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brixtonbroodHe is very good at letting these things go once they're over, but I am rubbish, and carry on obsessing for months, so here's a write up in an attempt at catharsis.
Before starting, I must make it clear that several years of National Theatre of Earth Prime productions have left me under absolutely no illusions about my acting abilities and stage presence - I can project, and rarely bump into furniture, and that's about my lot. Fortunately the role of Princess Leia was written with me in mind, and hence was essentially self-moving scenery - my speciality. Childcare requirements meant that I couldn't make most of the Glasgow rehearsals, and couldn't turn up until the last minute on the night itself, hence I was excused the traumas everyone else endured of multiple characters and desperate costume changes in the wings. If the following write up seems to give the wholly erroneous impression that the show revolved entirely around me, that's because I only have one pair of eyes and ears, and they're attached to me.
The first rehearsal on Friday morning was a costumeless, propless attempt to practice the audiovisual and find out exactly how long it was going to run for - ie a straight run through. It was without a doubt the biggest shambles I have ever been involved in (and I've worked for a French company, so I know what I'm talking about), marked by several quarter of an hour pauses to go through the trickier scenes again and again and again until they were right (entirely necessary, but playing havoc with the attempt to find out how long it was going to run for). Without mikes the audio-visual boffin couldn't hear her cues, and the Yoda scenes in particular were a disaster, as He was playing both Luke and Yoda (as he can do the voice) and thus all Yoda's dialogue was pre-recorded and had to be cued in line by line. Phil came quite close to abandoning the prerecording and finding a way for someone else to do the lines live, but Ian persuaded him that all would be fine once we were miked up and she could hear her cues - he was perfectly correct of course. By sheer guesswork it was decided that we were running close to the right time and that no impromptu cuts were needed (fortunate as the only cuts that could really have been made at that point were jokes).
From my restricted point of view the morning was marked by the discovery that the black eye Tiny had given me a week previously (by falling backwards onto my cheekbone in bed one morning) still hadn't faded (normally hidden by glasses, but of course I was going to wear lenses), my hair was too long to wear under the wig, but too short to pin up, and the alterations made to the dress to correct a minor problem of fit had left me looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Oh, and I was going to have to conceal the radio transmitter for my mike in my knickers.
Afternoon full dress rehearsal was marked by the discovery of just how difficult it is to change from Chewbacca to a Stormtrooper to an X-Wing and back again between scenes. Peter, the mug in question, discovered that there was an upside tothis situation, as he wound up being festooned with "Men" (almost all female) in Black, tending to his requirements at each change. Since he sweated his own body weight during the performance, I'm not sure he found it worthwhile. I was one of the handmaidens in question, and have advice for anyone wishing to make a Wookie costume in future. If it is to be changed into under time pressure, fur and zips are a very bad combination. Julia the Dalek/chambermaid/X-Wing also had some challenging changes, which resulted on the night in me being stuck with an extra medal at the end of Part IV as the entire backstage crew endeavoured to untangle her eye stalk from her bra strap (or something like that).
We departed at 5:30 to collect the offspring from the creche, feed them and us, offload Small onto Uncle Matt and Aunty Lucy, return Tiny to the hotel and offload him onto babysitter, clean teeth, unearth undergarments to hang radio transmitter off, and returned to the auditorium at 7:30 to find it half full of audience. It was at this point that The Fear hit me. I descended to commune with Emma the professional makeup artiste, who had been induced to come along and makeup/Person in Black in return for a cup of tea by means unspecified. She was utterly unphased by my requirement for an instant haircut, three quarts of Touche Eclat on the black eye, and a makeup job that would not make me look like a corpse under the black wigs. Fortunately Leia's first line is not for some time.
The performance itself - well, it went well, people laughed. He was very funny I think (but I am biassed, and have even forgiven him for his opening line to Leia, sotto voce (which is tricky when you're miked up), "Shit, I've forgotten the gun"). Essentially all the ludicrous cardboard and manpower effects came together through sheer force of will from Phil and Emma (and the other people in black, some of whom had not had any rehearsal before the day eventually getting their heads around the ludicrous stage directions). From comments by audience members the faulty cueing on the Abba songs was a real impediment to their enjoyment, which is gutting, but I can't really comment as I know nothing whatever about it. Small enjoyed it for a bit, and happily kazooed along, but got quite upset by the end - I knew it was a risk, but she loves Star Wars so much that I thought it was a risk worth taking (also, leaving her in a strange hotel room with a strange babysitter had disaster written all over it). I think she'll love the DVD when we get it.
