Making a Scene (literally)

The arts, especially the performing arts, is one of those life paths where you have to make your own luck. Make your own work. Make your own opportunities. And sometimes you have to make your own... well, everything.

My way of being an actor/actress is that in between bookings, filmings, auditions, rehearsals or calls from my agent, I create my own two-handed shows with my wife. And I mean, the whole show, and every aspect of it, from scratch. Writing, choreography, costumes, music, props, venue bookings, sound and scenery. Welcome behind the scenes of a touring musical theatre company whose entire cast and crew consists of two people who are very satisfied with life in general but are very, very tired at the end of every day. It's a world of notepads, sewing scissors, guitar strings, brainstorm boards, gaffer tape, clothes rails, sawdust, spray paint, coffee, midnight meltdowns and the indescribable joy of seeing something that existed only in your mind come to full colour life before your very eyes, and knowing that you did it with your own two hands.

Let me take you along the road with me of creating a travelling show for this coming Summer: Roman epic Marcus Antonius. And by creating, I mean both mentally preparing and physically building. Follow me...

Marcus Antonius is a special creation for Bristol Shakespeare Festival, and was written by taking the salient plot points from two of the Bard's plays - Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra - to form a portrait of the man who appears in both: Mark Antony. It needs to look suitably spectacular and stagey, while at the same time be portable in the back of a fairly large family car to go from venue to venue. Sleepless nights of writing finally over and the script fully formed, it's time to break out the sewing scissors and gaffer tape!

First we need a pair of Roman-esque pillars to stand either side of the stage. So downstairs we go from our top floor flat, to the waste disposal area next to the car park, and reclaim (steal) two 7-foot-tall slim boxes made of thick corrugated card. God knows what they once contained, but they are perfect. Out comes the craft knife to score long grooves along the surface that enable one side of the box to be folded out 3D into a shape that looks like half an octagon when looked at from above. Gaffer tape that into place so that one side of the box, 7 feet tall and 2 feet wide, is still flat, and the other side is 3D like a pillar would be. Next, into the very back and very bottom of the closet, to get those king size bed sheets that we just can't throw away because we never know when we might need them, but just can't seem to get around to actually using. They're about to become the paintable outer surface of a pair of Roman columns. Wrap them around the two tall cardboard columns, with finely tucked corners that look like perfectly folded wrapping paper on an awkwardly shaped Christmas gift. Guess what we hold that in place with? Gaffer tape! Then take them somewhere that's safe to unleash the silver-grey marble-effect spray paint. Or should I say, take them somewhere that seemed like a good idea to spray paint them there at the time, but then when we've finished we realise how much residual spray went where it wasn't supposed to, and if the landlord comes and sees this we are in TROUBLE. Anyway... paint the detailed lines on the pillars with black paint and a fine brush, and the columns of our temple/capitol are ready to stand. Hang a crossbar pole between them, from which to hang banners made from sewing together cast-offs from one of our best friends' High Street haberdashery shop, to indicate changes of time and place, and the scenery is set. A pair of small tables and accompanying chairs that were sold for next to nothing because the wood they're made from is falling apart, but are perfect for us because their falling-apart-ness makes them look convincingly "olde worlde", and the simple but effective scene set up is done. Oh, except for the two 7-foot long cardboard tubes (also stolen - um, reclaimed - from where they had been thrown away) painted brown, fixed together into a T-shape, and given two sheets of canvas and two lengths of camping rope hanging from each arm of the T, to form the ship's mast and sails that will come and go throughout the story, and that's everything.

Time for costumes.

Cast-offs of leather from long-defunct leather jackets and trousers, fixed together into a body hugging shape like a loose tank top, become body armour. White sheets of fabric intended to become flags for a local "flag festival" (whatever one of those is), but never used, become togas after watching various online tutorials about the proper way to fold and tie a toga, every one of them contradictory in their techniques when compared to the others. And lengths of purple fabric, slits cut into them with the sewing scissors so they can be hung around the shoulders like a shawl or a poncho; the hems lined with silver ribbon sewn in with a needle and thread; become royal robes of Rome and Egypt. Trips to toy shops around Halloween time, to see how their cheap children's replica swords are put together, enables the creation, with sharp slivers of wood, lengths of twine and a spray of shiny paint, of the daggers that are integral to the plot - this being Shakespeare (sort of), and thus containing copious character deaths.

Last but not least, the script is gone over to increase the emphasis on scenes that involve the main characters communicating with each other by the use of letter-writing, and the advancing of the plot shown to the audience by the use of military maps; thereby increasing the amount of time we as players can convincingly have a piece of paper held in front of us, on which subtle reminders of the dialogue will be written, just in case we, God forbid, forget our lines.

The way my wife some how manages to re-style her hair so it has a unique personality for every different character she plays, is something I would love to describe to you in fascinating detail, but alas it is an unfathomable mystery to me somewhat akin to witchcraft. And that's a subject for another post.

Having exhausted the capacity of my eyes and fingers to send any more emails, and the capacity of my ears and voice box to make any more phone calls, in the arranging of various dates with various venues to give ourselves a significant and noteworthy level of presence at the festival, it's time to hit the road. As we drive, we listen to recordings we made of ourselves reading the script aloud, to rehearse our lines as we make our way through traffic. Before we left, we spent an inordinate amount of time checking, re-checking and double-checking to make absolutely, positively and completely sure we haven't forgotten anything. Which, though it feels useful and sensible, is to a certain extent pointless, because it is our inevitable and inescapable fate to have forgotten something. Whatever it may turn out to be that we forgot, we drive away anyway, knowing we will somehow find a way to work around the missing thing. The show must go on. And with the aid of cloth, cardboard, sewing scissors, spray paint, fabric shops, tool shops and gaffer tape, it most certainly will.