Foreman Funnies - Pranks
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The ‘Last Night Prank’ is a staple of repertory theatre. You read about them often enough. Robin Pascoe has some doozies he might share one day (from the Merredin Rep Club).
I witnessed a couple in the Albany Light Opera Company: Mikado – Koko’s ‘little list’. The actor in the role never learnt it, always read it. On the last night, the name of a local celebrity was added. The actor read it flawlessly, the chorus broke up.
In Puss in Boots, one character was to present the queen with a small bush. He’d been working on his farm that afternoon and brought in a twenty-foot sapling. (How did he get it upstairs and backstage?) The ‘bush’ stretched from one side of the stage to the other.
There was a few that happened in school productions once I started teaching Drama.
In Dust in the Air, one character sat on a throne for the entire second act. Just before lights up, someone slipped a packet of frozen peas onto the seat.
In our Cyrano, the character of ‘Chris’ had to read a letter on stage. Sitting in the balcony I noticed cast members in the wings watching intently. I looked at Chris as he opened the letter. “Don’t read it!” I thought. He knew the lines.
He read it. And cracked up. Thankfully he didn’t read it aloud.
After The Mysteries, where a disgruntled crew member took the Third Shepherd’s gift of a tennis ball for the baby Jesus, and the cast member tearfully substituted an apple, I was adamant that there would be no more pranks in my productions.
From then on I always advised cast members to check any hand props, especially folded paper before going on stage. I was guilty of a sort of prank in one show where two girls had to take a paper bag with two cream buns onstage and eat them.
The final night I replaced one bun with a matchstick – layers of puff pastry, jam, and cream. They checked their prop before entering. Onstage, the inevitable happened. The matchstick exploded. The second girl ad-libbed, “You’re such a pig, Monica.”
I cracked up backstage.
But I don’t believe it is fair to young performers to put them in the situation where they may be embarrassed by someone else.
Yes, audiences love those obvious stuff-ups on stage. But in the end, I want my students, my young performers to be able to do their very best, and to do justice to the script…
Foreman Funnies - Who Knows! Cyranose!
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“A great nose may be an index/ Of a great soul”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
Ah, the joys of double casting.
Every Drama teacher’s nightmare.
Double the cast, quadruple the work.
That’s what Robin and I did for our ’86 adaptation of Cyrano.
Oh yes, and all written in blank verse.
Strangely enough after a while I found myself thinking in blank verse.
Cyrano’s nose
Of course, we had two Cyranos. And two very different noses to find/make; one very solid chunk of a Roman nose and one much finer, Nordic nose.
I’d been having fun using plaster of Paris bandage for mask making so I thought, Easy. I made a cast of each one, then filled each clay. Wait for it to dry, peel away the plaster, build up each with plasticine. But then what. I’d been making the masks by layering onto a positive mould. That wouldn’t work for this.
I sourced some cold moulding latex. And had to make another mould of each new nose. And then remove the plasticine. I had never used latex before but lucked out that the first pour worked, and the resultant noses fitted but needed paint and make-up.
Job done. Well, that job done.
Then there was the fight. At the end of Act One. Involving 15 people.
I’ve since explained to classes that a stage fight is very much a choreographed free dance. Every action and reaction must be carefully planned if it is to be performed over a number of shows. And safely. Each combatant MUST know exactly they are doing and when and where. Relatively easy when it is two people. Toss in the cross interaction between three, six, twelve, fifteen cast members on stage…
Now for cast two!
I swear we spent hours on three minutes of stage time. That three minutes was problematic, too. As the cast worked and re-worked the fight everything sped up. They knew what they were doing. [The cast of Starlight Express – performed on roller blades – cut the running time of performances by fifteen minutes the further into the run they went.]
Not forgetting… the car on stage (It was after all a ‘Modern’ version)
Oh yeah, and a car on stage. An old Cortina was donated – too long to fit on stage! So, the ‘Shed Men” cat school ut off the roof and cut out the back seat, then welded both halves of our now convertible back together. Painted pink with white-walled tyres, a ‘foxtail’ on the aerial and headlights connected to a battery, it was ready.
There was no room backstage for it so it stayed onstage, under a black sheet for the first two scenes. Blackout. Sheet removed, rolled forward three meters, lights up… and gasps from the audience. They truly had not noticed it sitting there.
