My Brilliant Career And Eternal Torment

Like many people who do a lot of theatre, I don’t actually get to go to the theatre very often. Rehearsal schedules plus grad-school budgets usually see to this quite efficiently. Last night was the rare exception to the rule, when I went out to Halifax (not the one in Canada, in case anyone out there wasn’t aware that England also has a city by that name) to see a group for whom James II is violinist. Theatre and getting to see a new city is always a happy prospect.

First off, I should state that Halifax is probably not one of those cities you desperately want to see in England. Compared to the beauties of my beloved York, it’s like the other side of the moon. The western part of Yorkshire is really industrial (leftover from the Victorians, I guess) and it’s not a pretty sight. James picked me up at the station and gave me the historical run-down on the walk to the theatre: apparently, there was once a lot of coal in the area, and they also had a huge mill industry, with the one fuelling the other, resulting in the classic Industrial Revolution look of smoke and smog and gargantuan factory buildings. Halifax is no longer solid black, though enough buildings have kept that patina to give you an idea that it must’ve looked like pure Hell a century ago. The mill buildings dominate the skyline and peer down upon you (factories that size always strike me as sinister and oppressive). They’re relatively empty these days, since that industry has moved on to other places. So someone took this huge complex and turned it into a shit-ton of performance spaces.

I really had no idea what to expect from this production, since the adjectives James had used to describe it were along the lines of ‘bizarre’ or ‘experimental’. The display in the anteroom of previous productions certainly fit that description: they all appeared to be somewhere between street theatre and Happenings. (If you’re not familiar with that concept, it’s a very Sixties sort of art-experimental theatre where people would set up a whole bunch of random things in a space, and then people would come in and have a party and interact with one another and the stuff, and somehow the act of, say, pushing a beach ball around the room was part of the art of it all. It’s never been something I fully comprehend. I do musicals for a reason.) In looking at some of the photographs, all I could think of was the ‘Oh Industry’ scene in the movie Beaches, which I’ve always assumed was rather a piss-take on that era of theatre.

Well, this was bizarre, although these days I’m not sure what would be described as experimental. It was a very small company- two actresses, and James providing the music, incidentals, and an occasional not-quite-character intrusion- with a minimalist set based around the idea of car boot sales (the equivalent to a weekend flea-market or jumble sale). The general theme was the telling of fairy tales, and how they are used to manipulate ideas and culture, but in a very disjointed and extremely abstract fashion. Some of it was fairly accessible, other parts obscure- I think it probably depends on what knowledge base you come from. I’ve never been a big fan of fairy tales, even as a girl, so I probably missed a lot of subtle references. Certainly it was well performed; I’m just not sure if I got it. (There’s a fine line between not getting something because you’re not clever enough or don’t have the right reference points, and not getting something because there’s actually nothing there to get. I’m pretty sure that in the case the answer lies in between.) In absolute truth, it’s not really my kind of thing- ‘performance’ and opposed to ‘plays’- but it’s structurally sound, has a coherent voice and through-line of thought, and the music worked well with it (though the fact that one of my best friends provided it may make me a biased witness).

Afterwards, everyone stood around talking, drinking wine, giving commentary, since it’s apparently still in the workshopping phase. I generally like theatre people, at least for the limited duration of a cocktail party, although I’m never terribly good around strangers. They all seemed to know who I was, though, which was a bit unsettling, since I certainly didn’t know them, but everyone was pleasant and agreeable, and I seem to have progressed past the point where a roomful of strangers sends me into a panic.

And this would be the point where my theatrical life reared its ugly head once more, in the form of a rather less-than-amused Adrienne calling me about an email she’d just received. As Lords treasurer, she’s the one who cuts the cheques, and, in theory, she’s in charge of the budget. Except that she’s not, because Rachel hands down budgets to directors and never tells Adrienne a thing. Which is how she ended up with an email asking her for more than £800. Having no idea this was coming down the pike, Adrienne was shocked, and horrified, that Rachel would have okayed this.

To say I almost choked would be an understatement. You may remember the vast number of budget contretemps last year- and how damn lucky Jon and I thought we were, to get about £400 for Apollonius. Spring shows get somewhere around £300 normally. They also get about two months of rehearsal, if that. This show? This show apparently has closing in on £900 to spend, and almost five months of rehearsal time. (Contrast this with a normal summer show: £1000 and three and a half months. This year, because of the nightmare that this so-accurately-termed saga has become, they’re down to about £800 and two months, for an entire Shakespearean play.) Not only is this ridiculously out of proportion, but there is no way, literally, that we can even break even. We would barely break even if we sold out all performances and the budget was in the £400 range.

