I wish I were eight again

It gets easy for an actor with a bit of experience under his belt to take the machinery and miracle of the theatre for granted. All you need to do to prove this is mount a production of A Christmas Carol featuring two Tiny Tims, aged 8 and 7.

We have two Tims in our cast because they’re quite young; they will alternate performances during the run. One is a young boy who shares a dressing room with me and two other castmates; the other is a girl who shares a room across the hall backstage.

Having these two actors with us has been a lesson in rediscovery of wonder. Joshua, who is with us gents, is excited about everything in the dressing room (I’m sure Ananya is excited, too, but in our room we experience much more of Joshua first-hand). On our first day in the theatre, he made sure we all knew where everything was. “We have two sinks, and here is a bathroom, and here are mirrors, and if I turn this on there’s some light, and here’s a door, and here’s where the costumes go, and..” on and on it went, with a rare pause for a snatched breath. His chaperone taught him to knock before entering the dressing room (just in case other people are changing clothes), and he subsequently spent endless time knocking and entering and leaving and knocking and entering again. On our second day in the theatre, when all the costumes started to arrive and were placed in our dressing rooms, Joshua was generally excited; however, as he made one particular observation, his face lit up and his eyes grew huge. He then flung his arms wide and shrieked “we get TOWELS!!!”. Today he got a different costume for our runthrough, and fell utterly in love with it. After he was dressed, he exited the room, turned around, knocked, asked if he could come in, and then stood in the doorway. He surveyed his three dressing-room-mates, beaming; he took a deep breath, and said “I really want to tell you guys something.” We all turned to face him, expecting him to say “break a leg” or “you guys are nice”; once we were all attentive, he simply asked, “how do I look?”

Ananya and Joshua sit in awe of almost everything that happens on- and backstage, and wear their hearts on their sleeves when it comes to expressing their exuberance about it all. Things that are commonplace for us — like how the magic of what happens onstage is explained by the traffic and events backstage — are never-ending sources of wonder to them. They look at every workday as an adventure, and regard the world in the same way that kittens are fascinated by plain white walls. They have no ego and are fearless about being themselves; they admit when they’re nervous and remind themselves out loud to be brave. They are generous and complimentary, and at every moment serve to infect me with the amazement I felt when I first started doing theatre.

Their awe and excitement are worthy reminders to all of us jaded old bastards; I’m glad it’s infectious and hope it takes deep root for Christmas Carol and beyond. In the words of Dickens himself: “It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.”

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