The End is in Sight

And here we are blog, over half-way through the run with only two weeks to go. It has been marvellous so far and the audience on the whole have been supportive and laughed along…eventually. It usually takes the first few scenes for them to get warmed up and in on the swing of things. With Egeon’s tragic speech opening the play, we’ve found the first-time Shakespeare go-ers thinking ‘I thought this was a comedy!’ but the Dromios soon get them going with their hilarity.

Performing in that space has been great, you really feel that the audience is part of the whole action and this can be intimidating and liberating at the same time. I feel this particularly during my soliloquy which still fills me with nerves before every show because I am talking to strangers, who are different every night, and you as a performer are never quite sure of their reaction every night. On the other hand this is hugely thrilling and I find that my performance is quite different every night. I suppose this is the magic of the theatre.

We’ve also found as a company that the audience can get quite involved. There is one part where Dromio of Ephesus (Owain Arthur) crawls around the stage, practically in the laps of the audience, desperately trying to escape his master’s wrath. He eventually ends up cuddled up next to an audience member usually with a programme masking his face. One night an involved audience member shouted to Antipholus of Ephesus (in far harsher words) to ‘Go away and leave him alone’. I at this point literally had to hold my face to stop myself from laughing out loud on the stage in front of 600 people. It was very shocking and very funny.

So blog I suppose this is the time to say goodbye. It has been such a pleasure being with you over the past 2 months. In some ways it feels like it was only yesterday that I conceived you in this very room. O, how I have loved you and now I am letting you go. Goodbye blog…goodbye.