Sands UK Tour, Day Six: London to Lincoln

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Wednesday, 13 June 2007

Royal College of Physicians

We caught the 5:50 out of King's Cross on our way to Lincoln, and I am writing this on the train.

Yesterday started well enough, with a well-anticipated 5 mile run. Things quickly soured as the getting-out-the-door ritual was unfortunately stressful. I was exhausted and highly anxious about the performance at the Royal College of Physicians. But parenthood took precedence and we took the children to Coram's Fields.

Coram's Field is a lovely playground with expansive sandboxes for the toddlers, a wide variety of climbing contraptions, and even game captains to lead older children in more advanced play. It was formerly the site of the Foundling Hospital. The bad historical ju-ju, coupled with the sight of my own children playing without a care in the world made something inside of me crumble and I just had to sit and stare.

We arrived at the RCP in plenty of time to set everything up ... including a lovely, wooden rocking chair. I didn't want to get into it with anyone, I was about to collapse. I realized I hadn't had anything for lunch, so my stage manager and I breezed into the crowded hall where the food was, avoiding eye contact with absolutely everyone, loaded up a small plate, snatching an apple, a hunk of cheese, and bunch of grapes, and escaping back to the little room to the side of the stage.

There was a couch, some chairs, a table. I ate and whined about my life as my stage manager listened patiently, and then went out to get everything arranged on stage and in the booth.

A large painting, a portrait, of Edward VII hung on the wall. He looked like my Dad, except for the suit.

Panel discussion

I had never been so unsure of myself before a performance. And this wasn't even such an unusual event, but I was so shaken, exhausted, overwhelmed and unhappy, I had no idea how I was going to be able to do this. My wife came backstage and we talked. I just resigned myself to my fate, the show would go on, of course. I just hoped it wasn't terribly awful.

The music started and I stepped out and did something I never did before. The lights were on full, and I took my time walking to my place in the center of the stage. I usually just keep my eye on that spot, move to it, and look at my hands. This day I looked at everything. The table, the phone, the stepladder, I turned to look at the rocking chair. I took in this room of memories. It gave me confidence.

The room was a lecture hall, maybe three hundred seats, with an estimated 170 attendants, but they were spread evenly throughout the seats. The seats were steeply raked. I was mic'ed,  and when the opening music faded, I looked up and said, "WHAT?"

I surprised myself, and everyone else, by the volume. Good start, though.

And it was a good show, craning my neck up to the top, taking in the entire audience. Why has it taken five years to become so comfortable with this play? It's like something new, I am looking at the audience, not over them. I feel I am talking to them, not performing for them.

It was warm in there, some people were slouching a bit in their seats, but I didn't mind. The show was working. There were groans, laughs. The British jokes work.

After a short break for coffee, there was a panel discussion about the entire conference, and Toni participated in that. After we stayed and shook hands with a number of folks, including some young couples - two couples each lost a child just this past November. They all impressed me with the way they had already incorporated their children into their lives, though they all had stories about how difficult some family member was being in acknowledging their lost babies.

The rocking chair thing, it turned out, was simply a last-minute error. The chair that they did in fact have at the SANDS office has recently been picked up, unbeknownst to those who knew they still needed it. Just a miscommunication.

Got my brother a shirt!

For dinner we joined my brother and his family at a Giraffe close to our hotel. I was practically brainless, but the cocktails were scrumptious and I did my best to be personable. However, this five mile-running, nervous breakdown-having, solo performance-acting twit was not through yet. I felt I had earned some joy, and so I left bedtime to the wife, and went out pub-hopping with y stage manager and sister-in-law. The pints were tasty, the conversation was blue, and I went to bed shortly before 1:00 AM.

Today was spent leisurely in Regent's Park. My in-laws set off on their own the explore Westminster Abbey, and the rest of us just strolled through the park, paddled out on the pond to get a closer look at the baby birds, and took a nap under the trees.

Original blog post: June 13, 2007

Sands UK Tour, Day Five: London

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

We were up last night until about 1 am. There so many reasons not to take a run today, but one too few, apparently.

My route took me down Euston to Regent's Park, down to and around the London Zoo and back. It was lovely and I was in no hurry. I have gotten a bit out of shape, however, and was a little hot and weary.

City running is very odd. But there are an awful lot of runners in central London. I stepped out of my hotel in time to catch a man and a woman going my direction, which was helpful, as I followed their lead down the city street, watching where they looked, and where on the pavement they kept their path. Not that there's much of a science to it, we're all salmon swimming upstream, dodging cars, people and other obstacles until we reach THE PARK. Returning, after seven on a Tuesday, I was like those folks yesterday in St. James, saying "excuse me" and trying not to get struck by a street sweeper.