Things that were ditched along the way (or rejected out of hand on first proposal) which I regret: Darth Vader's tendency to offer every one a refreshing Bacardi Breezer; the deeply fannish line that "All of Red Squadron have gone down, you'd almost think there was something unlucky about those red uniforms!"; Han Solo as a Principal Boy in tights (I thought that one had advantages, if only for the crude audience appeal of girl-on-girl love scenes); Leia's appearance in Part VI dressed as a 19th century philosopher, cue "I said Slave Girl, not Schlegel!" gag (and an overhead image, "Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829) German writer, critic and philosopher, contemporary of Goethe, Schiller and Novalis, a pioneer in comparative Indo-European linguistics and comparative philology. NEW SLIDE For the benefit of those Americans who believe British humor to be witty and sophisticated, that's your lot.) (There was also a Noddy Holder version..I said Slave, not Slade...)
Other actions above and beyond the call of duty in the cause of Phil and Ian's Vision (that I know about and can call to mind at the moment, I'm sure there are many more). Noel and Murnie (the band) turned up at the last minute, apparently completely unrehearsed, and produced live music to cover the scene changes with no apparent effort and a broken leg. Ian was still finetuning the audiovisuals at 5am on Friday morning, and then got up at 7 am. Marty claims that he turned up to one rehearsal to give costuming advice, agreed to read a couple of roles that hadn't quite been finalised yet, and came away having been cast as Londo Mollari, General Thingy, Daffyd and Bikini Leia, and having agreed to produce all the costumes. He also sorted out my hunch-back problem at no notice whatsoever. Sandra the prop queen came up with the aweinspiringly efficient idea of using Google Earth printouts to cover the face of the Death Star and produce instant detail. Allison and Janey put up with Ian and Phil and houses full of props. Tiny deserves a small ripple for sleeping through most of the last two Glasgow dress rehearsals, as do my in-laws, who Small-wrangled for a weekend whilst we went to those dress rehearsals and survived, Matt and Lucy who Small-wrangled during the performance, and everyone in the audience who was sitting near Matt, Lucy and Small.
So that was it. At our first readthrough in Glasgow, I was barely pregnant with Tiny, and now it's his first birthday, and it's finally all over.
What else did we so? not much really. Having had the kids in creche all of Friday for rehearsals and then had a babysitter in at vast expense in the evening for Tiny, we only put them in from 2-6 on Saturday and Sunday, which meant that that was our only programme-going/bar hanging out time.
Saturday we went to the post-play cast lunch, which was fun, and a token programme item on consciousness (I wanted to see something with Connie Willis in it.)
I had had vague thoughts about taking Small to the first half of the Masquerade, secure in the knowledge that we could make a run for it back to the hotel the instant she seemed a bit grumpy. Alternatively, if we got them both towards bed early, I would abandon the family and go on my own (He would rather have his entrails nibbled by weasels than go to a Masquerade). In the end, timings precluded either option, and we had an early night.
Sunday we went to the Science Centre in the morning - frankly we could happily have spent all day there indulging our inner and outer children. Christopher Priest's GOH talk, which was good without being great, and I went to something with Iain McDonald in it and something with Susannah Clarke in it. I did actually make most of the Hugo ceremony, leaving Him to sing the last few lullabies, but missed the amazing introductory speech, and, more annoyingly, ended up sitting with no-one I knew - half the fun of these things is gossiping to your mates. However, still worth going - I've never been before and I was dying for Strange and Norrell to win, so whooped embarrassingly when it did.
Of course, sitting there on your own, your mind tends to wander, and, like the Grinch I had a wonderful, awful idea. So attendees of Interaction get to nominate for next year's Hugos you say? How many nominations does it take to get a dramatic presentation on the shortlist? [answer, this year, 60 something for long form, 20 something for short form]. I think you may be guessing where I'm going, and I think I will go for it, and ask people of my acquaintance to consider it when making their nominations. Obviously, given the mismatch between membership of the 2005 and 2006 Worldcons (AFAIK only 2006 members actually decide the winners) our chances of winning are nil (without the sort of pushy campaign that would making winning both meaningless and distasteful) but a nomination would be a nice way to reward Phil and Ian (and the rest of us) for their ludicrously hard work.
Monday we went home.
We bought one book (George McDonald's collected fairy stories) and a mug for my brother to say thankyou for looking after the cats, but, as has been noted by several people, the dealer's room was very disappointing. I think that it was partly that it was genuinely a bit weak, and partly that in these post-Amazon times the concept of "looking for" books is a dying one.
So that's it. Worth it - oh yes, but undeniably a flawed experience. Mind you, we did get an awful lot of sleep - not only more than you'd normally get at a Worldcon, but more than we've got in the past year - sharing a room with people who go to sleep at 9 will do that to you.