And whence came this decision? Certainly not with the approval, or even the consultation, of our treasurer. No, this came down from Rachel, and nobody, apparently, knew this. No one thought to relay the information. And now the money has been spent, and Rachel seems to think that this is totally okay. Because, after all, it was her decision for what is apparently her theatre company.

This was one of those rather surreal moments in my life. I get a night out, away from York, at a play, and I spend a good part of the reception dealing with the budgetary crises of my own theatrical world. I’m glad Adrienne called, to vent and to check that all of this was, in fact, news; I’m glad I had a drink in my hand at the time; I’m glad I had James there to figuratively catch me when I went over the shock cliff. (I’m not sure which of us had the bigger seizure over this news.) I am not glad that people seem to think it’s okay to run Lords into the financial ground. But there was something so stereotypically theatrical about the whole thing- you go to a friend’s show, but all the while you’re still dealing with your own. Yup. It’s a theatre party. What would one be without someone on the cell phone, shrieking about budgets? It’s not just a Hollywood cliché.

I feel like we’re all sitting around, waiting for Lords to hatch open in some delightfully nightmarish chaos. Things keep getting massively cocked up, and all I can see is it ending badly. And I hate that thought.

We consoled ourselves with cheap- but free- wine and a renewal of the general decision that, when dealing with Lords becomes absolutely untenable, we’re just going to say, fuck that, and start some sort of independent company. It’s a slightly scary thought, but it would be one step closer to having my own theatre. And it would mean a hell of a lot less headaches. (It’s ironic that something we all love so well is also the cause of more lost sleep than you can imagine. Theatre’s funny that way. You have to really love it, to do it, but there are times when I think you can hate it worse than any other activity out there. Because it’s all about people, and their egos, which I am not good at coddling, unless you are damned good at what you do and therefore deserve it. In my usual contradictory fashion, I detest the human race in general, but the thing I love best about theatre is that incredible dynamic between those involved, when it’s at its best, and the way all the people-pieces fit together.)

Eventually we managed to push the Lords bullshit into the back of the brain. By then, it was nearly ten- the show had ended at eight, it’s quite short- and somehow everyone had just been sitting around and chatting for the better part of two hours. A group of us walked back to the station and caught the train right away- except for one little detail that we didn’t realise for a couple of stops- namely, that the train ‘to Leeds’ was actually headed for Manchester. After consulting with the ticket-taker, we got off at the next little station. The ticket-taker had said that the next Leeds-bound train wouldn’t be in until midnight, so the rest of the group headed off to get a drink. James was pretty sure that was wrong, though, and a train would be there around eleven, so we waited at the station. It was dead quiet and nobody was there, so James got out the violin and played, and we passed a rather contented hour with music and singing- luckily, we’re having a warm spring week, so it wasn’t miserable. And he was right, there was a train at eleven; we had no trouble getting the connection from Leeds to York. It was rather later than was intended, obviously, which was no hardship for me, but James had to work this morning at nine, so caught a cab from the station here in town down to Fulford.

I got home around one, when Adrienne and James I were long home and asleep, so we didn’t really get to discuss what was going on with Lords and all. That kept until this morning, when Adrienne got an email from Rachel, which implied that she, Adrienne, had somehow not done her job in keeping tabs on the financial issues of this show. Given that Adrienne has been trying for months to get Fernando and Jeremy nailed down to giving her any information (and given that Fernando is one of the flakiest human beings alive), on top of Rachel’s handing down of decisions without any communication or consultation, Adrienne was justifiably furious. She shot back a very polite and restrained email, regarding the communications issues among the Lords board, and now I’m waiting on a response (she’s at work, but wants to be notified as soon as something comes through).

I love the theatre, and I hate its political wank. I love Lords and I hate the way its being run. The thing that frustrates me the most is that it’s just not necessary. It would be so easy to make things simple, and functional, and I don’t see why the idea of a wee bit of organisation at the top should be so threatening. Except, of course, that it’s me who’s saying it, and the Tribe and I are just not the popular kids. And so I am doing what it seems I always do this time of year: I am sitting on my hands, smiling and nodding, biding and abiding, and reminding myself that the next five years are more important than the next five minutes.

