<\/p>\n
I see it all. I see it all, but who sees me?<\/p>\n
You could say I run the show. Well sure, you nod. From a technical point of view. The lighting-guy gets the cues wrong or goes AWOL, the actors perform on a dark set. But that\u2019s not what I mean. Any button-pusher can follow cues. Even in an amateur affair like ours where everyone multi-tasks, so that generally I double up as the sound-guy, it\u2019s hardly rocket science. Of course, there is loading up the lighting-rig. And that takes up an entire morning. And there\u2019s the gels, and gobos. Checking the wattage. The temperature. Fixing the barn-doors. Programming the control-panel so it pretty much runs itself. Again, it doesn\u2019t exactly require a degree in engineering.<\/p>\n
What it means, in the run up to a show, and even more for the couple of weeks we\u2019re on the circuit, I don\u2019t get the jitters the rest of them get. Nor, I suppose, the vertiginous thrill. What I do get is time. Lots of time. Also, perspective. The skewed perspective of the lighting-box, maybe – shadows more marked than uprights. But what you get to see from up here is the fly-on-the-wall stuff. The see-and-don\u2019t-be-seen stuff. The faces pulled behind backs. The stage-kiss that was just that bit too long. <\/p>\n
Take that one, there – her with the tiny eyes and hairdo far too youthful? Aileen, the secretary. A tongue on her like caustic soda. And that guy with the comb-over, in the sheepskin jacket? Looks harmless, yes? What if I was to tell you he\u2019d do anything to see his brother taken down a peg? And trust me, I mean anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n I\u2019d been with Hurly Burly<\/em> maybe a dozen seasons the year Alma Flynn walked in on an audition. Just like that, no introductions. Alma Flynn, who might\u2019ve been fifteen, who might\u2019ve been twenty-five. In fact it was a couple of months since her Leaving Certificate. She told Bev straight out she\u2019d only showed up for the auditions because her people hadn\u2019t the money to put her through drama school. <\/p>\n One thing about Hurly Burly<\/em>, it takes the circuit pretty damned seriously. Readings for the circuit start in August, though we won\u2019t tour before the following February. That year, it was A View from the Bridge<\/em>. Arthur Miller\u2019s classic, you know it? Tight piece, gutsy. Now, you\u2019re not going to attempt a play like that unless you\u2019ve got Eddie Carbone in the bag, and Beatrice, and Katie. Most Am Dram groups could probably swing the first two. But getting someone to play a teenager just coming of age? I guess that\u2019s how come you don\u2019t see A View from the Bridge<\/em> so much on the amateur stage.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a small group, Hurly Burly<\/em>. A matriarchy, too, to the extent that the only one who ever did or ever would direct was Bev Gardner. Bev\u2019s American. Usually, we stuck to three or four-handers. Five actors max, with maybe a couple of walk-ons. So this play was already going to be a challenge. In Philip Rattigan, Bev had her lead \u2013 he\u2019d won a hatful of best actors down the years and besides, Rattigan has a swarthy look. Could pass for Italian, and he can nail a Brooklyn accent. And then, like every Am Dram group in the history of Am Dram, we\u2019d no shortage of contenders to play Beatrice Carbone. Generally it would\u2019ve gone to Lisa Corrigan, Rattigan\u2019s other half. But she\u2019d announced at the AGM she was six weeks gone, and she\u2019d be showing come February. She\u2019d be happy to manage backstage. As for the other ladies vying for the part, it was going to come down to chemistry, pure and simple. What worked on stage.<\/p>\n And Catherine, the niece? As it happened, Lisa Corrigan had a niece. And that niece had picked up a couple of adjudicator awards the previous year for her portrayal of Girleen in The Lonesome West<\/em>. She was a spry thing, elvish. Saoirse Corrigan had only recently turned sixteen, so it was in part to act as chaperone that her Aunt Lisa suggested managing backstage. They could share a room on any stopover. So the auditions that night were basically to select a Beatrice to play opposite Rattigan\u2019s Eddie Carbone. That and to try to shoe-horn the remainder of the membership into the available parts. If they could bury their animosity, the Donlon twins could make a passable Marco and Rodolpho. But as for Alfieri the lawyer-narrator, PJ Kelleher\u2019s accent was so bad the joke was Bev would have to rename the character Alf O\u2019Leary.