Last night the children were left in the care of the in-laws so that our stage manager the wife, and I could steal off and see The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare's Globe. I have only seen one other performance there, the "Fancy Dress Party Macbeth" which remains the best production of the Scottish Play I've ever seen.

For this production of Merchant, instead of rationalizing that WS was some kind of forward thinking egalitarian (he wasn't) they chose the other route, which was to make almost everyone else grotesque, too. Shylock is an evil, hunched, bearded, withered old Jew, played by John McEnery, the guy who played Mercutio in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet the year I was born. The Duke of Morocco was a grinning, strutting, stuffed-codpiece jutting cartoon of an African, the Spaniard an English-mangling braggart, and they even managed to squeeze in a joke at the French where one doesn't exist.

As for the English, Christian characters, the masquing scene featured what could be construed as a Black Mass, though really it was more like a bunch of frat boys dressed as priests and bishops and popes in devils' masks, performing an obscene marriage. They profess Christianity, but flagrantly ridicule its leaders.

They mock the trappings of Christianity - Catholicism, to be precise - but hypocritically espouse a pure love for Christ. One of the funniest moments in the play is when Antonio insists Shylock must be made to convert. To Antonio it isn't a punishment (it wouldn't have been to Shakespeare, nor his audience) but a blessing. However, the look on Shylock's face can't be described. It was hilarious. And that's offensive. And I laughed really loud and I don't feel bad about that.

The one stereotype that remained unsatirised was that of the homosexual Antonio, and his affection for Bassanio. In a play with such obvious mockery, for everyone, that minority alone was treated with subtlety and respect. And that's a double-standard. I found this omission confusing.

I am not suggesting they should have had a mincing Antonio. But if the Duke of Morocco is made to look and behave like a cartoon Muhammad Ali, Antonio seemed like he was in a different production.

Big ups to Kristy Besterman and Pippa Nixon, who had to step up from (respectively) the roles of Nerissa and Jessica to the roles of Portia and Nerissa (with Ms. Nixon doubling in her usual role of Jessica) with book in hand to cover for the woman usually playing Portia. The book-in-hand thing was distracting for about two seconds as Ms. Besterman did know and awful lot of the part and was very good in the role.

God bless the understudies, without them we'd all have to go home.

Original blog posts
I Hate This Blog, June 12, 2007
Daddy Runs Fast, June 12, 2007

Sands UK Tour, Day Four: London

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Monday, 11 June 2007

The London Eye

It was a long day yesterday, taking the train from Carlisle to London. We were taking a first class coach, and lucky me, I got the odd single seat a few rows up from everyone else. I read and dozed on and off for four hours. They do have an awful lot of sheep here.

The sheer excitement of being on a train eventually wore off for the kids, and the girl simply could not get comfortable or get to sleep. Hideous breakdown in King's Cross.

The wife, as ever, finds the best places to eat. We took a great early evening walk through Bloomsbury to Abeno, a Japanese place that specializes in egg pancakes called okonomiyaki, which they cook in front of you on the table. Big metal hot plates in front of my kids make me very, very nervous. So I drank a lot of sake.

This morning we led my sister- and mother-in-law on "the basics" tour of London. Yes, there was a ride on a double-decker bus, and a trip around the Eye.

That's my third go-round on the London Eye. I almost pulled a Dad and told the wife they could go, and I'd stick my nose in Foyles for a half-hour, but I didn't. There will be no fourth trip on the London Eye for me, even if someone puts a gun to my head.

A walk past Buckingham to St. James Park, where we got sandwiches and camped by the river where my wife can make those noises she makes when she sees water fowl. The kids got very excited by chasing pigeons, but I didn't think they'd catch one.

St. James Park

Our contact from SANDS met us back at the hotel before three to walk our stage manager and I to the Royal College of Physicians so we could tech the show. The auditorium we will be using is quite big, and they hope it may be two-thirds full. The acoustics are super, but the lights aren't really made for performance, it will be a number overlapping spots. The screen is possibly the biggest I've worked with and that's saying a lot.

I was surprised to hear there wouldn't be a rocking chair. Someone decided we didn't need one, that I could just use an office chair with a sheet thrown over it.

Hmn. Have you seen the show?

I insisted that we need the rocking chair. Any rocking chair, but a real one, one that rocks.

It's a simple show. I don't ask for much. Except the rocking chair.

Original blog post: June 11, 2007