And when all else fails, I’ll figure out a way to get my own company- because if you have to deal with politics and bullshit, it might as well be your own.

Hobags of York

(Oooh, a two-post day! I just don't want this blog to have to be all serious all the time.)

Adrienne’s mother and sister Alyce are visiting for the week. They were down to London all day Friday, and yesterday they went around the city, shopping. Alyce seems very nice and a clever kid, but very seventeen, in a way I don’t think I ever was. She gets very excited about going shopping here in England, and less than enthused about the castles-and-cathedrals part of visiting Europe, which is Bantu to me- I’ve always been happy to let them keep the shops, as long as I got the history. Anyway, last night she decided she really, really wanted ice cream, so we met up with Chris and Katie for dessert at Betty’s.

York is a very funny place. During the day, it’s relatively quite and elegant, graceless and charming and comfortable, if you can ignore the tourist hoardes who populate the streets. Still, there’s something very quaint-English-village-y about it, except that it’s bigger. It feels sedate and middle-aged; York has seen too much to care, much less judge.

Going out at night is like stepping into another world. We live on the far end of Micklegate from town, which means we get the brunt of it if we’re in town during the evening. Micklegate has more pubs, bars, and clubs than any other street in York, and a lot of people, especially those out for bachelor or hen nights, do the ‘Micklegate Run’, meaning they start drinking at one end and hit every establishment from there to the end. It’s incredibly loud and raucous. People vomit in the streets on a disturbingly regular basis, and if you got a dime for every time you saw someone literally stumbling along the pavement, you’d be able to dine out for several weeks. It’s not just teenyboppers or uni students, either; it’s middle-aged couples or friends out on the town, equally pickled.

The most remarkable thing, though, is the inverse correlation between the temperature and the clothing girls seem to find appropriate. When the temperatures drop, the hemlines creep up. Leggings, a very common staple in English fashion during the daytime, are lost on these women at night. Belts are wide and skirts are narrow, so you honestly can’t tell which is which. Coats or shawls are nonexistent, and my feet hurt just looking at the heels people wear. I am honestly not sure that I could pick a streetwalker out in a lineup along Micklegate, and the decibel level in the centre of town trumps anything the tourists come up with during the day, even when they are packed wall-to-wall.

Maybe I’m a fashion prude, or maybe it’s just that I fail to see the joy of wearing skirts that leave one’s lady bits open to frostbite (not the mention the scrutiny of the entire county). I find that I can drink just as comfortably in something that covers the subject as I could wearing virtually nothing (possibly even more comfortably, since my bare bum isn’t sitting on a bar stool that way). It’s not that I don’t appreciate the joys of miniskirts- I have a couple rather short ones myself, and I’ve never had a problem with letting the world see my legs. But I do draw the line at skirts that are smaller from waist to hem than my hand. I know, intellectually, that one should not judge- but it’s awfully hard not to think, Hobag, at the crowds and crowds of women dressed in a costume I wouldn’t go swimming in, much less out for the night. I don’t even want to think about what they must look like dancing.

It’s such a stark contrast to York during the daylight. I was honestly halfway embarassed for Adrienne’s family to see this version of the city I love so well, because as far as I am concerned, Saturday night represents something that isn’t my idea of York. And it’s not just because I suspect that Adrienne’s mum takes a rather more conservative approach to life. I wouldn’t be thrilled with my parents, who are wildly liberal and accepting of all things, seeing this part of York- I don’t even like to walk through it myself. It’s an urban Jekyll and Hyde routine: the beautiful city by day, a seething brothel on the pavement by night. I don’t go out on Saturday nights very often- Fridays, when I am out a lot, it’s not quite as bad, although it’s bad enough- and so I still find it a little shocking. Maybe it’s because I’m used to Washington, where everyone is always a bit decorous in both attire and behaviour; it’s too political a town not to be circumspect.

