Thursday 26 January 2012

Not Bad

The second night. The theatre was overbooked and extra chairs were brought in, further reducing our limited stage. I fluffed a line in my first scene as I addressed my second speech to a silent audience - an audience which stayed silent through the wrestling match and long into the first act. Only with the entrance of dismissive Phebe and lovestruck Silvius did we hear the first murmur of appreciation. In the second act there was occasional laughter, although less than the night before. At least when I came in for the final scene, the audience was still attentive in the overheated room and the final applause was genuine.

I left the dressing-room to get the tube home and found myself face to face with friend Todd who had come, unannounced, to see the production. He was genuinely flattering about my own limited roles and the production as a whole and I was genuinely flattered that he had taken time to come and see me.

Back home I found myself unable to sleep. I'm not sure why. Now the run is underway, any tension should have dissipated, but my mind kept revolving round lines from the play and other things in my life, none of which are problematic, but which for reasons unknown my mind could not let go off. When the Other Half rose at 5.30 for his morning shift, I tried to stretch out without him, but in the end I gave up and shortly after 6 got up to deal with the piles of emails and books that have been waiting for days and weeks to be dealt with - so maybe that's what churning my subsconscious.

Meanwhile, the first review has come in. Mary Tynan, in frostmagazine.com is generally complimentary, although she credits the wrong actress playing the part of the evil duke. My attention is moving on, to my first rehearsal, today, for the Duchess of Malfi, being held in the doomed Greenwich Playhouse. And I now have six (count 'em, six!) followers on Twitter. Is there any reason why you aren't one of them? @actserious

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