Year of the Mad King: The Lear Diaries by Sher Antony;

Author:Sher, Antony;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nick Hern Books

Friday 25 March

BAM.

Beautiful, beloved, battered old BAM.

Well, that’s the auditorium.

Backstage, things were tougher.

Our set only just fits onstage, so there’s hardly any wing space, and no route round the back. You have to go understage to cross from one side to the other. Lots of stairs. Lots more up to my dressing room. Lots of panting by me.

They’ve given me a second dressing room on stage level. It’s tiny, with a loo, and has an interesting history. In 2008, Elaine Stritch did Endgame here, with John Turturro also in the cast. (Apparently in rehearsals, she would shout, in those famous rasping tones, ‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck this play is about? I’ll tell you one thing, Beckett sure must’ve hated actors.’) Anyway, she couldn’t handle all the stairs either, so asked if the toilet for the disabled could be converted into a dressing room. It’s now become known as the Elaine Stritch Suite.

I think I’ll probably spend most of the performance down here, and only use the other one before and after the show, and during the interval. Talked it through with my dresser, Ken Brown. Mid-fifties, tall, relaxed, a real Broadway pro: he’s Nathan Lane’s regular dresser.

They were running late onstage, so I settled into my main dressing room upstairs, spreading out my make-up on one of the tables, while Greg sat at the opposite one (which David Tennant uses when Richard II is on), opened his iPad and started work on RSC correspondence. Then I realised that my mirror only had light bulbs along the top, and not all round, which you need if you’re doing a complicated make-up. Ben Tyremen said he’d get Elecs to improvise something.

I went to the loo, and when I got back, I said to Ken, ‘Any news on those lights?’

‘Your assistant has gone to chase them up,’ he replied, pointing to where Greg had been sitting.

I said, ‘Ken, sorry, but I’d better explain something – that guy, Greg, is not my assistant. He is, in rising order of importance, the director of all these productions, the Artistic Director of the RSC, and my husband.’

Ken didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Oh. Well. Good thing you told me now.’

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.