James’s theory is that, because British culture is so generally upright and proper most of the time, people really let go when they let go at all. I think there may be truth in that theory. I wonder, then, if it suggests that the Tribe’s general attitude of living life to the extreme all the time, but taking it all in stride at the same time, is the thing that keeps us from going off the rails? Maybe, somewhere along the line in life, one makes the choice between nine-course dinner and wine parties in bustles and waistcoats, and cocktails, spike-heels, and trollop skirts? Having never tried the other side, I can’t fairly say for certain... but I’m pretty sure we get the best of it.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Next year, this week, I’m just not getting out of bed. At all. I am going to avoid all potential chaos by simply avoiding the world. Because I am convinced that this week has taken over the role of the first week in October.

Our Titanic party on Tuesday night was, in the main, a smashing success- the food came out well, and everyone had a good time, mostly. The primary problem was that, in replicating the Edwardian menu, we ended up going through a great quantity of wine, because they had a different one with each course. There are nine courses, so you can do the math. Most of it was really good- who knew that sherry and pea soup went together so brilliantly, or that a very ordinary sauterne could magically become delicious when paired with strong cheeses? Still, it adds up: Charlotte got quite pickled, because she can’t really handle even one glass of wine, which, as is all too often the case, meant that her behaviour got a bit erratic; James II’s dinner nearly went down with the ship right around sinking time; and Adrienne and I nursed rather fierce hangovers the next morning through the brunch we went to at Melton’s Too (since I turned green just looking at the kitchen and dining room table, James I wisely suggested we go out to eat- I have developed a Very Disturbing fondness for black pudding, which is oddly comforting when you’re not feeling brilliant).

The party had its bits of drama, but nothing, I suspected, that would bleed over into the rest of our lives. It was cracks in the plaster, however, and I took it for what it was: a warning.

Thursday night was the vote about the play, and, as I had long suspected, we didn’t get it. I’m not so much disapointed about that as I am about the fact that the vote was along strict party lines, the Tribe versus Constantine, give or take a few. We lost by two votes, and, interestingly, I’ve had two people pretty much apologise for voting against Macbeth, chiefly because they live with Strasz and didn’t want to upset any domestic applecarts. Another interesting note is that all but one of the write-in votes were for Macbeth. I’m not sure if any of my former Lords colleagues from last year sent them in, but if you are reading this and you did, I thank you. I wanted it to be the show people voted for, not the people, but that’s just not the reality of grad school life, and, for reasons I don’t understand, I am not well liked in Constantine House this year. I barely know anyone there, so I’m not sure what the issue is, and I figure it has to date before Mammon. I still have to do the summer show, because, as I said last year under far different circumstances, it’s not about the next five months but the next five years.

Adrienne had to get home after the vote, because her mum and sister are in town visiting this week, but Charlotte, Kate, and James II came out with me. I felt slightly guilty about not going out with the Lords crowd, but I really just wanted to be with the Tribe, where I didn’t have to be overly cheerful and politically polite. I had planned on being pretty moderate, but after two glasses of wine Charlotte launched into a return to Tuesday night, and, quite frankly, I just wasn’t up for it. Any other day, maybe I could’ve coped, but not then, not that day. While I can appreciate the weird sense of humour of the cosmos in throwing life’s wrenches in chunks and at particular times, there’s a limit to the amount of irony I can take sober; I didn’t even try.

Without getting into the particulars, I was somewhat irritated and rather worried about Charlotte, but a great deal more of the latter come morning, when I found out that she got carted home by two of the cast, who ran into her along the way home. She’s had a horribly rough year, and I suspect that she’s one of those people whose Achilles heel tripwire got set off, and the result is that we’re all Extremely worried about her. In truth, I feel like I’m replaying last January, and Robin, and all that; it’s not the same, really, because she’s not actively trying to hurt herself, but I’m terrified that she will by accident. I understand why this is happening, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay. It’s like being trapped in a live-action version of those ghastly awful ‘Afterschool Specials’, except that this is a lot less neat and tidy. Those shows never deal with the reality of being the one outside the immediate problem, the one who vascillates between a constant stream of terrified worry and concern, and annoyance, irritation, and resentment of being the accidental caretaker. The people in those shows also don’t seem to have things like this happen all the frigging time, a steady stream of chaos, or having massive drama-trauma happen on a literally annual basis.

Of course, I really shouldn’t complain. It’s been an awfully long time since anything truly hellish happened, and a lot of amazing things have transpired this year. I was just so enjoying the peace in our time, the quite of non-events and a lack of chaos. I knew it had to end eventually, and I’m glad it didn’t end in my lap, exactly, this year. Still, for Charlotte’s sake, and for all of ours, I wish it weren’t happening at all.

