small girls 13 February 2009
My mate, and compadre in crime in OCTOBER, Vic Smurfit brought her eldest daughter into the theatre a few days ago as we were filming a piece for Irish tv news. It was fascinating to have a small person in particularly a little girl (she’s 4 years old). She loves pink, is the first thing that should be announced…BELIEVES in it, I think. She was also fascinated by our make up. She applied some for all of us but her Mum got the main attention, including some very garish lipstick. The Smallie thought her mother looked very pretty then though the adults had to admit that it was, erm, garish…Where did the divide in opinions happen and how did it come about? Is the Small girl just delighted with embellishment of any made-up sort? And where did she get this idea of beauty from? You’d have to wonder. I should also say that her Mum is not given to wearing garish make-up in general so she isn’t seeing this at home. Incidentally, she applied lipstick to herself too, on the mouth and quite a lot of her face also…again, it was deemed a success…And, no, none of the rest of us were doing our makeup like that so she wasn’t copying us. Mind you, she is only starting out so her aim may not be as true as us Oldsters (when sober, at any rate – drunkenly applied make-up is a whole other kettle of bitch). She is just getting the hang of putting it on, so that may have been a factor.
off! 12 February 2009
Well, tis done and the show is up and running. We’re all a bit relieved (and hungover today if received texts are anything to go by). Press/opening nights are always strange – there is this huge expectancy and an unnatural feeling of having to prove something ‘special’ above and beyond any other performance so it’s rarely a show’s best outing. Our audience enjoyed themselves hugely but we didn’t because of all of the tension and stress, and we were convinced it didn’t run as smoothly as it might have. Having said that, no one but ourselves would really have known that or spotted the bits we thought should go better. It’ll be nice to settle into the run proper now, for the paying public who get so many different things out of the show than critics ever will – and that’s what it’s all about now, the audience.
I feel as if I have been living underground for weeks. I don’t know what’s going on in the world as I haven’t read a paper or seen any tv news in ages. Oddly disengaged, I am, but today has been SLOW to spark so I’ll become a proper citizen of the world again tomorrow when my poor battered body and brain are back to ‘normal’ – till then I’ll be needing what’s left to throw meself around the Olympia theatre stage tonight. It’s odd to know exactly what I’ll be doing and saying, even, every night but Sunday for the next 4 weeks…nearly down to the minute. What a strange way to make a living…but, hey, dat’s showbiz!
ready 11 February 2009
well, there is every chance that i won;t be able to spell well later as the theatre show opens tonight and we’ll be so relieved to have got the press night out of the way we’ll no doubt lift a glass in celebration |(all having gone well, of course) so this is just to tell you all that i am thinking of youse, even in my terror, and i’ll report all as soon as i am able to!
and, yes, it’s a lower case moment as i am running late!!!!!
cloggy 11 February 2009
I am having to wear body makeup for the theatre show and it’s a bit cloggy. Basically, I like to get down into the maw of the theatre quite quickly after the show in case there are people there who’d like to say hello, so there’s no time for a shower. As a result me and all of my clothes have an inner layer of MAC face and body N5 now. When I get home, I am not inclined to shower then either, as I must blog for one thing, and so my sheets now have an inner layer of, yes, you know the make and number of the skin tone I have opted for and bought. I am taking no chances with other products after the disastrous fake tan incident during the ‘Summer’ when I went about like a piebald human for a month or more – those of you who were reading this then know all about how AWFUL that was. Of course, I am also leaving on the face make-up for pub purposes, as no one should be frightened by my visog without the war paint at the moment (I fancy I have a rictus grin to disguise the fear of the opening night – which is TAMARRA, as Annie sings). The face paint does get took off at home and that always makes me smuggish…but the rest of me is, well, ODD. Smoke and mirrors, I guess. (Oh, and tell no one – the Public must never know that it ain’t all as glamorous as it looks)
hitches 10 February 2009
Hitches were there none this evening – none! huzzah!
