by Lucy Arthurs
One week later. Outside rehearsal room.
“The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.” Denis Diderot.
ME
You’re a fuckwit! A supine fuckwit, actually.
I love the phrase ‘supine fuckwit.’ It’s the fine work of Alexander Buzo, I believe, penned for his heroine Coralie Lansdowne to deliver in the eponymous play. I’ve always loved it. The thought of someone not only being a fuckwit but a supine fuckwit is sublime—a lying down fuckwit. A flat out fuckwit—priceless. And he is. Yes, of course I’m talking about Boofhead. He’s a lying down fuckwit, even though he’s currently standing up. Standing up outside the rehearsal room, yelling at me.
BOOFHEAD
What are you talking about?
ME
You’re stressed.
BOOFHEAD
So?
I want to scream at him. You’re stressed! You’re stressed. If anyone has a right to be stressed around here, it’s me, and I’m not dumping it on you! So you should stop dumping it on me! Since you left me, I haven’t managed to sleep through the night once. I have become my own newborn baby. Jack sleeps fine, but I fret. At every noise, every silence, every creak, every thought. How am I going to keep these mortgage payments up? Yes, voice-overs pay very well, and I’ve got enough work at the moment to keep things ticking over, but what if I cease to be flavour of the month? Or at least, cease to be one of the flavours of the month? What if I’m no longer even on the flavour rack? I’ll have to get a ‘real’ job. But I don’t have any ‘real’ skills. I did drama at Uni, not anything useful. My own dad refers to my BA as a Bachelor of Attendance. So what else can I do? I can…
This happens every night. I toss, turn, toss, turn like one of the dolphins in the bloody dolphin show at SeaWorld, flipping all over the bed, stressing out about each and every thing I can think of. Will I get the script for anti-depressants filled? No. I don’t want to be drug dependent. What do I do if Mr. Gorgeous ever wants to do more than just look at me coyly across the rehearsal room? What if he asks me out on a date? What if he wants to sleep with me? What if I want to sleep with him? What about my vagina? Is it still too high? Will I ever take the dildo out of its box? I bought it online, but I can’t bring myself to use it. Probably for the best anyway. I haven’t even come to terms with my status as a single mother. How the hell would I cope owning the status of single mother with a boyfriend? What if . . .
No wonder I don’t get any sleep.
So I’m sleep deprived, rejected, abandoned, possibly depressed, and currently the writer of a play that is going to be performed in front of an invited audience of five hundred people in less than two weeks, and by all accounts is going to be a total and absolute disaster! Of course I’m stressed. Of course I want to scream at my ex-husband who is responsible for making it a total and absolute disaster, but currently, he’s screaming at me.
I want to let loose at him—You’re stressed! What the hell do you think I am? I need this job. You can waft from party to party networking your metrosexual arse off. I am now a single mother who will not be attending industry parties or networking opportunities ever again even though I spent the last fifteen years supporting your career so you could get runs on the board as a director. You told me throughout those fifteen years that I was your leading lady. That we were building something, but now you’ve decided to move on without me! Now you’ve decided that, not only do you no longer want to be married to me, but you no longer want to work with me either! How bloody dare you. You have not only pulled the rug out from under my family and personal life, but from my professional life as well! So this job is important to me. I need to know that when you smashed the vase that was our family, you didn’t also smash the vase that was my career.
But I don’t. I try to apply something Marjory had said to me about breathing. Of course I can’t remember all of it, but something about it being the only way to slow down the connection between the front part of the brain and the back and I take in a large, but discreet deep breath. Then I deal with Boofhead.
ME
You’re stressed and you’re taking it out on me.
BOOFHEAD
No I’m not.
Another large breath.
ME
I think you are.
BOOFHEAD
I don’t give a fuck what you think.
Breathe. Continue to breath. You have your lifejacket on and you are learning to swim. Breathe. Boofhead never did master the art of grace under pressure.
ME
The play looks like shit and for some reason you’re taking that out on me.
BOOFHEAD
You wrote the fucking thing!
We’ve just watched a run through of the play and it’s dire. Absolutely bloody dire. We’re into week three and the play is meant to be taking shape as a whole. It’s not. So Boofhead is doing what he does best—panicking and blaming. He’s blaming me as the writer and suggesting cuts to the script. Radical cuts.
ME
If we make all the cuts you’re suggesting, it will be a one-act play.
BOOFHEAD
Good!
ME
No, it’s not good. And the cuts aren’t necessary. The problem is, you’re directing it like some piece of Film Noir. It isn’t.
BOOFHEAD
But it should be.
ME
But it isn’t. Look, I know you hate me.
BOOFHEAD
I don’t hate you.
ME
Whatever. I know our aesthetics in life and in art are not compatible but at the end of the day, you’re directing MY play. It is what it is.
BOOFHEAD
I hate what it is.
