Smoke and mirrors…and more smoke…but no fire…

   This quick update is in the interest of ‘feeding the goat’, as my friends in broadcasting term it…‘keeping the ball rolling’, as it were, or ‘keeping the pot boiling’, if you prefer. With less than two weeks to go before the official world premiere of The Best Audience Ever at the IndyFringe festival , Sparky and I feel that it’s high time you fine folks got a better idea of what you’ll be signing up for by purchasing a standard ‘Admit One’ ticket (and your IndyFringe pin, of course). Last night, we gave a preview of The Best Audience Ever to a selected audience of cognoscenti, and the results were more than encouraging. I’ll hand the word processor over to Sparky for a more detailed description of events as they unfolded:

We wuz brillyunt. Ya shood all go to th’ show jus’ta see us.

   Er…yes, while that IS an undisputed truth, our appearance in The Best Audience Ever is but a brief cameo. What you really need to know about the overall experience is this: it’s a quickly-paced hour that plays fast and loose with the conventions of live theatre, in a way that combines high culture, higher education, and an even higher level of hi-jinks. The preview audience saw the same show that Indianapolis will see, which is an encouraging sign for all concerned. To be at the ‘tweaks and tinkering’ stage this soon is more than the production team could have hoped for.

Well, our bit wuz perfick frum th’ seckund they hired us, so they wuz off ta th’ races on th’ right foot frum th’ get-go there.

   Sparky’s characteristic humility aside, it’s comforting to have the luxury of working out small details such as finding a reliable prop to replace one with more of a flair for irony than the script called for. The big picture is pretty much in place. So as not to jinx everything, the next posting will be full of ways the rehearsal process can go truly, sometimes irrevocably, awry. Until then, here’s a taste of that, as a palate-cleanser for the now-fed goat, a sorbet whose main ingredient is the answer to the question “what’s the worst experience you’ve ever had with a prop malfunctioning during a performance?”, as supplied by the performers in The Best Audience Ever.

Alison Cousins: Alex Eddington backed into the set for The Fugue Code [which Alison directed] once. He fell on his ass and then the whole thing fell onto his head (mostly the top bar dislocated and the curtain came down in a billowy cloud around him...)...he put it back together during the following bit.

   Once, at Odyssey Theatre (an Ottawa-based commedia dell’arte company), the director wanted a mad scientist experiment for an actor to carry on as the crazy uncle halfway through the show. So, the technical director got us this powder that could be heated up to create a dense smoke pouring out of this brass ‘mug on a handle’ someone had found. The production then borrowed my parents’ old propane camp stove (which was seriously on its last legs and had to be ‘pumped’ before it could be lit)... the whole thing was likely lethal as well as super fiddly to get the timing right and as the run went on the pot started to corrode. Basically it was a disaster... as the assistant stage manager I worked the stove and it was ridiculous!!!! Plus the smoke wasn't visible during matinees.

Rick Cousins: My worst prop is generally my ten-thumbed hands. Tools reduce me to klutzdom at the best of times. Onstage, I’m completely at their mercy. The worst example I can think of this involved a simple book of matches. I had to light a candle—I was the only one onstage at the time, and of course getting the candle lit was crucial to everything that followed. My nightly average was three, maybe four, broken matches before I’d get one to hold a flame long enough to bring it to the candle wick. The playwright had also specified book matches—not the wooden ones: when I wasn’t breaking the cardboard stems of the wretched things, I was breaking their heads off. My failsafe, in case I ever went through an entire book of matches without success, would have involved me going into the audience and asking if anybody had a lighter. Fourth wall, schmourth wall—do you want that candle lit or not?

   More on this general theme to come.

Uncle Fun