Friday Five: Looking Back

The most-hyped film of 2013 is due for Australian release next weekend. In the lead-up to Baz Luhrmann’s bombastic take on The Great Gatsby, there has been a general scramble to show appreciation of the jazz age. This includes many folk opining how much they would have liked to have lived in the 1920s, when glamour was de rigueur and showgirls were awash with champagne.

I’ve never really got this ‘born into the wrong era’ thing. For one thing, if you were lucky enough to be a Bright Young Thing in the 1920s, you had a great depression, another World War and the chilling spectre of fascism looming on the horizon. As for fashion, those dresses (not to mention those dances) aren’t at all becoming for larger-chested women. And women (aged 21 and above) did not achieve the right to vote until 1928 in the UK. (The Representation of the People Act of 1918 only enfranchised women over 30 who met minimum property requirements).

Herein lies much of the problem. When people look back longingly at bygone eras and imagine themselves in such times, they are thinking of the rich, the male and the white. Admittedly there is still a long way to go (and many of today’s young women are actually retarding the cause by assuming it is no longer an issue) but there has never been a better time to be a woman than right now in the Western democratic world.

I have the right to vote; to work; to be educated; to be healthy; to live how I want and love whom I want. So when people ask in what decade you would most like to live, I have to say now. Many people seem to like to wallow in nostalgia, and I have recently come across many examples of this, but I will not play that past is better game.

5 Examples of Moribund Nostalgia:

1. The Hollow by Agatha Christie – I recently performed in this play which includes many lines about memory and going back to our roots. “The past is sometimes a very good place to live.”
2. Midnight in Paris – fellow cast members had a discussion about this film, which illustrates in a surprisingly gentle way how even those who live in the so-called halcyon days don’t see them as such as yearn for something else.
3. The Past and Other Lies by Maggie Joel – a book I was reading at the time of the run, which follows three sets of sisters in London from WWI until ‘now’ and includes this quote:

   “You were meant to get nostalgic for the past once you reached a certain age, but it hadn’t happened. And why would it? The past wasn’t somewhere any right-thinking person would wish to dwell. It contained far too much that you were sad had gone forever, and so much more that was just plain unpleasant. And it got no less unpleasant just because the years had passed. You just felt the pain of it less, that was all.”

4. An article I read in The Word magazine by Rob Fitzpatrick about our attitude to young people’s music, in which he writes,

   “Don’t waste your life trying to steal back the past. But just as importantly, don’t try and trash the future either – because it’s not ours to trash. The people it belongs to don’t care what we think anyway.”

5. “The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there” – the opening line from L.P Hartley’s The Go-Between, and a great quote.

Friday Five: Theatre Superstitons

Tonight is opening night of Tempo Theatre’s production of Agatha Christie’s The Hollow in which I am performing. I would like to wish all the cast and crew the very best. Yes, good luck and all that.

Now, there are a lot of superstitions in the theatre. People will tell you that thespians are almost as superstitious as sailors. I don’t know any sailors, so I couldn’t possibly comment. I do know a lot of theatre types. Some of them (heaven forfend) are somewhat pretentious – ’tis the nature of the beast – but few of them are superstitious.

 

Some of the more well-known superstitions stem from historical reasons, but they have no relevance today. Like business jargon, they are merely used to form a club, to fake importance and exclude others. If your art is worth doing, it will stand alone without the need for nonsense and special terminology. I hereby declare theatre superstitions as bunkum.

