Tusculum, TN - Actually, it is Sunday morning and we are on our way out of town, heading for Raleigh NC. We did a performance of Much Ado last night at Tusculum College, another small religious college located in this eastern Tennessee town right on the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. Prior to this past gig, we did Planet at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA. That performance was pretty OK, but the hall was rather large, and on my first number I lost the beat because all of a sudden I could not hear the band behind me. I had to turn upstage to get the beat back from Chris, and once I did that I walked a bit upstage to get upstage of the proscenium arch, and then I could hear everything. A strange space for that. Jim trenberth had driven over from Ames again to bring Nancy to see the show, and after load-out we went looking for a place to eat, but nothing in Waverly was open at all, so we ended up in the Fox Motel, where we were staying, sitting in the lobby and chatting. Hopefully Jim and Nancy and Ann Marie and I can get together at Stratford ON this summer to see some Shakespeare there. The Fox Motel was a strange little place, something of a "classy" motel sometime in the fifties, but now showing its age. First, they claimed they had "wireless," when in fact they distributed their internet through their electrical system via Netgear. You had to get one at the front desk, and they had a limited number. I tried to set up my wireless Wiflyer, but it has a limited reach through so many walls. Then, on the morning we left, people came down to breakfast, and they had a brand new cook in the back on his first day ever, without any help. My omlette took 40 minutes to arrive, and when it did, the onions were raw. We eneded up being late getting out because everyone's breakfast was delayed. They had to call in the head chef from home to help with the backup. And the place smelled of smoke in the lobby area. Altogether somewhat nasty.Wednesday was another one of our 8-hour travel days. We went from Waverly to Muncie IN. Over the course of this leg of the tour we have had several 8-hour travel days, as it seems our gigs are spaced that far apart. As we approach T-2 weeks and counting, it is clear that we are all weary of 8-hour travel days and the vans.
Next weekend we apparently will be home in Staunton for two days, with one more trip after that before opening with Planet on April 1. Everybody is holding up well under the circumstances, and at least here in the south the greening up of the countryside and the mountains are a welcome exchange from the cold, flat, brown prairie. There are very clear signs of spring in this area, and this morning as I write on a crisp sunny morning the mountains in the distance are a very beautiful sight. Jessica and I tried to find a place to hike yesterday, but everything was too far away and she was not feeling too well, so we shall wait until Shenandoah.Thursday brought us to the Cornerstone Center for the Arts in Muncie, Indiana. The space itself was gorgeous - an opera house environment within an old Masonic Temple.
There was a humongous chandelier hanging above the audience, and a mural above the front of the stage on the ceiling. Apparently there are many more of these in the building. The dressing rooms were sort of tiered along the stage left area, from mainstage level to second floor. The space was old, but sort of dignified, reminding me a little bit of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But although the space was nice, the audience ended up being an obnoxious group of kids, by far the most obnoxious we have encountered. It made the show very difficult to perform, and left everyone in a prety bad mood by the end of the show and the Q&A. It was more than talking; it was just the snide, smug attitude they brought to the event. We could not win the group of boys on the stage right side over, so we settled for getting through the show and out by noon. Done. The staff was very cordial and nice, and I should not paint the audience with such a broad stroke, because there were some audience members who enjoyed the show, and some mentally challenged kids in the house as well who were having a good time. It's so very hard to concentrate on those having a good time when the knuckleheads are at your elbow. One of the great traps of direct audience contact is that, when faced with hecklers, you, as the actor, are constrained, because you don't have the same freedom in those circumstances as the audience has. If we REALLY wanted to have "direct audience contact" then perhaps we should be as free as the actors in Shakespeare's day probably were to handle the hecklers. Ah well, you can't win them all.Thursday we had a troupe meeting to discuss some issues relative to Richard III and to the interludes and pre-show stuff when we get back to the Blackfriars in