Curtain call

Puck’s final words in A Midsummer Night’s Dream provide theatrical closure. Would that I had a fraction of Shakespeare’s skill to bring this very last post of this blog to a satisfactory conclusion but anything I say is likely to prove inadequate – “the eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen” as Bottom has it. However, it has to be done and it must be done, so let’s to it.

I remember thinking when I first heard about the project which was to become A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play For The Nation that there were going to be a number of very happy souls up and down the country who would be winning a place to be part of a Royal Shakespeare Company production. Little did I suppose that one of them would be me. Funny old world isn’t it? Despite many years of am dramming, my sum total of Shakespeare plays performed in could be counted on the fingers of one hand (in fact they still can). Now, eighteen months later I’ve played (hopefully successfully) one of the key comic Shakespearean roles on two major British stages in front of approximately 10,000 audience members. Along the way I’ve worked with practitioners at the top of their game and professional actors who have been more generous and encouraging than one can possibly imagine. A strong bond has been formed with my Tower colleagues – thanks for putting up with me! I’ve learned many new skills and techniques, appreciated new slants on performing and substantially increased my knowledge of working in a Shakespeare play. I finally conquered the fear of that organised movement known as dance. I delivered a monologue while being the only person on stage. I was on the telly. I flirted with the Queen of the Fairies. I got to ham it up outrageously as Pyramus. Perhaps, most bizarrely, I got to play the spoons onstage at Stratford upon Avon. The spoons….! Onstage!! At Stratford upon Avon!!!

Photo by Topher McGrillis (RSC)

I think (I hope) the project has enhanced my skills as a director too. Watching and learning from the RSC professionals is an education that money couldn’t buy. I was doubly fortunate that so many rehearsals were in London and that my flexible work patterns allowed me to take full advantage of sitting in on some of them all the while absorbing techniques and different ways of working; I can’t wait to get back into the director’s chair and put some of that stuff into practice.

Nor is that all. There’s this blog for a start. It began as a short weekly item in the Tower Theatre newsletter but has grown to mammoth proportions (92 posts and 82,000+ words) with a wide readership in this country and abroad. I do hope it will prove valuable as a record of a wonderful process albeit from the limited viewpoint of just one person in one of the 14 amateur companies who have been involved in this chance of a lifetime. The blog also led in turn to me writing pieces for Sardines Magazine, amdram.co.uk and NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association). I’ve thoroughly enjoyed putting pen to paper – or whatever the modern equivalent is – and sharing this experience with you. My grateful thanks for being there; just like a play, for this sort of thing to work there does need to be an audience. But this is finished now too; not entirely relishing a second set of withdrawal symptoms I have already launched a follow up blog entitled 2nd from Bottom. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Then there’s social media – something I thought I would only very rarely engage with. Now I’m on Facebook, Twitter (@johnchapman398), You Tube and (briefly) Instagram and, what’s more, I now get the point of it all. I’d never quite understood Marshall McLuhan’s famous declaration “The medium is the message” but that is so true of the sharing experience which is social media: as Hector says in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys “Pass it on, boys”. The lines of communication provided have led to friendships all over the UK – fellow Bottoms, other Mechanicals, the professionals and everyone else involved. I am sure “we will meet” from time to time; even as I publish this post I am just about to take the train to the NODA summer school in Coventry where some of the gang from Nottingham and I will be joining up with Dream producer Ian Wainwright to regale delegates with our wonderful story. (See new blog 2nd from Bottom for further details shortly). Thus the Dream legacy will pertain and we few (“we happy few”) will remain as members of a very exclusive club. For the record let me commemorate the whole group and “name their names”:

It’s a role call of honour and innovation; one big, extended, unique and very happy family. And that in essence is what a theatrical company becomes. A temporary family of like minded individuals who come together to make a play, support each other and celebrate their joint achievement. It is undoubtedly sad that this particular company is now breaking up and going its separate ways but such is the way with all theatrical enterprises. Of all art forms, drama is probably the most temporary, rooted in the here and now and completely of the moment of its playing. As Erica Whyman said at the final wrap party “We will never do this again; it can’t be done. But every single element of Dream16 can be done again and must be done again”. Heartening news!

Photo by Topher McGrillis (RSC)

So what of the future? At the moment, who knows? Like Mr Micawber I am “looking about me in the expectation of something turning up” and gradually realising that it is necessary to be proactive in order to ensure that something actually does so. In the early days I succumbed to the cliché that being cast in the project was like a dream come true. Do you know what though… it really really was! Yes, it is inexpressibly sad that this Dream is over but by heavens it was thrilling and life enhancing and just the greatest fun while it lasted. Let’s have no regrets that something has been and gone but recall with fondness and joy that we were there.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)

I did. I have. I will.

Time to wake up.

No more words.