evocotive, it hurls me back in a trillionth of a second to all the multitude and various backstages I have been in during my life. Some, where, if you pin back you ears you can almost hear the mice cavorting around the dressing rooms, and others where technology determines everything including making the tea!

There is such a feel and smell, which is not easy to pinpoint, but the ether is hung heavy with fear and exhileration, and the atmospheric dust rises in front of the lights so there is a permanent impressionistic blur.

It is the last night tonight, and then some sleep!

What Ho 'Inner Sound', you did the job; you did me proud!

Now some posts can be Post Pinafore, Yippee !

3 comments:

  1. I do so remember that smell. I also remember the rambling backstage areas either too hot or too cold, A half height door I had to get through whilst wearing a massive cardboard crown thingy and a net curtain that caught my (plastic) flowers and spread them across the stage where the dancers (bare feet) were due to go. There was some wild kicking that night as we tried to get them off stage.

    I also remember my first entry on stage in an 'adult' production. I was 13 and had to lead the way as I was the smallest. There were three tallish steps and I couldn't wear my glasses.... I did manage not to fall on my face but it must have looked pretty inelegant :) The show was 'Naughty Marietta' played to a small local audience for three nights and then one special performance away at the next larger town. All very good fun.

    I do miss that but my voice is so destroyed I can no longer sing except in patches (It broke when I had my youngest boy but not completely).

    I'm not so bothered now as there are just so many other things I can do but at the time it was very unpleasant. I now do French Horn instead along with my eldest so there is still lots of music to be made.

    Good luck with your retirement :)

    viv in nz

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  2. I'm so sorry that you lost your voice! Very often pregnancy adds to the voice! It feels like losing a limb when you cannot sing anymore. Thankfully it has only happened to me when I have been ill. We still us some of the music from 'Naughty Marietta, when a fun light opera song is needed! Hope your son gets on well with the FH.

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  3. I am trying for retirement, or semi retirement, but it is not going as planned.........! Oh well.

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