<\/p>\n Auditions were just about to resume after coffee-break when into the hall breezed Alma Flynn, all four foot ten and spikey hair and faded denims. Now, it\u2019s not my part to talk about the politics of the Am Dram group. I can\u2019t say what code of ties and loyalties is supposed to operate. What I can say, down the years Bev Gardner never shied away from displaying her ruthless streak. Bev was all about making the finals in Athlone, and making the finals in Athlone is what Hurly Burly<\/em> should be about. If that meant drafting in a new face from outside the group, so be it. That was Bev\u2019s ethic, part of her American DNA.<\/p>\n The long and the short of it, Alma got the part. And seeing her niece displaced, Lisa Corrigan was no longer available as stage-manager. To have been a fly-on-the-wall when she discussed the upcoming tour with her swarthy other half, now that would\u2019ve been something. For she must have noticed, no more than myself and everyone else, that when it came to rehearsals, anytime they weren\u2019t actually blocking out a scene or doing a line-call, there was an awkward, you might even say an adolescent<\/em> reserve on the part of Eddie Carbone toward his juvenile charge. What made it doubly curious was that Alma had a humour quirky as her hair, and she was forever engaging in easy banter with the Donlon twins. Also with June Mahoney, who\u2019d unexpectedly been given the nod ahead of Liz Keane to play Beatrice Carbone – on foot of which it transpired that Liz\u2019s husband\u2019s van, almost twice the capacity of mine, was no longer at the disposal of the group during February-March.<\/p>\n Rivalry and envy \u2013 they\u2019re no strangers to the stage. Jealousy, too. You might even say they\u2019re what give certain performances their bite. Something is going on onstage beneath the level of the play, and the audience senses it. The time we toured The Lonesome West<\/em>, the Donlon twins were barely talking to one another \u2013 there\u2019d been some balls-up over their mother\u2019s will, with the result it was stuck in probate. It lent an edge to the play\u2019s sibling rivalry beyond anything Bev Gardner could have wished for, and if it wasn\u2019t for the cockeyed adjudication we got down in Carnew, that edginess would surely have carried us to Athlone. When was it I had the first foreboding? <\/p>\n There was one night in November, a wild night, rain driven fitfully against the windows of the hall. We were packing my van. I was there not because we were having a look at the lighting-plot \u2013 techies and crew were not required at run-of-the-mill rehearsals. There was a bit of heavy lifting \u2013 retrieving the blacks and costume crates out of the attic \u2013 so Bev asked me to come down. With Liz Keane\u2019s husband\u2019s van no longer available, we had to see how much mine could fit on top of the lights.<\/p>\n Joe Donlon was the younger of the Donlon twins by a couple of hours, but those hours might just as well have been years. They\u2019re fraternal twins, not identical. Joe\u2019s chubbier, but if he is, he\u2019s also jollier. Always ready with the quick quip, and one usually bordering on the louche or inappropriate. People instinctively liked Joe. Not that they didn\u2019t like Donal in their way, it\u2019s just that Donal was that bit drier. I think that was the nub of why he resented the way the mother\u2019s will had divided the estate. Families never bear too much looking into. Of course it was Donal, he of the comb-over and sheepskin jacket, who I could rely on to help clear out the attic, while Joe looked on and fired his smart-arsed remarks. Alma Flynn was willing and able, all four foot ten of her, and surprisingly robust when it came to carrying whatever Joe piled onto her head. It was all innocent fun, banter, standard horseplay. But Donal Donlon was not enjoying it. In fact he was rigid with envy. That much you could sense, the way you sense an electric field. Was Joe oblivious? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n Then, when I was leaving, or more correctly, when I\u2019d already left and was returning briefly for a monkey-wrench I\u2019d left backstage, I overheard an altercation. Not Donal Donlon. Philip Rattigan. I caught sight of his open palm pushing Joe hard in the chest \u2013 I assume they\u2019d both stepped outside for a fag. There was a guffaw, then \u2018I see you try that on again, or anything like it, I\u2019ll fucking kill you myself.