Seems this blog makes news, though, as whatever I say here gets filtered into The Newspapers – e.g. apparently an evening paper this evening in Dublin declared I was PRAYING for no hitches on tonight’s OPENING of ‘October’ (we open Wednesday) and said that we’d had a POWER FAILURE which plunged THE AUDIENCE into darkness on Saturday night (not QUITe what I’d reported but Interesting/Inaccurate and, hey, it made The News and had a photo an all of me and Vic Smurfit – all publicity, me dears.
Great show tonight, I am happy to report, and more to follow, we trust.
I am tempted to print a HUGE LIE now to see how far it disseminates but cannot think of an interesting enough one…leave that with me – a bit of mischief is always welcome…
I don’t think the builders will be done by Saturday, as newly scheduled, by the way…NOT GOOD
Such shocking stuff from Australia – poor people fleeing and still being caught by the fire. It does a strange thing to me to know that this may have been maliciously started, in that I really do understand that punishment will never solve the awfulness of this for those who have lost people. I don’t believe in Capital Punishment but I can see how it gains currency in these dreadful and incomprehensible times.
slobout 8 February 2009
I would normally slob out on a Sunday – it’s my excuse-of-a-day for not doing anything (including wash myself, from time to time…ok, regularly – I am not proud to be admitting that…at least I shouldn’t be…) But today, Ian and Curly (the Galway contingent) were here and treated myself and Richard to Russell Watson at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Fabtastico. I am a fan anyhow – I met him several years ago on the Des and Mel Show on daytime TV and he was then and still is a lovely lad. He is also a whacking great voice. I loved the concert. He was backed by the RTE Orchestra and they were in fine form (great Irish orchestra and a reason to be proud) and when everyone was lashing out their stuff it was total magic. I, personally, prefer when he sings opera or full blown camp Italian classics – he did those (and some swing numbers and an Elvis standard) – and he gave a wonderfully full version of Nessun Dorma toward the end. Huzzah! As Sunday is now my only night off, I will be returning to slobbing out, but I am glad that we were dragged out to the Voice this evening. Need to go buy a few CDs tomorrow and download onto my iTouch.
problemos 8 February 2009
Ah, the live show – who’d swap it?! and yet who’d want it sometimes, too…tonight we had a fairly major technical problem at the top of the 2nd half – the lighting board went down (and not in a good way…fnar fnar*) so a 2nd, new and spluckydoo and state of the art, board was thrust in (after the rebooting of the first system failed) and IT DIDN’T WORK either – the chances of that happening, believe me (in spite of the lies I have pedaled recently) are SO SLIM as to be not worth putting money on BUT TONIGHT WE HAD ‘EM. In the end, the old, nay ANCIENT, retiredcositwasn’tmodernandnew andspluckydoo board was resurrected and it put up sufficient light for us to continue. Lord love the audience, who had to sit like hostages while this happened (about 20 mintues?) but who, I am pleased to report, were engaged enough to do so.
*sorry…
I believe that in my absence from polite society (while holding over a thousand people hostage in a theatre…hmmm…that wasn’t wise, now that I look at it writ like that) the Irish whopped French Rugby Ass (or am I being too technical there*)
*I have certainly been too smug but life is shite here right now with the Recession etc so a little lift is most welcome. Pardonez moi, youse Francais?
schereek 7 February 2009
What a day! I was in from 9am, not 10 as I had posted – lying to you all is becoming second nature to me now (witness the DEMONS debacle last week – incidentally ‘my’ episode is tomorrow…if you can believe a word I say anymore) and then it was helter skelter through the rest of the technicals and headlong into a TERRIBLE dress rehearsal. Happily, that served as an excellent warmer-upper for tonight’s first preview, which went very well. By then also my itchy eye, which I had foolishly rubbed while abed last night and which presented itself as a GOLFBALL of allergy-related swelling and awfulness this morning, had gone down leaving only a notion of intense tiredness in its wake. Lovely (SO not). I’ll tell you what moves me though and what is a great spur to ‘gathering’, as Kate Winslet might have it, is the fact that over a thousand people chose their Friday night out to be our show tonight – that’s awesome and really concentrates the mind. Thank you to all who attended and told us, by your reactions, more about the play in two hours than any other method of communication (and all of it useful and good). I am more tired now than a very very VERY tired person so much go take off all the slap I have on my face still and will now bid yiz good night. Tomorrow? = more of the same. Ah, showbiz…it’s feckin relentless…And, yes, we will keep doing it till we get it right, and beyond!