Memorial Day

In something like twenty-four (twenty five?) years I have never once remembered my little sister’s birthday. I have no idea of the date of my parents’ anniversary. Most years now I don’t know when Easter or Thanksgiving are. But I never, ever forget the fourteenth and fifteenth of April.

The history and sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is the one twentieth-century historical event that matters to me. It’s totally out of my period and utterly random, but it’s been a part of my life as long as I can remember. My father read me Walter Lord’s classic, A Night To Remember, as a bedtime story when I was pratically a baby; he first read it when he was about ten and got hooked on the subject. I didn’t think of it as history- I would, for most of my childhood, have said I thought history was boring- it was another story, and one of the things I shared with my father. The wreck was discovered when I was five, which set us both off completely, and I memorized it the way all children love trivia and facts. In my parents’ basement there’s an extremely tattered copy of the National Geographic with those initial photographs: it sticks out in the collection because it’s the only one that’s become ratty from many years of reading. Daddy and I have amassed a fairly good book collection on the subject. I’ve gone through multiple copies of Her Name, Titanic, which I think is the most beautiful book on the subject. The one obvious item not in the collection is That Horrible Movie, by which title I always refer to the eponymous 1997 film, as I will not suffer such an abomination under my roof.

The curious thing is that I have no real connection to the Titanic. Most of my historical bats have a very direct connection to my genealogy, but this one doesn’t. It’s just the thing my father loved and I therefore grew up loving. Arguably, if I had not first encountered history through this narrative channel, through the incredibly human stories and fascinating facts of Titanic, I might never have become a historian.

So I always remember the fourteenth and the fifteenth of April. Growing up, Titanic Day was when we got out the books and re-read bits, watched the movies and documentaries, and- arguably most exciting when I was young- stayed up late to commemorate the actual sinking time (2.20 in the morning of the fifteenth). I’m not sure my mother ever saw the sense in it, and growing up my sister didn’t get all het up about it, either (she jumped on the Titanic bandwagon after she decided she really liked That Horrible Movie- I’ve tried to forgive her), but it was always a special father-daughter event.

The years when I haven’t been able to celebrate it in one way or another have been peculiar- at the very least, I try to get out my library of books and videos and have my own little commemoration. In other years, I have friends over for dinner, and we do readings and viewings and generally just immerse ourselves in an evening of history. This year, though, is the first one where I’ve been able to really do what I’ve always wanted: I am giving a proper Titanic dinner. The food is coming from recipes off the actual menu, and everyone will be portraying historical characters. Of course, the whole thing is a day off, because today/overnight is the actual anniversary. James’s work schedule, however, made a Tuesday the better choice, and it’s still the sinking day, technically.

In passive moments it occurs that there is something slightly morbid about having a big party and a dinner and, well, a celebration, so to speak, of a tragic event. (Admittedly, most of the people represented at my party were survivors. The guys carked it, but the women made it. I have promised the Jameses not to be too obsessed with historical accuracy: there will be no two-thirty a.m. drownings in the bathtub.) I’d like to think, though, that this is not totally inappropriate. It’s a remembrance, the only way any of these people live on. It’s literally “a greater feast for death”, which is one concept which I embrace wholeheartedly. This is my symbolic laying flowers at 41° 43 5N 49° 46 8 W (I list the wreck site coordinates rather than the ones cited in their CQD/SOS, because that’s where the thing is), which is the only gravesite that would make sense to me. (Leaving flowers at a memorial would seem silly.) I never knew any of these people, but their stories have been interwoven to the memories of my life, and it only seems appropriate to have some sort of commemoration.

There’s only one living survivor right now, Milvina Dean, down in a nursing home in Southampton, and I would give my left arm to be down there this week for the commemorative events. She was supposed to speak at a dinner but is in the hospital with some illness, and I realise to my deep regret that I am unlikely ever to meet a survivor. There were so many of them still around when I was a girl! But ninety-six years is an awfully long time. I will be here to see the centennial, but it’s unlikely that any survivors will live to see it. Given the rate at which it’s deteriorating, I suppose you could debate that the Titanic itself won’t be there to see it. And that is the strangest thought- that within my lifetime, the ship itself will most likely disapear. I will have been in that unique space of time where it was lost, then found, and then lost again.