\u2019 It was a hiss. A whisper through clenched teeth. Was Rattigan messing? I didn\u2019t stick round to find out. I didn\u2019t want either of them to think I was snooping.<\/p>\n Ok, it\u2019s not exactly forensic evidence. All the same I could see Alma Flynn\u2019s presence was setting the men like game-cocks one against another. Not her fault, but there you are. But that\u2019s a long way from saying I knew what it was going to lead to.<\/p>\n I was pretty much out of the loop until the tech rehearsal in January. As I say, the lighting-guy isn\u2019t required at most rehearsals. And it was during that endless day that I was witness to how far things had moved on. From my perch in the lighting-box, I had the time and the opportunity to observe. Now, it\u2019s fairly normal during a play-run for people to live in one another\u2019s pockets. Sometimes there\u2019s a bit of spill-over from the story the playwright wrote. So I wasn\u2019t entirely surprised to see the rapport, the ne\u2019er-see-one-without-the-other, between Alma and Philip Rattigan. She was hungry for the circuit, she\u2019d never been on it \u2013 remember, she was still only seventeen. And he had the glamour of the veteran. <\/p>\n How far had things gone? I can\u2019t say. Donlon was fidgety as all hell. Joe, I mean. It all seemed to pass Donal by. And remember Aileen, her with the tiny eyes and hairdo far too youthful? She was making it her business to never leave the two leads out of sight if she could help it. She\u2019d always had a thing for Philip Rattigan, that much was well known. And with so much discontent among the other members of Hurly Burly<\/em>, Aileen was now stage-manager. I didn\u2019t see anything that day that would hold up in court. But body language tells its own story. And banter. The stage-kiss that goes on just a bit too long? That\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n The run of three nights in the town hall prior to the circuit passed without any major balls-ups. A few cues missed, a prop or two misplaced. But against that there was an electric charge that pulsed under the boards pretty much from the minute Rodolpho encroached on Eddie Carbone\u2019s territory. You really felt these two guys could have a go at one another. Bev sensed it, and Bev loved it. I\u2019d never seen her so excited about the prospects of finally making Athlone. <\/p>\n But it was a powder-keg. All it needed was a spark to set it off.<\/p>\n On the night before we were to head off on the circuit, Lisa Corrigan received an anonymous note. By this time she was seven months gone. The note was short, and brutal. Whatever the truth behind it, it was a dirty underhand blow. It could\u2019ve caused all sorts of complications with the pregnancy. I don\u2019t know what went down that night between Lisa and Philip Rattigan. What I do know, that first night down in Gorey, he looked like a man who hadn\u2019t slept a wink. And I have more than an idea it was Joe Donlon he suspected of writing that little note, though to my mind it was more in the style of our piggy-eyed secretary. But all that gave his performance a desperate jumpiness. Long and the short of it, we came away with best play and best actor. And a nomination for Alma Flynn, on her very first outing.<\/p>\n There are any number of accidents that might befall a touring company, unused to the small-town stage with its precise hazards. A light might crash down from the rig, its safety tether improperly tied; or a ladder might be insecurely balanced at the edge of a rostrum as the set is being dressed; or a trapdoor left open. You don\u2019t brace a flat, it can topple at the slightest disturbance \u2013 eight foot by four, with who knows what screwed into it. It\u2019s not a fall you\u2019d want to be on the receiving end of.