As our latest play “Murder Mystery” only had female cast members don’t believe for a moment that it was an excuse for a lazy, boozy feet up period for mere male mortals. In a moment of unthinking madness, this particular elderly gentleman offered his services in setting up and striking set. In his rose coloured, but dirty, spectacles he failed to see just how much work was involved in just simply clearing up and sweeping the floor.
The process took a full day’s work for six people. Imagine, it took all morning just to strip out all the cabling for the lighting and sound systems, roll them up and store them where they could be easily relocated. The 8’ x 4’ set panels had to be taken down before all the props were removed, the entire supporting framework and all stage lighting carefully dismantled and stored in their appropriate boxes. Tables and chairs had to be stacked and stored and the bar equipment and stock all put back into their boxes. Then, once our hired van with tail-lift arrived, everything, all 2 tonnes of it, had to be carefully loaded and driven to the storage room where it was all, just as carefully, unloaded and stored. Then the van had to be returned.
Three days later the entire process was repeated in reverse but with an extra day just to test that all the systems operated correctly.
So, a play showing at three different venues over a 3 week period actually takes 48 hours of labour and around 24 hours total driving time. This is not counting the cast, their support teams and all their rehearsals.
Bref, as they say down here, it’s a huge amount of work and hard labour for the entire team who, like everybody else, he supposes, is not getting any younger.
But is it worth it?
This is a question best answered by the same elderly gentleman who, propped up by a cool bottle of rosé, thoroughly enjoyed the antics of the cast at their new venue in Villecomtal. So hilarious was the play that he was never quite sure if the lady speaking had actually forgotten her lines, was never quite sure that whole sections of the play had been missed out or ad-libbed on the spot, or props were actually supposed to break or fall over and sound and lighting effects being deliberately out of sync. Of course, this was all due to the immense skill and talents of the director, cast and crew who, he believes, enjoyed the mayhem even more than he did.
It was, as the saying goes “alright on the night”. In fact, it was better and worth all the effort put in by so many people.
Chris Sutton
