After arriving in Edinburgh, and following a nights sleep in a very comfortable guest house bed, we arrived at the Festival Theatre, which was to be our home for the next week. Having had the time between Glasgow and Edinburgh split up by the rig for the Introduction to Collaborative Practice module, it was nice to reestablish myself with the show, something which did not take long after stepping onto the identically reassembled set. Babette set us an orienteering task upon our arrival to see if the signs she had erected were easy enough to understand and navigate the building with and, following this, we set about repairing loose or broken safety tape on handrails and stairs and marking out a cast walkway so as to ensure they didn’t walk onto – and break – Sound’s fibre optic cable. What became apparent, through this, was that – though the stage was a lot bigger – it didn’t feel as such, just feeling like an extension of void space onto the show we had produced in Glasgow. Maybe that was why I felt settled in so quickly – and felt a little underwhelmed. Apart from a few minor re-blocking points, the two Sound-focused runs went smoothly, our only issues resulting from a broken wine glass which was dealt with quickly and safely. The show then opened in Edinburgh, and ran, just as it had in the Ath, with few issues. Except one.
We all knew the table was going to break – it was just a question of when. During the Glasgow run it had become apparent that a coffee table which a performer throws their entire weight onto during a scene was not meant to handle such force – IKEA furniture made of 1mm box steel rarely is. Following the Saturday matinee performance which had rendered the table at a forty-five-degree angle, I tried to reinforce the item as best I could, putting in more screws and ties in an attempt to strengthen any assembly join that could come loose. This proved effective, as it was the welded joints, in fact, that buckled during the evening’s performance, resulting in the table collapsing on stage during Act One. Though this was then dealt with, I proceeded to analyse what had gone wrong with the table and whether the actor in question was hurt, alongside Babette, whilst Rosie and Rachel began devising ideas of how to best deal with having one less furniture item in Act Two. This is something I really respected them for as, whilst I was immediately focused on what had gone wrong, they chose to focus on how to continue the show – an arguably more important decision. The show continued without further incident.
The Edinburgh strike ended up being a lot more slick than the Glasgow one, with cage and case packed and locked within forty-five minutes of curtain call. Following a debrief, of sorts, in the Stage Management room, I proceeded to execute the responsibilities I had undertaken in Glasgow, first stripping AV and camera cables, then moving onto flooring with the extra members of the TSM crew who had been brought in to help. As a result of everyone’s determination – and a sheer need to get to bed – the show was down and packed by 3am. This was an incredibly rewarding experience, as to do a strike like this to industry standards get you into a work ethic which a twelve-hour strike doesn’t – something I found very beneficial. It also let me learn from the EFT venues crew, drawing on their experience to teach me better ways of doing things like hauling in bars or lifting flats from irons and strops.
So, covered in steel dust and with some of the worse hard hat hair of my life, I left EFT and Chess, after a show which had taught me so much – not only about practice and technique, but also about myself and what kind of practitioner I should aspire to be.