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the props. Ever considered how easy it would be for someone to tamper with them as they lie innocuously on the props table? I don\u2019t even mean the Murder She Wrote<\/em> kind of stuff \u2013 the unbated sword, the dagger with the retracting blade that fails to retract; the revolver that\u2019s supposed to be loaded with blanks. Or the cold tea in the brandy decanter laced with arsenic. Or say I was in on the act – the lights go out, and when they come up again, there\u2019s an actual body centre-stage. All very well in a TV drama, or in an Agatha Christie you might actually see on the circuit. <\/p>\n But\u2026a peanut<\/em>? Has a peanut ever been used as a murder weapon? <\/p>\n Yet that night in Goresbridge \u2013 it was our fifth night on the circuit – no sooner had Eddie Carbone forced the infamous kiss on Rodolpho than the latter went into spasms. Anaphylactic shock. That\u2019s the simple, medical fact. At first the audience thought it was part of the production, something you might see in a Jacobean revenge play. But then I brought the lights up, and someone in-house was quick to close the curtains. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, pssh, pssh, pssh<\/em>. By the time I was down from the lighting-box and onto the stage, Joe Donlon was rigid, bug-eyed, purple, and gasping like a landed fish. His brother had jabbed some sort of hypodermic into him, but it didn\u2019t appear to be having much effect.<\/p>\n Ok, he didn\u2019t die. During the ambulance ride, the paramedics managed to control the spasms and open his throat. But it was a close run thing.<\/p>\n Phil Rattigan denied he\u2019d been next or near a peanut that day. Alma, Bev and PJ Kelleher had dined with him prior to the show, so there was no evidence to the contrary. He did mention an odd taste off the bottle of Jameson that Eddie Carbone necks just prior to that kiss \u2013 could it really have been smeared with peanut oil? And by whom, for God\u2019s sake? Which of us, bar Donal, knew that Joe had a dangerous peanut allergy? Ok, he\u2019d thrown a wobbler that time in the Chinese after the AGM \u2013 but that was seven years ago, and besides, sesame oil had been the culprit, then.<\/p>\n Could it all have been an unhappy accident? After all the hullabaloo, the Jameson bottle went missing. But then, we only went to look for it the following day, after Joe had been given the all-clear and the scare was over. The Garda\u00ed hadn\u2019t been called, why would they have been? Strong allergic reactions occur every day of the week.<\/p>\n Goresbridge was a write-off, and we pulled out of Skerries, which was to have been the following night. But hats off to Joe. If he suspected someone had had a go at him \u2013 and who knows but it might even have been his older brother \u2013 he wasn\u2019t the one to show it, or to let it get to him. In fact if anything, the final two shows had even more edge than anything that had gone down before. And heel of the hunt, we\u2019ve made Athlone.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an hour to curtain. And even I am starting to get the jitters.<\/p>\n There have been a few minor changes. Lisa Corrigan has come down, basketball bump or no, to help out backstage. And there\u2019s no love lost between herself and Aileen of the piggy eyes and too-youthful hairdo. But if Lisa was worried about Alma Flynn, she needn\u2019t have been. When Alma learned about that little anonymous note, she was horrified. It poured cold water on the whole offstage love-in between herself and Rattigan. These days she\u2019s all about Joe, who came out of the peanut fiasco with colours flying. Making a joke of the whole thing. Letting on to have an asthmatic attack any time the word nut is so much as mentioned. Rattigan can\u2019t stand to be in the same room as him. And for Alma, that\u2019s hurtful. She really just wants us all to be one big happy family.<\/p>\n I see it all. I see it all, from my hideaway. I saw who it was placed that bottle of Jameson on the props table, and I\u2019ve a fair idea of who made that same bottle disappear. But I\u2019ve kept it to myself. It might surprise you to hear who it was. <\/p>\n I\u2019ve never seen Bev Gardner so fired up. Fiddling, fussing. An eye to every detail. And I honestly think we\u2019ve a shot, this time. If we can keep the company from killing one another, that is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time to Murder and Create I see it all. I see it all, but who sees me? You could say I run the show. Well sure, you nod. From a technical point of view. The lighting-guy gets the cues wrong or goes AWOL, the actors perform on a dark set. But that\u2019s not what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[381,379],"tags":[388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSomething about what I was witnessing was of a different order. <\/p>\n