Thursday 26 March 2009
Show tonight. We ‘opened’ the festival and indeed, my worst conspiracy theories have been confirmed by various conversations between various people but indeed we were tucked away at the very start in the hopes that fewest possible people would see us and so fewest feathers would be ruffled. Sat in the middle of sleepy sheltered Killin, I wonder is this such a bad thing? I’ll get all wild and angry again when I get back to Edinburgh I daresay. Anyway.
We went first. And the boys did just brilliantly. All of them. DG was more or less immaculate as ever. (Too immaculate it seemed as the adjudicator’s first point was that the suits were too nice for shabby East European detectives.) Chris was adorable but grumpily impatient and as anxious as you would be for your brother. And Gordon excelled himself as the meanest cop with the blackest eyes you could hope to see. JGH clearly decided that relying on my cues was risky so marked up a script and used that instead. I managed to play the scream in the right place at (to my mind) excellent sound levels. And Andy brilliantly got us on and off stage in the right sort of time so we with luck lost no points for practical things. I was delighted and proud like a proud mother hen whose chickens have just swum for the first time. If chickens swum.
It made no difference to the adjudicator. Although it’s hard to know how biased we were. DG has recorded his comments with trusty iPhone but he appeared to say the suits were too nice, the set looked ok for what it was, the boys all spoke from the middle of their mouths, they didn’t stand close enough together to be menacing, DG was too quiet, the fight was very good (result! And indeed I thanked Heather silently as Gordon shook off his hand after the first and very effective punch), Chris was good although perhaps he should have been more quirky like David Tennant might have been when he played the part at the National although he hadn’t seen it (??!!). And that was about it.
Which wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t been so kind about the other two. Tryst followed us with some terrible play about relationships featuring three couples that were maybe aspects of the same people or three different couples but it hardly mattered. It looked astonishingly beautiful. Gorgeous pinky purpley orangey lights. A huge pink heart shaped helium balloon floating in the middle of the stage. And apples on strings floating above their respective heads. I think it’s possibly the most beautiful set I’ve ever seen in the One Acts. And they started with the curtains open so you got all that on the way to your seats. It was lovely. The play was dull and patchily acted but it seems that in terms of overall achievement – translation of script to stage – they did very well according to Mr Adjudicator. Damn our simple beginning middle and end storyline.
The third group did the Bear. Chekhov. Which I remember fondly as Fran and I years ago wept through a performance of this self-same featuring Ernie as the “bear” and he was just dreadful. This bear wasn’t as bad. But wasn’t as bear like as Ernie. But the adjudicator seemed to quite like it anyway.
It appeared quite clear by the time he finished his pompous and self-loving account of what we’d done wrong and everyone had done right that he hated us and we have no chance in this here festival. Not that we’re bitter or biased. It takes the pressure of speculation off for the next couple of days.
We angrily stomped ‘home’ to drink.
Show tonight. We ‘opened’ the festival and indeed, my worst conspiracy theories have been confirmed by various conversations between various people but indeed we were tucked away at the very start in the hopes that fewest possible people would see us and so fewest feathers would be ruffled. Sat in the middle of sleepy sheltered Killin, I wonder is this such a bad thing? I’ll get all wild and angry again when I get back to Edinburgh I daresay. Anyway.
We went first. And the boys did just brilliantly. All of them. DG was more or less immaculate as ever. (Too immaculate it seemed as the adjudicator’s first point was that the suits were too nice for shabby East European detectives.) Chris was adorable but grumpily impatient and as anxious as you would be for your brother. And Gordon excelled himself as the meanest cop with the blackest eyes you could hope to see. JGH clearly decided that relying on my cues was risky so marked up a script and used that instead. I managed to play the scream in the right place at (to my mind) excellent sound levels. And Andy brilliantly got us on and off stage in the right sort of time so we with luck lost no points for practical things. I was delighted and proud like a proud mother hen whose chickens have just swum for the first time. If chickens swum.
It made no difference to the adjudicator. Although it’s hard to know how biased we were. DG has recorded his comments with trusty iPhone but he appeared to say the suits were too nice, the set looked ok for what it was, the boys all spoke from the middle of their mouths, they didn’t stand close enough together to be menacing, DG was too quiet, the fight was very good (result! And indeed I thanked Heather silently as Gordon shook off his hand after the first and very effective punch), Chris was good although perhaps he should have been more quirky like David Tennant might have been when he played the part at the National although he hadn’t seen it (??!!). And that was about it.
Which wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t been so kind about the other two. Tryst followed us with some terrible play about relationships featuring three couples that were maybe aspects of the same people or three different couples but it hardly mattered. It looked astonishingly beautiful. Gorgeous pinky purpley orangey lights. A huge pink heart shaped helium balloon floating in the middle of the stage. And apples on strings floating above their respective heads. I think it’s possibly the most beautiful set I’ve ever seen in the One Acts. And they started with the curtains open so you got all that on the way to your seats. It was lovely. The play was dull and patchily acted but it seems that in terms of overall achievement – translation of script to stage – they did very well according to Mr Adjudicator. Damn our simple beginning middle and end storyline.
The third group did the Bear. Chekhov. Which I remember fondly as Fran and I years ago wept through a performance of this self-same featuring Ernie as the “bear” and he was just dreadful. This bear wasn’t as bad. But wasn’t as bear like as Ernie. But the adjudicator seemed to quite like it anyway.
It appeared quite clear by the time he finished his pompous and self-loving account of what we’d done wrong and everyone had done right that he hated us and we have no chance in this here festival. Not that we’re bitter or biased. It takes the pressure of speculation off for the next couple of days.
We angrily stomped ‘home’ to drink.
posted by Claire at 8:56 am
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