Tweet
Peewee and i arrived at the venue in the States after having endured a long, cramped and irritating journey on Virgin....i would have prefered it short and irritating similar to the experience of actually losing my virginity but the States insists on being so far away from Europe that it forces us to travel in metal boxes 40,000 feet up in the sky just to see our long lost friends.
Anyway.
We arrived.
The venue sat 2000 people but was a huge gym not really equipped to deal with theatre or cabaret, acoustically weird but dealable with after 15 years on the street battling traffic noise.
However, and this is something we are all used to as streeties, the stage was a circus ring completely in the round....under normal circumstances this is fine on the street BUT actually we always have a "back edge"....it is just something that naturally happens, we unconsiously play for part of the audience with most people. But in a cabaret where people have paid a fee this proves to be a bit tricky.
Anyway, we can deal with that too, just have to remember to keep shifting focus and make sure we reach everybody as much as possible.
The show starts with the house band. The gym is half full so people are scattered everywhere and often sitting as far away as possible in little family clumps.
Between 3 acts we have created an hour long show but have tried to be more creative by doing new bits with each other, a bit nerve racking.
Anyway.
We all enter the ring to the house band and do some farting around, a bit like a prologue so people can see what they are in for, our ballroom costumes glitter magnificently under the lights, then we exit.
As we warm up for our main act with about 5 minutes to go and nerves jangling we hear the stage manager hissing into his mobile phone 'yes, yes i know, its very rude isn't it?' but we don't give it much thought as we are psyching up to go on stage.
He hangs up and turns to look at us.
His eyes are blazing, temples pounding and his face is erupting into a vesuvius fury.
Uh-oh, we think.
He advances towards us and paddles like a seagull on the spot.
'those numbers' he hisses.
'what numbers?' we reply
'on the back of your costume'
'eh?'
'THEY'RE.... RUDE!'
'eh?'
(at this point i should explain, we do a ballroom parody and have flamboyant pink and lime green costumes with the competition number '69' sewn on our backs)
'ITS RUDE'
'what are you talking about?' Peewee hisses in a tone rising in fury. At this point we are due to go on in about 2 minutes and Peewee's face is white under his fake tan makeup and angry sweat has formed on his top lip.
'the number, its a... its a......SEX ACT!'
'oh for fucks sake' Peewee retorts
'you have to take them off'
'but we've already been on stage, AND I AM NOT RIPPING MY COSTUMES APART' i hiss indignantly.
'well you can't go on then' he replies, eyeballs bulging.
'who is responsible for this bullshit?' Peewee says through clenched teeth.
'the festival producer and ME' he says proudly
'well he's a fucking arsehole and we are not covering them up' peewee says
'SHUT UP Peewee' i hiss
'well you're not going on then' the stage manager snarles
'OH FOR FUCKS SAKE' Peewee says
By this time i am in Peewee's face trying to calm him down by telling him we are about to go on stage and i am not going on if he is going to be a rabid rottweiller. i turn around to see the stage manager coming towards us with a large roll of black duck tape as if he's about to gag us. i hiss at Peewee 'just do what then guy wants' so that the 'show can go on' and we don't fuck it up for the friend who booked us.
The stage manager whips us around and begins frantically slapping duck tape all over our backs like a whirling dervish.
We are stunned.
We enter the stage.
We smile and begin, knowing that our show can be a bit cheeky and we are now unsure as to what we can do. So we play it safe and cut 50% of our stuff.
We exit.
i try to engage the stage manager in a calm conversation and ask him what the problem was.
he replies defiantly 'HOW AM I GOING TO EXPLAIN THE NUMBER 69 TO MY 7 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER?'
I gaze at him, a number of answers come into my head like-
....tell her its a our competition number...
... if she doesn't understand the significance of the number 69 it doesn't matter ITS JUST A NUMBER
...if she is offended by the number (a 7 year old? offended?) then she knows already what it implies and its too late to save her from damnation...
...how can you protect her from say, number 69 Bruce Avenue, or the number of balloons counted after 68 and between 70?
But instead, i walk away, wish him a Happy New Year and take a glug of water.
For days after that, audience members come up to us and say 'hey great show!, but why did you suddenly come out with your numbers covered up?'
So all that strange moralistic behaviour had completely the opposite result, by censoring us he just highlighted the significance of the nmber 69 and now there are 150 seven year olds still asking the question 'mummy, PLEASE tell me, why did they cover up the number 69?'