April. I did not have much to discuss in either context, so I pretty much sat and listened to other's ideas. After the meeting I took a walk out into the suburban MallofAmerica landscape, roamed through a Best Buy, got caught in a small hailstorm, and wandered back to the motel room to begin watching the evening's sports presentations. I have been following the World Baseball Classic, and believe me it has been worth watching. At this point the final is set for Cuba and Japan, but I had been rooting for Korea and Puerto Rico. Team USA was not playing well at all, and their lack of preparation was evident throughout the whole series. It's sort of that same arrogant USA approach to all international sports except maybe soccer - throw together a team of professional players and expect to beat everyone. Well, it don't work that way. All the other teams had their fundamentals sound, and it's interesting to note that the Cubans, an essentially amateur team, and Japan, a country where fundamental baseball is the name of the game, are the teams in the championship. Even teams like Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico had MLB players who are not skills players, and so they lost. I am sorry for Team Korea, who pitched so well and played such great ball beating Japan twice, that due to how the brackets worked they get eliminated even though their record is 5-1. Such is playoff ball. And in watching the NCAA Tournament, Syracuse is already out if it, losing to Texas A&M in the first round. Typical of Syracuse at times, this is not the first time they've had a first-round loss. Usually if they get past the first round they have a good tournament, but such was not to be. Gerry McNamara couldn't play after that great run in the Big East Championship. So it goes. All in all Thursday was not one of the better days in my life.
Then guess what? Friday - another 8-hour van ride. From Muncie IN we took off for Greeneville TN and our Tusculum performance on Saturday night. The drive took us through Knoxville, bypassing Cinncinatti and Lexington KY, where we had lunch in a Waffle House where all the employees had Universuty of Kentucky T-Shirts on. I've come to like Waffle Houses - simple food cooked up right on the grill in front of you. Probably too fatty, but in moderation it's OK. Our performace yesterday in Tusculum was pretty good, given that it had been a long time since we had done a full Much Ado. For the record - Tusculum College gets the prize for worst dining hall food this leg. Nothing about last night's show really stood out except Tyler's dive into the stage left gallant seats during the gulling scene. It was a very nice audience, good receptive house.
And yesterday was Tyler's 26th birthday, so during the pre-show the Blackfriars Four sang "Happy Birthday" to him on stage before "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." After the show some of the troupe went to help Tyler celebrate, but I stayed in for the semifinal game between Korea and Japan, which Japan won 6-1. I did not see the whole game, falling asleep during the rain delay, but I did see all the scoring.So today - Sunday - is a travel day again, about 6 hours to Raleigh, where tomorrow we get sort of a day off. Due to some confusion and delay, we have to stay in two different hotels while there. So tonight is one hotel, and during our day off we have to switch hotels. The second one is nice, I hear. We are in Raleigh for a few days, doing both the 90-minute and the full Much Ado, and then Planet the second night. From there it's off to Lexington VA to Virginia Military Academy and then to Lewisburg WV for a Much Ado, and then home for a weekend. I am going to give the same lecture at North Carolina State that I gave at UA-Huntsville for a special workshop, so I have to polish that up a bit.
I must say that today the drive is pretty spectacular. As I write this we are passing through the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, just east of Asheville NC. From Greeneville TN we drove up into the mountains and along a very winding mountain raod, following the Paint Creek. The road was hilly, winding and narrow, but the view was very nice. There were some nice hollows within the mountains, and as we came to a crossroads in the river there was a spot where several fishermen were flyfishing for trout. The area was dotted with some very nice houses mixed with some run-down shacks. We've crossed the Appalachians in several places now in the south, and every time it's been quite nice. Again, I am struck by the beauty of the scenery and the temperateness of the climate. It's no wonder people like to retire down to this part of the country. You get the benefit of four seasons but not the bitter harshness of deep winters, with earlier springs and slightly longer falls. Hard to beat. Makes me long for a weekend on my land. -TWL
No comments:
Post a Comment