And time will go on, and people will keep studying it, and making execrable films about it, and, yes, having dinner parties to honour the passing of the great ship and the decadent era that it represented.

Springtime in York

Spring cleaning is something I’ve never quite understood, because, assuming you keep things in a decent state all the time, why the hell would you need to do a massive overhaul once a year? I suppose this made more sense in the days prior to central heating, when you had to keep a house locked up and stuffy all winter, or even earlier, when you pretty much didn’t leave the house at all, and it got truly foul. Still, there’s something about the coming of good weather that stirs something primal in me, an urge to have the world in apple-pie order. Around the house it’s probably no deeper than the fact that our housewarming openhouse is this Sunday, but it goes beyond my own four walls.

I spent yesterday doing the perennial chore of cleaning the Lords closet. This is one of those things that shouldn’t need doing as often as it does, but because there’s never been any sort of organisation to it in the past, after every show someone has to basically go in there and overhaul. If enough shows happen where this does not (eg. nobody got in there after R&J or the Nativities, for which I am partially to blame), the result is the rampant chaos that needs to be sorted in one big, massive haul. Another problem is that the closet is actually a really bad storage space: it’s in the eaves of the Manor, I’m pretty sure it’s not properly ceiled, and it’s definitely not heated. Because the fire egress (to the roof, which would not help you at all in a fire) is used by maintenance to fix the roof, and they don’t always close it properly, we periodically get swirls of wet leaves locked in there, or, on one memorable occasion, live pigeons who want out, now. This means mice and moulting and pigeon shit and general mank, which is horrible for fabrics. Also, a lot of our props get made from papier mache, and no one who’s made them wants to see them thrown out, but you have to be ruthless, because they will get damp and breed mould and become bacterial colonies.

Last spring, Jon and I went in there and really cleaned it up. We swept out all the dross, and threw out a massive two and a half dumpsters’ worth of stuff. I’m not exaggerating; it was actually that bad. Nobody had cleaned that place out in thirty years, and a lot of the costumes, which we inherited from the earlier years of Mystery Plays (see, my dissertation and my theatrical work tie together!), were threadbare, moth-eaten, mouse-shat-on, and quite beyond repair. So, sadly, were a lot of really beautiful masks and props, but I don’t want someone to get typhoid or something by putting one on. So, yah, an absolutely obscene amount of stuff went to the bins. We did a clean again after R&J, and threw out another dumpster’s worth of stuff, but a lot of stuff hadn’t been returned from the show yet when we did that, so it was pretty messed up again.

(I should point out that, although I have been the unofficial keeper of the closet for more than a year now, I’m not, technically, in charge of it. Nobody is. Which is how we end up with problems like the Mammon issue. But it’s a job that no one wants, and someone has to do it. Or at least, I think someone does. Because there is nothing more annoying than being told, as a director, to just go into this absolute shitheap and find your props, when you have no idea what’s up there or where anything is. That’s how Jon and I came to start this process last year, through the sheer frustration of finding things for Apollonius. Because no one is really in charge, people go up there and borrow or return things all the time, so stuff disapears or appears from nowhere fairly often. Last month I found a bunch of new patterns and tracing paper, together with a 1978 betamax video of the Lancaster medieval theatre group performing Quem Queritis. I have no idea where it came from, why we have it, or what to do with it. Hell, I’ve never even seen a video cassette that old.)

Anyway, I commandeered James II’s help via the promise that he could restore all of the Lords swords, which were pretty rusty. (Ladies, take note: a combination of stabby weapons, the promise of cookies, and judiciously applied puppy eyes will generally get you what you want, at least up to a point.) He was happy as a clam at high tide to sit there and scrape off the rust and ick and make them all pretty again, and we were both shocked that the scythe actually had metal underneath all the corrosion. Both Jameses had previously looked at it and written it off as pure rust, and I had planned to bin it, because I’m not comfortable with keeping something both useless and potentially lethal in the closet, but lo and behold there was actual metal under there. I’m still pretty wary of it, and wouldn’t let just anyone play with it (it’s still got rust and it’s quite sharp), but it’s too nice a piece to throw out.