 

5 Nonsensical theatre superstitions:

1. Good luck – It is considered bad luck to wish someone good luck before performance. Apparently there are evil fairies who listen in and pervert the positive vibes – conspiracy theories, anyone? So people wish each other ill-luck to confuse these easily befuddled fairies. Many English-speaking thespians exhort each other to ‘break a leg’ and Australians announce ‘chookas’. This apparently originates from the fact that actors are poor and chicken is expensive so if the house was full and the actors were paid according to box-office takings, they could afford chicken for dinner. ‘Chooks it is’ was shortened to ‘chookas’ and it’s off to KFC for all. Classy folk, those Aussies.
2. Macbeth – Some folk claim that if you mention Macbeth (or quote lines from the play) in a theatre or you will have to leave the theatre, turn around three times, spit, and knock on the door to be invited back in. Apparently the play is cursed, and several explanations are offered. One; because it contains a lot of sword-fighting and people are likely to get hurt, two; the witches were cross that their secrets were revealed, three; some idiots believe the Globe was burned down during a performance of Macbeth. (It was actually Henry VIII – live cannons on stage will do that for you). For this reason, theatre folk tend to refer to it as ‘the Scottish play’. To that I say, ‘bollocks’. Or, in the immortal words of the fabulous Stephen Fry, “Macbeth, which we actors call [pause for dramatic effect] Macbeth.’
3. Whistling – this one does actually have a reasonable origin. It is considered bad form to whistle in a theatre, because riggers used to use a code of whistles to change set, scenery, lighting and other stage effects. Since the invention of communication devices, however, this is hardly relevant.
4. Bad dress rehearsal – people claim that a bad dress rehearsal means a subsequent sterling opening night. What tosh. A bad dress rehearsal means the cast and crew are under-prepared and it is something directors are forced into saying to boost the spirits of their woeful company.
5. Ghosts – every theatre worth its salt has a resident ghost. It’s a great scapegoat for things going missing or not being where you swear you set them. Theatres are usually closed for at least one night a week, to allow the ghosts to have their own performance. Never mind that the actors need a rest. Or that the off-night is usually a Monday when paying audiences don’t tend to go out after a hectic and expensive weekend.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 15: Opening Night

"Things are not what they seem, and all the rest of it." - Inspector Colqhoun, C.I. D.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 14

"You just close your eyes and press the trigger and the bullet goes somewhere." - Henrietta Angkatell

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 13

"Shan't get any more money, shall I, when I'm trained? Doesn't seem worth being trained then, does it?" - Doris

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 12

"We often know quite well who's guilty of crime, but we can't always get sufficent evidence." - Inspector Colquhoun, C.I.D.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 11

"What's rubbed your fur up the wrong way, kitten?" - Sir Henry Angkatell, K.C.B.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 10

"If you know all about a man, you can guess who would have wanted to murder him." - Inspector Colquhoun, C.I.D.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 9

"How was I to know how irritating devotion can be?" - John Cristow, M.D., F.R.C.P.

Friday Five: Merry Murders

As part of my research into the role I am playing in Agatha Christie's The Hollow, (Tempo Theatre, May 17-25), I have been reading lots of murder mysteries. Not the gory forensic ones or the grisly serial killer twisted psychopathic ones (often set in Scandinavia and clearly doing wonders for those country's tourism boards) but the ones set in country houses (or, disturbingly, theatres) where everything is very jolly and people gather patiently at the end to learn whodunit from the brilliant detective.

There's always an assortment of folk with motives and alibis - everyone is a suspect except (although not always excluded from the list) the victim. When the person has been murdered, there is never any real grief or emotion; just a curiosity as to the perpetrator. And all ends are neatly tied up with a pleasant reassurance.

Some people inherit or even get married and it's all happily ever after - except, of course, for the victim and the murderer who either gets meekly led away to face justice (they never get off on a technicality) or conveniently kills themself, thus sparing everyone else the trouble of a trial. Lovely!

5 Murder Mysteries I've Recently Read:

1. The Hollow/ Three Act Tragedy/ The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie. Classics.
2. Death at the Dolphin/ A Man Lay Dead - Ngaio Marsh. Not the most pleasant of detectives in Roderick Alleyn, but he always gets his man, or woman.
3. The Full Cupboard of Life - Alexander McCall Smith. The fifth in the No 1 Ladies' Detecive Series. I've read the others and enjoyed them, so this was really just an excuse. There is barely any detection but quite a lot of bush psychology and tea-drinking.
4. The Murder Room - P.D. James. A modern-ish take on the genre and there is a serial killer, but the other stuff is all present and correct.
5. Gaudy Night - Dorothy L Sayers. A murder mystery without a murder. Curious. But it's set in Oxford so one should expect high-brow existentialism.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 8

