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…
