Standing O
We’ve been through it all, you and me.
Receiving the script in September. That first weekend workshop in February. Meeting the actors one Sunday morning, after figuring out how to get into the locked theatre. Discovering the upstairs warren of rehearsal rooms. The Green Room; the odd little staircase leading to nowhere; the pinboard where actors from the outgoing show had left a good luck message to the incoming one, scrawled on the back of a brown paper bag.
The photoshoot outside the Beehive, one crisp mid-morning in March.
The miniature set design, carried like a tiny shrine into the first cooperative meeting, and the beautiful sketches of costumes, spread out on a table like tiny gifts. The props shelf, the jumbled theatre laundry, the bare bulbs surrounding the dressing room mirrors, blazing into brilliant light only in production week.
The seventh circle of hell that is the Box Office complimentary tickets policy.
Late April, and the packing-in of the theatrical set; the meticulously timed tech rehearsal. The live radio studio interviews (holding up the tech rehearsal). The day TVNZ came to shoot a report, filming a scene three times and then once more in close up; they even shot the theatre’s bartender mixing a show-themed cocktail (A Traffic Light. Nobody could drink it; it was only lunchtime).
The way everyone huddled around a phone during a break in that evening’s dress rehearsal, to watch the piece as it aired.
The delivering of flyers into neighbourhood letterboxes, avoiding those with firmly stated views about unaddressed mail. The offering of flyers to patrons leaving another comedy and being told by that theatre’s security to stand across the road, in a park notorious for anti-social behaviour, to hand out leaflets there.
The morning of the premiere performance, and the sudden blizzard of emails declining or requesting attendance. The last-minute express manicure (deep red, if you must know). The digging out of heels, the ironing of jeans. The snipping of a fancy tag, and the buttoning of a stupidly expensive shirt. The drive towards the sparkle of a city at night. The nerves, despite the full house. The nerves, because of the full house.
The swishing open of the crimson doorway curtains and the taking of seats. The opening bars, the familiar numbers; the way the audience leaned into the first act, apparently delighted; the boom and snort of deep laughter, the peals and giggles; spontaneous applause and even, cheering, after each set-piece or clever monologue.
The way, in a theatre, everyone breathes together, absorbs a joke and laughs together; dust motes in the beaming lights, distant traffic wailing outside, somebody taking off their glasses to wipe their eyes from laughing, the whoops and calls at the close of Act One, the drumming of hinged seats slapping shut at interval and a happy, warmed-up audience queuing at the bar.
The way the second act is a catharsis: an invitation to feel differently about this city and its inconveniences, arguments and stubborn ways. Look at the talented people who choose to live here, and look at what they can do, given a fake telephone, a top hat and a cluster of pretend traffic lights! Is it really so bad, in this straitened, angry times, to sit in the dark in this difficult city and be reminded that ordinary life here is funny as hell?
And as the keyboardist held down the final chords and the cast swept into bows, the cheers, stamping and thunderous clapping, and the many people who stood to applaud. Here it is, the euphoria of opening night. And yet when a show opens, for the publicist (whose job is definitely not over), something closes. You can hear a clicking shut. Something has shimmered past, vanishing. The delicious not knowing has gone, perhaps. The build-up is over. Now the play is floating above everyone’s heads and other people have started to tell its story.
It’s an emotional pause, of sorts. Well, good. A night like this reminds you who you are working hard for.
This lovely evening will continue as you film happy theatregoers leaving the show, you clink glasses with supporters, and then drive home to wear pyjamas, shovel cereal, and think about the next day’s tasks.
Where else but in this strange, light-and-dark, shape-shifting country could a writer and barely a dozen others fashion two solid hours of riotous theatre out of a minor, overnight rule change? Who else would take a punt on that, agree to that, pay to see and understand the message in that? Only here, surely. Surely, only us.
What a city! What a country! What a magical place, is a theatre!
Thank you
Your patience with this newsletter as it became a workplace blog over the past couple of months hasn’t gone unnoticed or unappreciated by me. Thank you for sticking with it, even if you’ve no way of coming to Wellington for this show or indeed if you live in Wellington but have no interest in it (why are we friends?).
The season goes on for a further month with plenty still to do, but on my Substack, at least, normal service will resume.
If you’d like to watch TVNZ’s Seven Sharp story on Give Way, here it is. Blink and you’ll miss me, watching the performers with their dazzle in my glasses.
Have loved every minute of these dispatches! Your writing is why I follow along, so no apology needed for doing what you do best, whatever the subject.
Happy that it went off with a bang, and so sad we couldn't have been there to witness the opening.