I also did not mention what a pleasant drive we had from Danville to Fredericksburgh. Up US Highway 350 on a beautiful, sunny day. The road was lined with very pretty farms, and had no "MallofAmerica" strips along it. A tree-lined, four-lane highway with a 60MPH speed limit, it was a magnificently genteel cruise up the state of Virginia. We made one stop at a local mini-mart, where I could not resist buying a moon pie and a $5 "Bah Humbucks" VA lottery ticket scratch-off. I won nothing. Typical. -TWL
Fredericksburgh, VA - It's a quiet Sunday morning, and today marks the end of our stay in Fredericksburgh, VA. We did two Much Ados on Friday, one at a local high school and one evening performance at University of Mary Washington, which is the home of the Fredericksburgh Festival of the Arts. The yesterday it was Planet in the afternoon, and R3 in the evening. This afternoon we have another Much Ado, and then off to Bethesda MD for a day at a local girl's academy in the area, and back to Staunton by Monday evening. Our final gig is in Goochland VA, between RIchmond and Charlottesville, and then the fall leg is complete.I think everyone is looking forward to the upcoming Thanksgiving break. While the general mood of the company remains positive and the shows seem intact and strong this weekend, there is still that little sense of anticipation in the air as you catch snippets of phone calls or conversations. People have made preparations for travel, and we all can only hope that the nasty weather which seems to be in the offing for the east coast is not as bad as is being predicted. I am leaving for home after Tuesday's show, and all the weather reports seem to indicate heavy rain and/or snow. I am scheduled for an MRI in Jamestown on Wednesday morning, so Tuesday will be a caffineated day, to be sure.
This final push out has not been too bad. The trip from Lawrenceville to Danville was very nice, about 2.5 hours. What has been most regretful for me this last leg has been the inability to get to see some sites around the area. Lawrenceville seems from the van to be not too prosperous an area, but upon arriving at Danville, I seemed to get the impression that this was a fairly prosperous place. We drove right through the downtown area, and it seemed impressive from the van. At the very least I can tell you that the main street (Main Street?) was lined with these incredibly large houses; one might say mansions, except they probably are all now multi-family dwellings or offices. The churches were all neatly tucked in among these houses. It was an architectural site, and I found myself imagining the splendor of these places during the pre-Civil War era. Not being an architectural historian of any sort, I would imagine some of them were built after the war as well. This area is just south of Appomatox, Richmond and Petersburgh, so the notions of what the place was like during the mid-nineteenth century came readily.
In Danville we played at Averett College, and just like the rest of the town, it too
was a neat collection of buildings set right in the heart of the town. It's one of those colleges where the main buildings all have four large Dorian columns at their main entrances. On this campus I did not see one modern building (even the dorms seemed about 1950s or so), but one was in the offing at the rear of the campus. The campus itself had many small green areas, but no wide open quadrant. We got a warm welcome from Joey in Student Life, had lunch during their Cuisines of the World event in the cafeteria, and then checked into the motel.The Stratford Inn was a bizarre motel which, at its height somewhere 40 or 50 years ago was probably thought to be a five-star accomodation, but it has since gone to seed. It consisted of four little complexes scattered across the hill. There was a dining room, a bar (Which closed at 10:00 PM on weekdays to the frustration of a few company members), and a front office which never answered the phone. When you went into the bathroom, the back of the door had the same wallpaper as the walls, which led to this eerie feeling of having been transported and caged in some little surreal jail cell. The electricity was wired so weirdly that you had to throw a set of switches in just the right combination to get the electricity to work. All of the furnishings and decor were dark and somber, and the feeling of decayed elegance permeated everything. I would up with the feeling that it sort of symbolized the area itself, but I did not get any chance to explore the rest of the city beyond the college.