ME
Then you shouldn’t have accepted the gig.
I love having an effective last word. As I storm off, I realise I’m not storming off out of some God-given sense of righteousness, I’m storming off because I have nothing left to say to this man. The essential problem is that he hates my play as much as he hates me. And if I could understand why he hated me, then I could understand why he hated the play.
He is striding behind me.
BOOFHEAD
Wait.
There’s a desperate tone to his voice. Not because he fears that I’m right, but because he fears that I’m going to walk back into the rehearsal room and make a fool of him. He grabs my arm. I spin around.
We look at each other.
I take a deep breath.
ME
Would you speak to other playwrights like this?
BOOFHEAD
Yes.
ME
Bullshit.
BOOFHEAD
Other playwrights know what they’re doing.
ME
I’m new. I’m a new playwright. I just want . . .
BOOFHEAD
Me to never have left.
I think that’s possibly the most insightful thing he’s ever said. It hangs between us.
ME
I just want you to treat me in a professional manner. I don’t care if you think my play’s shit, or the genre I write is shit or even if you think I’m shit for that matter. The reality is that in ten days’ time, we are professionally bound to present this play to an audience of five hundred people who have each paid way too much for a ticket. So let’s just do our jobs.
BOOFHEAD
Then stay out of the rehearsal room.
ME
Fine. But you can’t make any more changes to my script.
BOOFHEAD
Fine.
And with that, Boofhead takes the upper hand and walks off.
Fucking prick. God, my language is getting appalling. Fucking has become my favourite adjective. It used to be my favourite verb.
RAMONA
Break’s over. Can you come inside? We’re going to pick it up from scene four, page thirty-five.
ME
I’m not coming in for the afternoon session. I’ve got another gig.
RAMONA
Fair enough. Look, whatever’s going on between you two, keep it out of the rehearsal room.
As I go inside to collect my bag, I get a whiff of the torture that has resumed in the rehearsal room. Mr. Gorgeous isn’t here today. It’s just melodramatic Sonya and her scene partner. This is supposed to be a touching scene where she reveals why she’s made this career choice. At the moment, it looks like a scene from a Jacobean tragedy and I have an ulcer on my tongue from biting it so I don’t succumb to Theatrical Tourette’s.
Why did I even bother to write this hag-born deformity of a play? It stinks. But considering that only one in a hundred new Australian plays that are commissioned will actually be produced, I should be thanking my lucky stars. I’m being ungrateful. Well, not really, because I’m actually making that statistic up. It’s not one in a hundred, but it’s still pretty bad. There’s still this God-awful cultural cringe when it comes to Australian plays. We swung from the era when practically anything was produced and declared a world premiere to now, when hardly anything is produced. I’m lucky and I’m grateful for this opportunity, but as I walk to my car, I reflect on the fact that I’m freaked out. We’re not ready.
By now, we should really be running the show. That would give us a week of running the show, going back and working on scenes, pulling them apart, putting them back together and then running the show again. We would then be in good solid shape by the time we ‘bump in’ to the theatre. I love this term. Bumping in is when we transfer the show from the rehearsal room to the theatre. Then tech week begins, an essential part of the process. The set is put up, the costumes are ready, and all the technical elements come together. The actors have their first opportunity to work in the actual, physical world of the play. It has gone from the abstract of the rehearsal room to the concrete of the theatre. Every technical aspect of the production is rehearsed, from the exits and entrances of the actors to the sound cues, lighting cues, scene changes, music, special effects, quick changes, all of it. I love this part of the process as an actor, because you work directly with the technical crew. There’s a workman-like quality to their approach that is often a breath of fresh air in the rarefied atmosphere of the theatre.
But we’re not there yet. Currently we’re quibbling over who said what to whom and who stole whose spade in the metaphorical sandpit. Time for me to go home.
Chapter 12
Two weeks later. The theatre. Opening night.
“Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.” Constantin Stanislavski.
“Break a leg!” If one more person says that to me, I’ll be tempted to break theirs. This phrase is a strange theatrical tradition, the origin of which is unclear but there are a number of theories, one of which is that it dates back to the Greeks. Rather than clap, they stomped their feet. If they liked your performance, there was every chance their stomping would be so robust they could literally break a leg. Another theory is that Elizabethans showed their appreciation by banging their chairs on the ground instead of applauding, so in their case breaking a leg meant the chair’s leg, not their own, if they were enthusiastic enough. There’s also a theory that understudies sitting in the back row of the audience would urge principal actors to break a leg so they could replace them on stage. Or an even more obscure idea is that it’s an archaic reference to bowing, meaning an actor would need to bend or ‘break’ his or her leg in order to bow or curtsey long enough because the applause was so robust. But my favourite is a reference to the 18th century British actor, David Garrick, who allegedly was so into his performance of Richard III, he was unaware he had fractured his leg. What focus, what absorption! No matter the true origin of the term, the point is it’s considered unlucky to wish someone in theatre good luck, so “break a leg” it is.
