The huge campus of the famous US university of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, is a place where Holy Cross Drive intersects with Frank Leahy Drive.
A place where you walk past sculptures of the same Frank Leahy (a famous Notre Dame football coach), then past a statue of the fabulously named women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw (oh, yes) and then, after a short walk, past the huge, beautiful mural known as Touchdown Jesus.
I kid you not. Jesus with his arms raised as if signalling a touchdown in American football. The mural is on the north side of the impressive Hesburgh Library – and is visible from the vast Notre Dame stadium nearby. (Sports, religion, sports…)
So far on this tour, I’ve felt butterflies, goosebumps and now shivers down the spine.
Let me explain. You can spend so much time in emails and phone calls and Zooms – as I have, trying to pin down a particular venue for The Mistake in different parts of the US – and then all that effort comes to nothing. On the other hand, you can shoot off one speculative email – as I did just one month before leaving for the US – which was way too late – and get an immediate positive response and booking. Such was Chicago.
I had tried for months to get a performance in the Windy City to no avail. Various very promising options fell through late on – after I’d (perhaps foolishly) booked flights and Airbnbs. But that last minute speculative email of mine was to the Chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago, Peter Littlewood – to which he responded that, yes, they’d love to host us on one of the dates we were in Chicago, in the Physics Department Lecture Theatre. I was beyond thrilled at the news.
So…Day 7 – after treating us to a fabulous breakfast at a lovely coffeehouse in downtown sleepy Manchester, Katy and Libby waved us off with our many suitcases and we began the three hour trip back to Chicago: Manny once again at the wheel of his voluminous (it needed to be) Lincoln Navigator. We were headed straight to the University of Chicago to set up and prepare for a 6 pm performance. We didn’t have much time to be ‘tourists’ but we managed a quick look around.
That’s a rather bold opening hook to this second blog of our US adventure. But I’ll explain shortly.
April 4th – Day 2 – Jet-lag. And a heating system in my otherwise lovely Airbnb that keeps erupting into life just when you least expect it – just when I’ve reached deep-state sleep. Will earplugs keep the noise out? No chance.
Okay. So I head out on my first morning in Chicago for a big breakfast at a highly recommended cafe – Lula’s in Logan Square. That helps. A cardamom bun to die for. Then a day full of nothing much – acclimatising, checking out where I can buy fruit, and reminding myself I’m not a tourist.
Day 3 – I’m a tourist. Heading for the wonderful Art Institute – wanting to see the famous Seurat painting that inspired Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George. On the L train, it’s rammed – jam-packed with hundreds of people. Are they also heading for the Seurat? No! There are placards and banners galore – it’s a ‘Hands Off’ (our democracy) protest downtown and it’s going to be really big, someone on the train tells me. We’re tempted to join them but our time is limited, so we wish them well when they all get off two stops before the Art Institute, leaving the train empty.
It’s all very well putting on your website that in a year or two’s time you plan, all things being well, to walk the whole of the Western Front, all 475 plus miles of it, as part of your ‘peace initiative’ – and to tie in with the end of the ‘100 years since the First World War’ commemorations.
Back to London for the weekend … and the laundry, the ironing, the admin … 24 brief hours to unpack, repack, recharge and then set off up the M1 again to the beautiful city of York and my first Airbnb of the tour – a very nice Airbnb but…no tea and biscuits outside the door in the morning!
June 12th 2017
So there I am, all set up and ready to go at the Oasis Hub venue, Waterloo, on Friday evening June 9th … a hundred plus folk have turned up to see ‘THIS EVIL THING’ (despite having stayed up half the previous night to watch ‘THIS ELECTION’S HUNG’).
So, I have opened THIS EVIL THING at New Town Theatre, Edinburgh, with the help of my brilliant team, director Ros Hutt and sound designer Mark Noble. Various teething problems with lighting boards and so on, but the incredibly mature and experienced Mark (aged 24) has dealt with them all.
First two performances last week went very well, including the two who travelled down from Dunblane and were very moved by the whole experience.
So, we have completed our two London previews of THIS EVIL THING to small invited audiences in our rehearsal space at Room One – without stage lighting but with all the set, sound and costume.
And phew! they seemed to go down well. And I already seem to have a lost a bit of weight. Will need to up my carb intake etc etc in order to perform this piece – and make sure I stay hydrated.
I have strategically-placed sips of water available during the play (in a tea- cup, a sherry glass, a whisky tumbler, and a period bottle), but they are just sips. The serious drinking has to be done well in advance. A voice coach told me you need to start drinking water four hours before you perform to give it time to be fully absorbed by the body.
It’s been an incredible experience, feeling the piece come together with the help of such a brilliant team, Ros, Jane, Zoe and the two Marks…and without wishing to sound too mystical, I really feel the COs themselves are behind the project. I have a large copy of a photograph at home of Bert Brocklesby, the main CO in the play, given to me by his granddaughter Jill Gibbon. Now it may just be fanciful thinking on my part, but when I got home after the first preview I could have sworn that he was smiling ever so slightly – as if to say – ‘Hey up, lad – that were grand…’
His photograph will be coming with me to Edinburgh on August 1st along with photos of the other significant people in the play – safely stowed in an enormous suitcase with everything I might need for my month north of the border. Keep smiling on us, Bert…
Sunday June 26th
Had a quick tot up today of all the characters I will portray in This Evil Thing (some with only one line to speak) and it came to 52. Phew. 52 characters in 75 minutes!
Monday June 27th
I am working with brilliant young sound designer Mark Noble on the soundscape for This Evil Thing. Some of the 52 plus characters I will be playing will be pre-recorded – for example, prisoners who were subject to the infamous ‘No Talking’ rule: we want to record some of their ‘thoughts’, what they would have said could they have spoken.
Michael Mears 