Before starting, I must make it clear that several years of National Theatre of Earth Prime productions have left me under absolutely no illusions about my acting abilities and stage presence - I can project, and rarely bump into furniture, and that's about my lot. Fortunately the role of Princess Leia was written with me in mind, and hence was essentially self-moving scenery - my speciality. Childcare requirements meant that I couldn't make most of the Glasgow rehearsals, and couldn't turn up until the last minute on the night itself, hence I was excused the traumas everyone else endured of multiple characters and desperate costume changes in the wings. If the following write up seems to give the wholly erroneous impression that the show revolved entirely around me, that's because I only have one pair of eyes and ears, and they're attached to me.
The first rehearsal on Friday morning was a costumeless, propless attempt to practice the audiovisual and find out exactly how long it was going to run for - ie a straight run through. It was without a doubt the biggest shambles I have ever been involved in (and I've worked for a French company, so I know what I'm talking about), marked by several quarter of an hour pauses to go through the trickier scenes again and again and again until they were right (entirely necessary, but playing havoc with the attempt to find out how long it was going to run for). Without mikes the audio-visual boffin couldn't hear her cues, and the Yoda scenes in particular were a disaster, as He was playing both Luke and Yoda (as he can do the voice) and thus all Yoda's dialogue was pre-recorded and had to be cued in line by line. Phil came quite close to abandoning the prerecording and finding a way for someone else to do the lines live, but Ian persuaded him that all would be fine once we were miked up and she could hear her cues - he was perfectly correct of course. By sheer guesswork it was decided that we were running close to the right time and that no impromptu cuts were needed (fortunate as the only cuts that could really have been made at that point were jokes).
From my restricted point of view the morning was marked by the discovery that the black eye Tiny had given me a week previously (by falling backwards onto my cheekbone in bed one morning) still hadn't faded (normally hidden by glasses, but of course I was going to wear lenses), my hair was too long to wear under the wig, but too short to pin up, and the alterations made to the dress to correct a minor problem of fit had left me looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Oh, and I was going to have to conceal the radio transmitter for my mike in my knickers.
Afternoon full dress rehearsal was marked by the discovery of just how difficult it is to change from Chewbacca to a Stormtrooper to an X-Wing and back again between scenes. Peter, the mug in question, discovered that there was an upside tothis situation, as he wound up being festooned with "Men" (almost all female) in Black, tending to his requirements at each change. Since he sweated his own body weight during the performance, I'm not sure he found it worthwhile. I was one of the handmaidens in question, and have advice for anyone wishing to make a Wookie costume in future. If it is to be changed into under time pressure, fur and zips are a very bad combination. Julia the Dalek/chambermaid/X-Wing also had some challenging changes, which resulted on the night in me being stuck with an extra medal at the end of Part IV as the entire backstage crew endeavoured to untangle her eye stalk from her bra strap (or something like that).
We departed at 5:30 to collect the offspring from the creche, feed them and us, offload Small onto Uncle Matt and Aunty Lucy, return Tiny to the hotel and offload him onto babysitter, clean teeth, unearth undergarments to hang radio transmitter off, and returned to the auditorium at 7:30 to find it half full of audience. It was at this point that The Fear hit me. I descended to commune with Emma the professional makeup artiste, who had been induced to come along and makeup/Person in Black in return for a cup of tea by means unspecified. She was utterly unphased by my requirement for an instant haircut, three quarts of Touche Eclat on the black eye, and a makeup job that would not make me look like a corpse under the black wigs. Fortunately Leia's first line is not for some time.
The performance itself - well, it went well, people laughed. He was very funny I think (but I am biassed, and have even forgiven him for his opening line to Leia, sotto voce (which is tricky when you're miked up), "Shit, I've forgotten the gun"). Essentially all the ludicrous cardboard and manpower effects came together through sheer force of will from Phil and Emma (and the other people in black, some of whom had not had any rehearsal before the day eventually getting their heads around the ludicrous stage directions). From comments by audience members the faulty cueing on the Abba songs was a real impediment to their enjoyment, which is gutting, but I can't really comment as I know nothing whatever about it. Small enjoyed it for a bit, and happily kazooed along, but got quite upset by the end - I knew it was a risk, but she loves Star Wars so much that I thought it was a risk worth taking (also, leaving her in a strange hotel room with a strange babysitter had disaster written all over it). I think she'll love the DVD when we get it.