Meanwhile, I got the costumes sorted and boxed. Linne Mooney, Adrienne’s advisor, very kindly bought us several huge plastic tubs to keep things in, because the administration was concerned that the costumes scattered around the room were a fire hazard. (They did not, however, find the ones in cardboard boxes to be a fire hazard. I love beaurocracy. Not to mention that everything up there is so damp, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t ignight it with a blowtorch.) Our costumes range from the truly fantastic to pieces that might hold up for another two shows, and then they’ll join their brethren in the bin. Clearly, Lords once had a proper budget: some things have Lords of Misrule labels in the collars, and were clearly made by professionals specially for us. No one is sure when Lords had this kind of money or whence it came, but those days are long gone. I’d love to see us get to a point of financial stability where we could really invest in replenishing the costume closet and getting some props that aren’t made from newspaper. Whatever the quality, the amount of costumes we have cannot be criticised. I’d love to know their histories. Like, why on earth do we have so many things in children’s sizes, which wouldn’t even fit Ehren or Christina, our smallest members? Conversely, why do we have what James called the Fat Bastard Collection, a set of shifts and smocks that could comfortably fit three people simultaneously? (They were put away with the fabrics, rather than the costumes, to be cannibalised- we are unlikely to have three five-hundred-pound Lords members in one year.) I recognise a lot of things from the Mystery Plays of the late 90’s. I don’t remember Lords doing the Harrowing of Hell, but our properties- three pitchforks and about twelve flails, and three proper leather whips- would suggest that if we didn’t, we inherited their stuff. (That, or our predecessors had some sort of BDSM party. I prefer to think not.)

By rearranging things and throwing out a bit (this time, only three bags’ worth) we actually made the closet seem roomy, which it’s not. All the weapons, including a set of spears I never knew we had, are in one corner, shiny and as much like new as possible. The lighting and gels have found one shelf together, as has the absurd collection of particoloured tights and nylons. We didn’t get to the props corner, but we’ll go back in a couple weeks, when we both have time, and sort that out. That should be a really good purge, since the DIY shelf is full of paint that’s far beyond its lifespan, and other junk that has rusted past use. I’m looking forward to seeing what surfaces.

This probably sounds like about as much fun as chewing cardboard, but we really had a lot of fun. It’s like playing in Granny’s attic, or your favourite trunk of dress-up clothes as a kid. You never know what’s going to turn up. And, hey, we have a Halloween mask and a scythe- do you really need much more? (James actually scared the hell out of me with this costume combination. It’s much creepier than you’d think.)

The only down side to this is that it meant spending a gorgeous spring day cooped up in a mouse-infested, spore-laden cube of space. We remedied that by grabbing dinner at respective fast-food locations (pasties for James, which I have loathed since childhood and Friday pasty-day lunches at school; McDonald’s for me, which, he reminds me, might contain actual food) and going out to the Museum Gardens for a picnic before we had to get to rehearsal. Spring is my favourite season, without contest- when else does a sixty degree day feel balmy? And everything is so green, and the flowers are up, and the world just seems to sparkle. The smell of air in the spring reminds me of my whole life; it’s the only time of year when I can remember, viscerally, being a child. While it makes me wistful, those memories of everything that has happened before, it’s not sad- it’s just pieces of who I’ve become. On a day like yesterday, sitting on the grass in front of the Museum, I can laugh without bitterness at my life’s little ironies.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake I usually make in spring: I did not bring sunblock. Yes, it was half five in the evening, hardly the height of light, and it’s only early April, and we were only out there for an hour. But even so, I managed to acquire the first light sunburn of the year, which will hopefully be the only thing I get all year. It’s pathetic, burning that easily, but I do. So I have to start carrying sunblock in my handbag, to put on if I’m even walking across town, and I’ll have to go out and find myself what I think of as Scarlett O’Hara hats. They’re not terribly fashionable, nor is it the style to be as white as I am, but I don’t find skin cancer to be that desirable, and I’m Victorian enough to like being the colour that I am.

Spring optimism carried from the cleaning project through dinner and into rehearsal, which was not at all bad. We were only missing two people, which is a new record for us, and by now we mostly know our characters and our blocking well enough that if Fernando just lets it be (he tends to forget it more than we do) we’re in pretty good shape. Getting off book is, as always, the biggest challenge. I’m doing slightly better on this show than on prior ones, it’s just remembering our entrances and cues, because, as a narrating Valkyrie, our role is somewhat random and full of non sequiturs. Last night was one of the rehearsals where I remember why I love Lords. It’s the fun, and whimsy, and the camraderie, all of which can only really work when things are going well and the show is- finally- progressing decently. If things keep going like this, the rest of the production might actually be quite enjoyable.