"Jealousy does make people do such dreadful things." - Veronica Craye

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 7

"It's a little worrying if one feels that the person left in charge isn't really reliable." - Gerda Cristow

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 6

"I've never been very good at - doing things. I always regard myself as a walking example of how to fail in life." - Edward Angkatell

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 5

"A man doesn't become a doctor because he has a partiality for sick people. It's the disease that's interesting, not the patient. I don't cure them. Just hand out faith, hope, and probably a laxative." - John Cristow, M.D., F.R.C.P.

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 4

"To show an independent spirit, one needs an independent income." - Midge Harvey

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 3

"Autumn takes one back - one keeps saying, 'Don't you remember?'" - Henrietta Angkatell

Gibbston Valley

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 2

"The worst of moles is - you never know where they are going to pop up next." - Lady Angkatell

Count Down Quotes to 'The Hollow' 1

It's two weeks until the opening night of Tempo Theatre's production of The Hollow, so I thought I would post a daily quote from the play - old Aggie could be acerbically amusing when she wanted.

"You can't help your parents, Doris." - Gudgeon (the butler)

Perfume Update

Further to my post about choosing a perfume to suit my character in the Tempo Production of The Hollow, I have settled on Paloma Picasso. It is variously described as, 'seductive; strong; smoldering; distinctive; vivacious; dramatic; luxurious; voluptuous’. I think that should do the trick!

Friday Five: Perfume

I am playing the character of Veronica Craye in the Tempo Theatre production of Agatha Christie's The Hollow. She will be a challenge to play and is variously described as "a well-known film star", "a very beautiful woman and knows it", "a damned egoist out to grab everything she could get", "a mixture of opulence and self-advertisment", and "a bitch of the first water". Such fun!

In getting to grips with a character, it's the little things that help an actor to find a way in to play them. Agatha Christie adapted this play from her own novel, in which she expands a little on each of her suspects (as, apart from the victim, that is what they all are). She writes of Veronica's perfume that it is "expensive but cloying, overpowering like her personality."

This leads me to want to find the correct perfume to wear, as I feel that might give me an insight into the woman. Scent is a powerful thing and we make assumptions from a single sniff based on a complex combination of memory and assoication. I think perhaps Christian Dior's Poison might be the thing to wear as Veronica. If you have any suggestions please let me know. Meanwhile, I've been thinking about perfume in general,

5 Favourite Perfumes:

1. Coco Madamoiselle by Chanel - it's what I'm wearing now (as are Kate Moss and Keira Knightley, if you believe the adverts - video included below especially for Mr Smartypants). Described as classy, elegant, citrusy, sexy, fresh and feminine in reviews I've read - I like a comment about this being the transition fragrance from cloying sweet girly to floral old lady.
2. Champs Elysees by Guerlain - apparently it is a fruity-floral fragrance in which mimosa, rose, almond, and forest fruits are followed by melon and exotic fruits. I like the bottle too. And the name.
3. Vanderbilt by Gloria Vanderbilt - I used to wear this when I was younger and it reminds me of youth and living in upstate New York. Review sites describe it as romantic, dreamy, floral-oriental with notes of cinnamon, citrus, wood, leather, smoke and pineapple, which sounds like an interesting combination. It was first released in 1982 and so is now considered old-fashioned (which means it's 'reasonably-priced' and sold at the chemist).
4. Miracle by Lancôme - spicy, gingery, peppery and different. A touch of floral and musk makes it a little bit flirty. Men notice this perfume in a good way, and comment favourably on it, as in 'You smell good', which is as eloquent a compliment as some men give.
5. No. 5 by Chanel - It's quite simply a classic. Big and bold and uncompromising, you know when you've encountered it. And my mum wears it. These are all reasons to love it but although it apparently smells different on everybody, I can't ever wear it because in my mind it 'belongs' to mother.