Our dedicated, unflagging director, Chris Abraham, went back to Canada yesterday. He’s directing “For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again” at the Stratford Festival. We will miss him because everything is more fun when Chris is around — but their opening night is Wednesday, so he’s got other legs to break.
I’m going to tell you a little story, just to give you a flavour of the way we roll here at the Fringe: Yesterday, a little into Claudia’s first monologue, one of the lights fell down and dangled on its cord right in the middle of the stage, about chest height. And then all the stage lights went out as house lights came on. Claudia was on about gerbils and ecosystems as it happened and it was getting pretty darn hard to ignore. But I really couldn’t figure out what to do. So, I asked – in character – ”What do I do? Do I just continue?” Silly question. Guy Masterson, who was present again at the show (to provide his support, both moral and practical) gave me a cool and reassuring nod “yes” and so, continue I did.
And then everything went black. (Apparently the fallen light caused the board to short out, if I understand correctly. )
Coincidentally, Claudia had flashlight in hand just at that moment and showed the audience all her basement treasures by its mysterious glow. Slowly, back came lights and sound — and by slowly I mean, within the eternity of a few moments. The infinite within the infinitesimal — it happens in theatre when things go wonky! And within a short time, all was forgotten — and by short, in this case, I mean by the time Claudia was rocking out and shooting speed! We were all shaken AND stirred — but not the audience! I think they may have felt privy to one of those truly LIVE moments that makes theatre a bit of a “blood sport” as our director friend Michael Allen put it — from another TTI show, “A Solitary Choice”. We were given a very warm and enthusiastic curtain call.
Arwen, Gillian, and Brian had a meeting to clarify and solve the issue — which they did with the fab folks here. Everybody is working so hard and doing all they can to perfect the show technically within the slivers of time available. The moment our curtain call ends, the next gang races in. Our show is dismantled and the next is assembled and begins. So, as folks race around tomorrow getting our show set up, that dangling light is going to get a little extra TLC and we’ll go at it again!
