I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.
A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.
It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!
On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.
Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.
Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.
The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.
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| They gave me swords! Two of them! |
It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.
After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.
And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.
*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.
**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."
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