Things that were ditched along the way (or rejected out of hand on first proposal) which I regret: Darth Vader's tendency to offer every one a refreshing Bacardi Breezer; the deeply fannish line that "All of Red Squadron have gone down, you'd almost think there was something unlucky about those red uniforms!"; Han Solo as a Principal Boy in tights (I thought that one had advantages, if only for the crude audience appeal of girl-on-girl love scenes); Leia's appearance in Part VI dressed as a 19th century philosopher, cue "I said Slave Girl, not Schlegel!" gag (and an overhead image, "Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829) German writer, critic and philosopher, contemporary of Goethe, Schiller and Novalis, a pioneer in comparative Indo-European linguistics and comparative philology. NEW SLIDE For the benefit of those Americans who believe British humor to be witty and sophisticated, that's your lot.) (There was also a Noddy Holder version..I said Slave, not Slade...)
Other actions above and beyond the call of duty in the cause of Phil and Ian's Vision (that I know about and can call to mind at the moment, I'm sure there are many more). Noel and Murnie (the band) turned up at the last minute, apparently completely unrehearsed, and produced live music to cover the scene changes with no apparent effort and a broken leg. Ian was still finetuning the audiovisuals at 5am on Friday morning, and then got up at 7 am. Marty claims that he turned up to one rehearsal to give costuming advice, agreed to read a couple of roles that hadn't quite been finalised yet, and came away having been cast as Londo Mollari, General Thingy, Daffyd and Bikini Leia, and having agreed to produce all the costumes. He also sorted out my hunch-back problem at no notice whatsoever. Sandra the prop queen came up with the aweinspiringly efficient idea of using Google Earth printouts to cover the face of the Death Star and produce instant detail. Allison and Janey put up with Ian and Phil and houses full of props. Tiny deserves a small ripple for sleeping through most of the last two Glasgow dress rehearsals, as do my in-laws, who Small-wrangled for a weekend whilst we went to those dress rehearsals and survived, Matt and Lucy who Small-wrangled during the performance, and everyone in the audience who was sitting near Matt, Lucy and Small.
So that was it. At our first readthrough in Glasgow, I was barely pregnant with Tiny, and now it's his first birthday, and it's finally all over.
What else did we so? not much really. Having had the kids in creche all of Friday for rehearsals and then had a babysitter in at vast expense in the evening for Tiny, we only put them in from 2-6 on Saturday and Sunday, which meant that that was our only programme-going/bar hanging out time.
Saturday we went to the post-play cast lunch, which was fun, and a token programme item on consciousness (I wanted to see something with Connie Willis in it.)
I had had vague thoughts about taking Small to the first half of the Masquerade, secure in the knowledge that we could make a run for it back to the hotel the instant she seemed a bit grumpy. Alternatively, if we got them both towards bed early, I would abandon the family and go on my own (He would rather have his entrails nibbled by weasels than go to a Masquerade). In the end, timings precluded either option, and we had an early night.
Sunday we went to the Science Centre in the morning - frankly we could happily have spent all day there indulging our inner and outer children. Christopher Priest's GOH talk, which was good without being great, and I went to something with Iain McDonald in it and something with Susannah Clarke in it. I did actually make most of the Hugo ceremony, leaving Him to sing the last few lullabies, but missed the amazing introductory speech, and, more annoyingly, ended up sitting with no-one I knew - half the fun of these things is gossiping to your mates. However, still worth going - I've never been before and I was dying for Strange and Norrell to win, so whooped embarrassingly when it did.
Of course, sitting there on your own, your mind tends to wander, and, like the Grinch I had a wonderful, awful idea. So attendees of Interaction get to nominate for next year's Hugos you say? How many nominations does it take to get a dramatic presentation on the shortlist? [answer, this year, 60 something for long form, 20 something for short form]. I think you may be guessing where I'm going, and I think I will go for it, and ask people of my acquaintance to consider it when making their nominations. Obviously, given the mismatch between membership of the 2005 and 2006 Worldcons (AFAIK only 2006 members actually decide the winners) our chances of winning are nil (without the sort of pushy campaign that would making winning both meaningless and distasteful) but a nomination would be a nice way to reward Phil and Ian (and the rest of us) for their ludicrously hard work.
Monday we went home.
We bought one book (George McDonald's collected fairy stories) and a mug for my brother to say thankyou for looking after the cats, but, as has been noted by several people, the dealer's room was very disappointing. I think that it was partly that it was genuinely a bit weak, and partly that in these post-Amazon times the concept of "looking for" books is a dying one.
So that's it. Worth it - oh yes, but undeniably a flawed experience. Mind you, we did get an awful lot of sleep - not only more than you'd normally get at a Worldcon, but more than we've got in the past year - sharing a room with people who go to sleep at 9 will do that to you.
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Date: 2005-08-17 12:58 pm (UTC)