Thursday, May 28, 2009

The camera upstages me

Well, the play's had four performances, and is going well over all. A few of the usual slip-ups with lines and things, but in every case someone's pulled us out of a potential hole. Including me, last night, when I got everyone into a hole and then had to haul us out again - which was a bit chaotic for a moment, but, being a character who spends most of the time being drunk, the incoherence of my somewhat made-up speech was reasonably appropriate!
I've been upstaged three times, however, by the antique camera that accompanies me in three of the scenes.
It behaved itself on Saturday night, but on Monday one of its legs came loose and I had to try and (drunkenly) fix it. No easy feat when I'm not wearing my glasses to see with (!) and it makes it difficult to keep the lines running smoothly. On the same night, at the end of the play, it managed to get itself stuck on the audience side of the curtain at the end of the play, which terrified us all because it only needed to have been hit by the curtain opening again and it would have toppled into the front row, with breakages, no doubt.
On Tuesday, the flap on the large end flopped down, and do you think I could figure out how to get it up in place again? In the end I decided just to leave it, since drunks can get away with more than undrunk characters can!
The props lady thinks I haven't been nice to it, and it's reacting. So last night I spoke loving words to it at intervals between scenes, and told it how great an actor it was and so on. And it behaved.

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