So... yah... spring in York. Never is the beautiful city more lovely. I think of the millions of people, over the past two thousand years, who have called it home and who must also have marvelled at how wonderful it is to have the spring of the year arrive. Maybe that’s why we have spring cleaning: nature’s done it, swept away the ick, and made things gorgeous again, and we’re just following suit.

My Sense of Clean: I Keep It in the Garden Shed

(Sorry- I realise that’s joke that, like, three people will get, and none of them even read this blog. But I didn’t know what else to call this post, and at least I think it’s funny.)
Most people who know me do not tend to think of me as a neat and tidy person. This is because when I’m busy I’m a tornado- I whip through the house and leave messes in my wake and barely notice. Clutter doesn’t bother me. However, dirt upsets me a great deal, and when I’m not supremely busy, I keep the house in pretty good order. Part of it is that there’s something about having a house that I feel is mine, and part of it is that, since I’m not working right now, I’m supposed to be the one who maintains the living space. That’ll change come autumn when I’m (hopefully) back in school, but for now, I’m the homemaker. I like it this way.
I clean the kitchen all the time, because one has to. I’ve even mopped the floor a few times (we have tile and hardwood, so it needs it periodically). But ever since we moved in, I have been chomping at the bit for warm weather to get here so that I could clean out the shed.
Our garden shed is divided into three little rooms. One, which we have named The Oubliette, because it’s fairly yukky no matter what you do, has a working toilet in it- it’s not actually an outhouse, but it might as well be. Another was full of random junk, and the third was empty, but full of dirt and peeling paint and general grossness. Cobwebs everywhere. You practically needed a tetanus shot just to look at it. We had long since decided that the Oubliette is where we send drunk friends who need to hork. (That’s your punishment. Drink too much and vomit among the mosquitos.) The middle room will do nicely for a brewery- we want to try our hand at homemade mead, and ale, and wine. The third, with new shelving installed, will be my pantry, once I start making preserves and pickles and stuff, after we harvest the intended garden. There is no dirt, really; the back yard is filled with rocks, but the previous owners left a wealth of pots, so we figured we could put in veg that way.
It was really too cold and wet to get out there before today. Normally, Wednesday is when we go out and hang out with the Tribe, but we’ve taken the past few weeks off because people have been OAA for spring hols. This week spring decided to descend upon Yorkshire at last- it has been beautifully balmy in the high fifties, and sunny. So when we got up this morning we hied ourselves down to the garden store down the road, bought a bunch of seeds and some compost, and put in the garden. We have tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, peas and runner beans, broccoli and rocket and spinach, onions and spring onions, and lots of herbs. I like gardening in pots- it avoids the weed problem, and since we have a walled yard, we don’t have to worry about neighbourhood cats getting in and trowelling things up like a litter tray, as was the problem at Constantine last year.
And we cleaned the shed. I’m really proud of that, because I hate getting dirty- I am really schizzy about getting any kind of stuff on my hands- and it was beyond minging in there. The first order of business was to brush all the flaking whitewash and paint off the walls, and then to wrestle the cobwebs out of the corners. Some of those things were industrial strength- James ended up taking a stick and scraping a lot of them off. All the while, I was just cringing at the disgustingness. (I was also wearing a tea towel around my face, so as not to breathe in all the ick.) The pantry was the worst in terms of sheer dirt. The Oubliette wins out in flaking paint, because it’s the only room there that was ever properly painted, but they chose a water-based paint, which, oh, look, gets flaky when exposed to, you know, water. The brewery had the worst cobweb crap, but otherwise it mostly just had a heavy patina of brick dust.
I don’t know how many pounds of muck we scraped out of the shed, but it was a good quarter of a bin liner’s worth. And, hot damn, if the shed doesn’t look almost workable now! I’m so proud of it- it really does look almost clean, for an outbuilding, at least, and it gives the entire backyard such a lift. And it makes me feel like I can now get going on really installing the pantry and making yummy things to put in it. I do admit that when it was all done, I dove for the shower at record speed, and everything had to go in the laundry immediately. But it feels good to know that for our housewarming next weekend, I can proudly show off our lovely garden (well, okay, our lovely pots of dirt that will someday sprout plantlife) and our no longer lockjaw-inducing garden shed to our friends.