surreal 5 February 2009
It’s mad being an actor and no mistake. For instance, today we are running through the technical end of the play and that means a lot of sitting around on the set while lights are pointed and so on. Which is great and magical in its way BUT quite surreal when you are in summer clothes and covered in false tan in a FREEZING theatre and it’s snowing and sleeting outside in the ‘real’ world…rock and a hard place, I guess. Time is passing frighteningly quickly too. I am doing this blog on my tea break because we won’t get a pause again till 11 when we are let go home and then it’s back in for 10 and ready to go again in the morning (we have been in since 9 this morning and I am beginning to hallucinate gently now at the thought of a lovely sleep….though it’ll be all too short – 12 hours would be too short right now) Most terrifying of all is the fact that this time tomorrow I’ll be hearing reactions from a live audience on their Friday night out and wanting to be entertained. At that stage (no pun intended) we will be getting noises (hopefully laughs) in places we’d forgotten were funny and must let go of others if they don’t work. It’ll be a huge thrill to have reaction though. Ah, yeah, forget the terror – BRING IT ON. In the meantime I’m just wondering if they’ll see the goosebumps of a frozen actress poking through her skin when that curtain goes up, ‘tan’ or no…
funny... 4 February 2009
I have never set out to write a ‘funny’ book. I guess that, on top of all else, I have been blessed with being in actually funny plays and shows and so am well aware of how horribly wrong it can go too (yup, I gotta few howlers that don’t appear on any CV anymore and money sometimes changes hands that friends who know too much might be silenced). Ah now, sometimes the funnies come in the writing and you’d be mad to ignore them. My main problem with anything funny I might say in real life/person is that I never remember it unless I immediately write said funny down (and then run the risk of looking like a manipulative, self-believing jerk, or a veh veh strange person – though I do carry a notebook everywhere now for the jotting of book ideas as they will also evaporate, given half a breath, unless I nail them to a page through the medium of the scrawled word). So imagine my confusion and delight to hear that this blog has made the longlist for the Irish Blog Awards! Huge competition from actually funny types so I am genuinely chuffed to be included – that, in itself, is a prize. But ‘funny’? Janey Mack, I dunno.
I seem to have had the knack of finding strange and scary shows on tv tonight – none of them recession-based I am glad to report (I really cannot handle anymore of that – I know we are fecked, and it’s gettin’ me down). Perhaps the worst of tonight’s crop was an offering chasing down surgically enhanced women. I had to switch over after the (male) presenter handled two HUGE old (removed, thankfully) breast implants. They looked DIRTY and are now only half their original 4 litre volume (yes, that’s a lot of liquid and heavy). Bits of unidentified detritus were floating around inside of them and they were like two disgusting, softsided goldfish bowls that had been left without proper attention (not that we ever let our childhood goldfish live in dirty bowls, you understand, just guessing,). They had me clutching my own poor (unenhanced) chest specimens (newly bra-ed up as regulars will know) while whispering that I’d never let ‘em end up like that or having to share body space with such awful items. The woman who’d had them inside of her once said they’d made her really ill as they were leaking into her body and all of her began to sell, including her brain – the wrong kind of enhancement. Breast augmentation is not an operation that has ever appealed to me and now it is SO OFF any (even MAD) future agenda as to be near Pluto in the solar system of my mind (which brain should be nailing down lines anyhow and not marvelling at the extraordinary whimsy of man and womankind)