The Best Laid Plans

The show I am doing is called “A Gap in Generations”. I have not been blogging about it because it was brought to my attention that the internet is too easy to navigate and anyone could read this and mostly I’ve been bitching to W and holding my tongue with everyone else I am only going to bitch about this: I hate hacks, I hate assholes, and if I have to tell myself “it’s not my problem” one more time, or smile when I want to scream- someone, is going to get killed! That said; we opened Thursday, closed Sunday and let me just say… Everything that can go wrong will. Where to even start:
We get here and discover that one third of the cast, the Thai actors, are not available to rehearse during the day because they are in class until 5:00pm at Chiang Mai University, and the rehearsal space closes around 4:30pm. We do not have permission to rehearse, nor any space, at our hostel and yet we gather as often as possible to guerilla rehearse in the hallways. The rehearsal/ performance space is a Lanna house. Sort of the equivalent of performing in an authentic Shakespearean home, complete without electricity, water, bathrooms… I’ll try and attach a pic. It is a beautiful house- resplendent and glorious- but- it is also 400 years old and falling apart. The front, the part we will be using to stage “Gap” has been propped up from beneath with extra bamboo for support specifically for us. The slated floors we cover with cheap 4X6 foot panels of particle board but the back stage area is full of holes and many heels are driven through before closing night when they lay down some more particle board. On the upside, everyone is afraid to go too far into the back of the house so I have an entire little room all to myself. In the dark. I bring a flashlight but it gets temperamental about working on the second night. There is no green room, no dressing room, and no backstage light. Well, there’s no electricity!
The venue is outdoors so: when we rehearse in the day we roast in noon sun because the director schedules rehearsal from 11am to 4:30 pm with a brief break to each lunch. And I do mean brief, 30 mins. Which means bring snack food because Thai service cannot be accomplished in 30 minutes. The director eventually lengthens rehearsals to 6:00pm but by then it is so dark we attempt to return over lawns, a small bridge, and through backyards in the dark hoping not to get caught and lose our performance space. When darkness starts to approach the mosquitoes come out and eat us alive. When we aren’t sun burning (I work under my parasol) we are drowning- oh yes, it rains. This is supposed to be the dry season but thanks to global warming we wait under the eaves anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours every day for the rain to stop. When we stand too long in the grass the red ants eat us alive. Between the humidity and the heat half our brains have dribbled out our ears and even the girl playing Arlechino for the 3rd time in as many years has trouble remembering lines. We sweat and drip and sunscreen runs into our eyes. During one rehearsal a gang of dogs races through the set snarling and barking and trying to bite one another. Airplanes routinely fly overhead making it impossible to hear one another. For one week there is a local air show so every few minutes two or more planes in formation fly overhead while we freeze in place, waiting. Remember the bathroom issue? Same here. One day there is an EMS rally on the grounds. The station in front of our stage is where they do the relay race. Teams of EMS race across the lawn carrying eggs and rice kernels and pebbles back and forth in chopsticks trying not to drop them while their band (oh yes, they have their own band) eggs them on by playing loudly and fast the cymbals, drums and something that screeches. Cows in the field behind us are often “lowing” (that’s a Christmas quote dammit!), okay mooing, and I swear to God one night I heard pigeons cooing. When we arrive the front of the stage is covered by plants that are tall tall tall. We are invisible behind this wall of greenery. We eventually get it trimmed. There is also a railing, huge pillars of wood and plank boards completely obscuring us from view- when it is removed there is nothing to stop us toppling over the edge onto the newly hewn branches of the bushes now eerily pointy and threatening. The red ants that were living there are now homeless and seeking our tasty feet and calves. There are neighboring dogs who bark constantly and cats that fight, have loud cat sex, and piss on the set when we go home at night. We have no budget and can’t find the set pieces we need by either begging borrowing or stealing. Every new thing costs more money and the director is nearly insane with worry- her pockets are only so big. Props are a problem- things we assumed would be easy to find or borrow are proving to be harder than imagined. We can afford a total of 12 lighting instruments and the electricity comes from miles of extension cords. Our light board operator gets electrocuted tech night and jiggles a while on the current until it blows. On opening night we lose the lights, complete blackout minutes before the end of the play and finish in flashlight light. One night there are two concerts going on near enough to us that we have to speak louder to be heard over them, this is in addition to the constant hum and roar of a major highway next to us. Radio stations employ trucks to drive around playing their station loudly through several large speakers strapped to the back of the truck and the driver yelling into a microphone- this is particularly hard to be heard over. As soon as we add lighting this attracts bugs, the upside of which is they are too busy trying to get into the lights to eat us, the downside of which is light that wavers as clouds of insects move in front of it and the dive bombing we receive from the eager bats. Thai audiences are not particularly quiet, and not in the laughter kind of sense, they talk throughout and seem to be making comments. They also wander off. At intermission we lose about half. Sometimes they come back to see how it ends. This is not necessarily a comment on our acting but rather a custom. Fireworks are set off behind us. The last dregs of Loy Kratong. The performance runs 3 hours with intermission. It’s too long by American standards. Every night I dream we skip fourteen pages by “accident”. The oldest cast member is 83- it’s very difficult for him to get up and down the stairs leading to the stage not to mention make his entrances and exits, not to mention pick-up his cues. The 77 year old is completely deaf. We have musicians, technically four but only two of them perform in the show- that often fall asleep or eat fruit during performances missing cues and playing the wrong songs. We get ready in our rooms with crappy overhead fluorescent lighting and walk the several blocks to perform in costume and make-up carrying our second costume and extra props. Most of the cast has refused to learn to do proper comedia make-up and they look like idiots. I look like a freak show with professional standards.