'well Jenny, its like this.....'
....(But we had a great time and wouldn't change that night for the world!)
Anyway.
We arrived.
The venue sat 2000 people but was a huge gym not really equipped to deal with theatre or cabaret, acoustically weird but dealable with after 15 years on the street battling traffic noise.
However, and this is something we are all used to as streeties, the stage was a circus ring completely in the round....under normal circumstances this is fine on the street BUT actually we always have a "back edge"....it is just something that naturally happens, we unconsiously play for part of the audience with most people. But in a cabaret where people have paid a fee this proves to be a bit tricky.
Anyway, we can deal with that too, just have to remember to keep shifting focus and make sure we reach everybody as much as possible.
The show starts with the house band. The gym is half full so people are scattered everywhere and often sitting as far away as possible in little family clumps.
Between 3 acts we have created an hour long show but have tried to be more creative by doing new bits with each other, a bit nerve racking.
Anyway.
We all enter the ring to the house band and do some farting around, a bit like a prologue so people can see what they are in for, our ballroom costumes glitter magnificently under the lights, then we exit.
As we warm up for our main act with about 5 minutes to go and nerves jangling we hear the stage manager hissing into his mobile phone 'yes, yes i know, its very rude isn't it?' but we don't give it much thought as we are psyching up to go on stage.
He hangs up and turns to look at us.
His eyes are blazing, temples pounding and his face is erupting into a vesuvius fury.
Uh-oh, we think.
He advances towards us and paddles like a seagull on the spot.
'those numbers' he hisses.
'what numbers?' we reply
'on the back of your costume'
'eh?'
'THEY'RE.... RUDE!'
'eh?'
(at this point i should explain, we do a ballroom parody and have flamboyant pink and lime green costumes with the competition number '69' sewn on our backs)
'ITS RUDE'
'what are you talking about?' Peewee hisses in a tone rising in fury. At this point we are due to go on in about 2 minutes and Peewee's face is white under his fake tan makeup and angry sweat has formed on his top lip.
'the number, its a... its a......SEX ACT!'
'oh for fucks sake' Peewee retorts
'you have to take them off'
'but we've already been on stage, AND I AM NOT RIPPING MY COSTUMES APART' i hiss indignantly.
'well you can't go on then' he replies, eyeballs bulging.
'who is responsible for this bullshit?' Peewee says through clenched teeth.
'the festival producer and ME' he says proudly
'well he's a fucking arsehole and we are not covering them up' peewee says
'SHUT UP Peewee' i hiss
'well you're not going on then' the stage manager snarles
'OH FOR FUCKS SAKE' Peewee says
By this time i am in Peewee's face trying to calm him down by telling him we are about to go on stage and i am not going on if he is going to be a rabid rottweiller. i turn around to see the stage manager coming towards us with a large roll of black duck tape as if he's about to gag us. i hiss at Peewee 'just do what then guy wants' so that the 'show can go on' and we don't fuck it up for the friend who booked us.
The stage manager whips us around and begins frantically slapping duck tape all over our backs like a whirling dervish.
We are stunned.
We enter the stage.
We smile and begin, knowing that our show can be a bit cheeky and we are now unsure as to what we can do. So we play it safe and cut 50% of our stuff.
We exit.
i try to engage the stage manager in a calm conversation and ask him what the problem was.
he replies defiantly 'HOW AM I GOING TO EXPLAIN THE NUMBER 69 TO MY 7 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER?'
I gaze at him, a number of answers come into my head like-
....tell her its a our competition number...
... if she doesn't understand the significance of the number 69 it doesn't matter ITS JUST A NUMBER
...if she is offended by the number (a 7 year old? offended?) then she knows already what it implies and its too late to save her from damnation...
...how can you protect her from say, number 69 Bruce Avenue, or the number of balloons counted after 68 and between 70?
But instead, i walk away, wish him a Happy New Year and take a glug of water.
For days after that, audience members come up to us and say 'hey great show!, but why did you suddenly come out with your numbers covered up?'
So all that strange moralistic behaviour had completely the opposite result, by censoring us he just highlighted the significance of the nmber 69 and now there are 150 seven year olds still asking the question 'mummy, PLEASE tell me, why did they cover up the number 69?'
'well Jenny, its like this.....'
....(But we had a great time and wouldn't change that night for the world!)
Comment