We did Much Ado for the college in a cavernous theatre which, again, spoke to a time long gone by. The theatre's rigging system, such as it was, was managed by sandbags. There was stuff everywhere around the theatre complex. Every nook and cranny seemed to be filled with props or construction material or furniture. A hallway served as storage for their wood supply. Paint cans were open and in the alcoves of the entrances to house right and left. A seat cushion sat in another alcove atop some sort of set piece. Backstage were all manner of tools and more storage. The dressing rooms were off the costume shop, and bolts of cloth and other material were stacked along every wall. I have absolutely no idea why this theatre on this campus continued to operate, as the whole place broke almost every known fire and emergency code in existence. Daniel is actually qualified as a fire inspector, and he was as in awe of how many violations there were as I was. Again, it all just had a feel of an era gone by, as if the whole theatre complex was still in the 50s. Quite amazing.
The performance itself was, as usual, OK; it's always mostly the audience reaction that creates the difference. As the space was large there was little chance for intimacy, and the bulk of the audience seemed to be made up of students looking for extra credit. In fact, Tyler said that, while he was in the audience during the gulling scene, some of the students actually asked him for his autograph, as they got extra credit for doing so. It was also pretty hot in that space, and I think the heat got to everyone. The rush to get out at the end was great, and I had a hard time getting through the crowd to my merchandise table. I think when we play these larger proscenium spaces it is much harder to create that sense of audience involvement which original practices encourages. It makes me wonder sometimes about original practices in the Blackfriars vrs, original practices in the Globe. Were they different? Or is it just the expectations and assumptions of the audiences which have radically changed? We certainly don't play for Elizabethan audiences, and I think in larger spaces that makes a difference in how our original practices come across. I find in general our shows in smaller spaces, such as the one we're in now, are more conducive to original practices.
Here in Fredericksburgh we are working in a large ballroom in Lee Hall. The stage is makeshift, and it shakes a great deal. making us a bit nervous at times. We are pretty much locked into the backstage area, as we cannot leave the ballroom itself without being seen. There are numerous flags hanging from the rafters, giving the place in international feel. The audiences have not been large, mostly filling the center section three rows deep and a bit to either side. When we play on these portable spaces we have no seats on stage, so audience contact is a bit limited to the sides. Bill Gordon, our booking dude down in Staunton, is with us this weekend, and seems to be having a good time. We ARE the "Festival of the Arts" this weekend. I had thought we were one attraction in a number of art events in town, but it turns out we are it. The people who run the event seem pleased (I think this is ASC's seventh year here), but they also seem disappointed about the small turnout. The audiences here are enthusiastic, and like other places where ASC has played for a number of years, there are people who come every year to every show. But given the number of chairs set up, we are playing to 50% of capacity.
So it is this morning that, as I come to the final days of the fall leg of this tour, I find myself wondering about audiences. In each city we've played, and especially in places were we don't play every year, the audiences appear to be small but loyal followings of people combined with a sprinkling of students. In places like Canton and Shreveport, where the company's annual visit is a highlight of the year, there is a dedicated collection of people who love to have us in, yet that group is always rather small, and does not seem to have a broad base reaching into the community at large. They tend to be academics in the humanities and fine arts, waging a somewhat quixotic struggle to bring culture to their part of the world. In no place that we've played could the box office had paid our fee. This same issue is cropping up back home in Fredonia, where choosing a season is primarily dictated not by artist value or educational value, but by whether or not the audience will come to see the show. When I examine and try to make sense out of what I do as an actor, this question about the audience always seems to nag me. Deep in my actor's soul, I want to play for audiences that are lively, engaged, and to some measure will take out with them the ideas, thoughts and feelings which a play might produce and incorporate (or actively reject) that experience into their lives so as to enrich their lives and the lives of those around them. Yet I am more often struck with the reality that most audience members who attend a play watch, listen, nod, approve, admire, compliment, and then move on. Another cultural notch on the belt. I think if I could make up a rule about academics coming to cultural events, it would be that they had to go find someone somewhere on campus or in town who had never seen a Shakespeare play (or whatever particular cultural event they might be attending) and bring them to that event, aiding in whatever manner needed to help the neophyte enjoy it. Unless they did that, they would not be admitted. It will never happen, of course, and it's a silly notion. But it comes from wishing that Shakespeare's original audience conditions could once again be a reality; where the poor and the rich, the educated and the illiterate all came together in one place at one time to revel in these words and stories and took them to heart. If we can labor to create original staging practices for the players, perhaps we might also turn our labor to creating original practices for our audiences as well. -TWL
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