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.