Wherein the addled musings of an emerging actor are presented for open mockery by the world

When an outdoor theatre festival like the St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival comes into conflict with Mother Nature, it has to go indoors.  For the preview performance of Macbeth, Mother Nature sent us lightning and heavy rain, and so we had to pack the show up and perform it in our alternate venue — a church located a few blocks from the outdoor ampthitheatre.

The layout of the church is not the same as the outdoor theatre.  In many ways, in fact, it is reversed back-to-front.  All of our entrances and exits take place through the audience, through the church’s aisles; there is no sizable “backstage area” behind the stage, so the cast and stage manager actually hole up in an area behind the audience.  There is a backstage cross, but it’s also the place where the church organ sits, and is only separated from the main stage by a knee-high railing and curtain — so, to use it unseen, you have to slither from one side to the other on your belly.  There are two small rooms behind the stage area, on the left and right side of the church hall, that provide access to this slither-backstage-cross… but these are both very small.  Some props and costume pieces can be stashed there for quick pick-ups and changes, but they really can’t be used for much else.  These two rooms are accessed by way of ornate wooden doors which open directly on to the stage area.

Because the indoor venue setup isn’t ideal, we all hope that we never have to perform in the church; in an ideal world, the weather is terrific all summer and audiences enjoy their Shakespeare as we dearly wish they can: with a view of the St Lawrence River and the rising moon.  Our optimism is so great that we don’t even rehearse much in the rain venue.  In fact, we only hold one rehearsal there, without costumes or props, and we spend the entire time working out entrances and exits to suit the church’s layout.  We embrace a spirit of improvisation and play, so that a trip to the church to perform Shakespeare is as fun for us as it is for the audience: it takes place under unusual circumstances, and any audience that braves a storm to see us perform gets an intimate, fresh version of the play that nobody else gets to see.

And so it was that our first public presentation of Macbeth — the preview performance — ended up in the church.  It started off beautifully. The witches met Banquo and Macbeth while lightning flashed outside and thunder rumbled through the church hall.  Actors could lower their voices to a whisper and still be heard.  But then I had to murder King Duncan, and the obstacle of that act was complicated by some logistics that our single church rehearsal didn’t address.

“Are you going to be able to put the blood on your own hands backstage?” the assistant stage manager asked, about half an hour before the show began.  She had to stay in the area behind the audience for the show, and couldn’t be present in the small room to the left of the stage.  “You’ll be back there all by yourself, but your fake blood is preset back there and is all ready for you.”  I said I had no worries.

Stage blood is interesting stuff.  Good stage techs have their own recipes for making it, and these recipes vary according to the blood’s intended use.  There’s thick blood, thin blood, fresh blood, clotted blood, dried blood; many recipes involve things like dish soap, food coloring, chocolate sauce, corn syrup, and peanut butter.  In our case, the stage manager was concerned about the play’s outdoor performance location: due to the voracious ants and wasps that linger around the amphitheatre, she didn’t want any sugar-based recipes for our blood.  This is important, friends: our blood is made with paint and hair gel.

So: back to the preview performance.  After the dagger speech, I moved (with Tarquin’s ravishing strides) into the backstage room, and shut the door behind me so that I couldn’t be seen by the audience.  As Lady Macbeth strode on to the stage to begin the murder scene, I eyeballed a sponge and three plastic containers of blood on a shelf. Beside me, another actress was bent over a violin, busily underscoring the Lady’s words.  I was otherwise alone.

“That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,” Lady Macbeth intoned from the other side of the door.  I picked up a container of stage blood and tried to pry it open.

The lid wouldn’t come off.

I pried some more.

The lid wouldn’t budge.

“He is about it…” my Lady purred.  I checked the container for a clasp or a handle under which I could get purchase.  There wasn’t one.  I pried some more, squeezing the container in case it might help.  Still, nothing.

“I have drugged their possets / that death and nature do contend about them / whether they live or die” she reassured herself.

This line was a cue for me.  “Who’s there? What ho?” I said, adrenaline spiking its way through every toe and finger.  Perhaps I’d have to do the post-murder scene without any blood on my hands?  Lady Macbeth had only five more lines of text before I had to enter!

“Alack, I am afraid they have awaked,” came Lady’s next line.  In a flash of panicked inspiration, I realized that the plastic container had a screw-top lid.  Practically dancing with panic, I spun the lid off the container and grabbed the sponge.  I dabbed it in the mixture, and smeared it on to the back of my hand.  The blood was almost clear: I was not getting bloody quickly enough.

“I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss ‘em,” said Lady M.  I flashed back to the assistant stage manager telling me that the blood was ready for me backstage, and wished I had asked about how the feckin’ container opened.  Two lines of text left.  I dunked my whole hand into the container, observing that the lack of color was due to the fact that there was more hair gel than paint in the blood mixture, and then mashed my hands together to coat them both.  Still not much color, but no matter: at least I got it done.  I swung around and then realized that I’d have to use my bloody hands to open the door.

“Had he not resembed / my father as he slept, I had done’t” came the voice from the stage.

The crisis had been averted. I was right on cue. I reached out and turned the door knob –

“My husband?” said my stage-wife.

– and my hand spun uselessly around the doorknob, lubricated by the mass of hair gel that now coated it.

I tried with both hands.  God had intervened: the door was not going to open for me.

I felt panic from the other side of the door.  “MY HUSBAND?!?” came a nervous voice.

I began waving wildly at the violinist, and pointing at the doorknob.  She gasped, rushed over, and cranked the handle.  Unfortunately, the doorknob was now covered with reddish hair gel.  God had intervened again.

On the other side of the door, Lady Macbeth was making abstract panic noises.  On my side of the door, I was feeling faint.  Not knowing how I’d get through the door on the other side of the stage, I jumped out on to the backstage cross area, striding in front of the church organ.  “I have done the deed,” I said, my voice quavering in a way that I could never fake. Lady M stared at me, out of view of the audience, with a memorable look that clearly said “WHAT the FUCK are you DOING?”

“Didst thou not hear a noise?” I answered, and then stepped out of view again, into the other small room, house right.  While three other actors in that room looked at me, slack-jawed, I indicated the doorknob on that side and then pointed at my own well-greased hands.  One of them got the message right away and opened the door for me, and I dashed out to meet my wife and the audience, none of whom had any inclination of what had just transpired.

For the rest of the scene, my adrenaline level was off the chart.  As I worked through the text about having murdered sleep, I noticed that my hands were shaking so badly that it probably looked horribly fake to the audience.  We finished the scene and exited through the door that was open.  An actor slid the box of wipes across the carpeted backstage floor so that we could nab it and clean up; it took another three scenes before the greased doorknob could be cleaned off and re-opened for the rest of the show.

This was the most significant hiccup in a series that included a slippery stage (due to high humidity), and the realization that it’s almost as hard to open a door with hair gel on your hands as it is to open a door when you’ve got a sword in one hand and a shield in the other.  I have concluded that I am simply cursed when it comes to dealing with doors on stage, that I prefer being in the ampthitheatre whenever possible, and that audiences who see a performance in the alternate church venue really can expect anything.

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