I’m in the dressing room, delivering opening night gifts to the actors. Chocolates and flowers. And I’m distracting myself from the nervousness of opening night by running through a short history of the phrase. Nice idea, but it isn’t working. I still feel like I could faint.
I’ve tried to avoid the melodramatic leading lady, but she’s onto me.
SONY
Break a leg!
ME
Thanks. You too.
SONYA
This has been an extraordinary experience for me. I’d looove to work with you again.
ME
Great.
But unfortunately, I won’t be writing anything that requires an untalented, melodramatic, hammy actor with a great rack. Don’t be a bitch, Persephone.
ME
I’ll keep you in mind for anything appropriate that comes up.
SONYA
Wow. Thanks so much.
And then she air kisses me. I feel unclean. A hypocrite because I receive the air kiss and then return with same. I’m air kissing, God help me! It’s time for me to get out of the way. To assume my role as nervous playwright, sitting in the dark, watching the premiere of her first work.
As I walk from the dressing room into the theatre, I’m assailed with even more air kisses, a few closed-mouth smiles, a number of genuine hand squeezes, and a warm bear hug or two. I am so nervous. I desperately need this night to be a success, but I have no guarantee it will be. I feel supported though. Buoyed up by my theatre family. There are many people wishing me the best and wanting this to work. I sincerely hope it does.
My real family is here too, my parents at least. My sister’s at their house looking after Jack. No doubt she’ll keep him up way beyond his bedtime, feed him treats, invent inappropriate versions of his bedtime stories to delight and entertain him, and Jack will love every minute of it. I’m grateful she offered to step in and babysit so Mum and Dad could be here. Their presence is so reassuring. Even if I fail in the worst possible way, they’ll still talk to me. They’ll still love me. And bonus, Mum will reassure me that I have a lovely face and a nice figure and Dad will tell me that I look like a young Graeme Kennedy. This was his feedback when he saw me in my first public performance. It was a youth theatre production of The Legend of King O’Malley. I thought I was fantastic—passionate, committed, in the moment, with a glowing femininity that shone past the footlights right to the back of the theatre. And Dad thought I looked like a young Graeme Kennedy. I’ve never asked him to clarify that statement, but on occasion I have found myself checking my reflection in shop windows for any similarities.
I take my place in the auditorium and wait for the lights to go down. There they go. My favourite moment. That moment you feel the lights dimming on your skin, the music softening and the show music beginning, the hush falling over the theatre; the moment of truth has arrived. The communion begins. A roomful of strangers has agreed to sit in the dark with each other to listen to and watch a story unfold. Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any tears. “Feed the world. Let them know it’s Christmas . . . ” Live Aid? Get a grip, woman!
The show music swells, the lights reach their peak and the leading lady opens her mouth to deliver her first line. A line that should be a laugh line. A line that should receive . . .
Oh my God, they’re laughing! The audience is laughing! They get it! They get it! They get this play! They get me! They like me! They really like me! And before I know it, I’m having a Sally Field Oscar acceptance speech moment in my head. Keep a lid on it, love, it’s just the first line. They might hate you in a minute.
But they don’t. They get the whole play. They lau
gh in all the right bits and even shed a tear towards the end. The writing, I’m happy if a little embarrassed to admit, shines through, despite the melodramatic style demonstrated by Sarah Bernhardt, and the direction is tight and sharp. Boofhead has done a great job. I don’t quite believe it.
When the cast take their curtain call at the end of the play, they signal for me to come on stage to receive flowers. I’m genuinely overwhelmed and I can feel warm tears on my cheeks. I means so much to me to be accepted, to know that I can do this. That I can sustain a career. Blinded by the stage lights, overwhelmed by the feeling of belonging and thrilled to receive an encouraging wink from Mr. Gorgeous, I accept a huge, gorgeous bouquet of flowers. I’m in heaven. From the reaction, it seems the play is a success. I’m not naïve enough to think it will mean an endless stream of work, but I certainly haven’t disgraced myself. My career just might live to see another day! I’ve done well and I feel I’ve kept my seat at the industry table, even though quite often, that metaphoric table feels like the last supper.
After the applause, the flowers and the wink, we make our way to the foyer for the after show reception.
DAD
It was bloody fantastic! I laughed, bloody hell, did I laugh!
MUM
And I cried. I thought you said it was a comedy?
ME
It is.
MUM
Oh, I know that. I laughed too, but I didn’t expect it to be so . . . moving. You’ve done so well, love.
ME
Thanks, Mum. How’s Jack?
MUM
Your sister was coping just fine when we left.
DAD
(winks)
Go to the party. Have fun, love. Enjoy yourself.
ME
Dad . . .
And then my agent is upon me.
WITCHYPOO
Miles to go before we sleep, darling.
