an excerpt from On The Stage
[with apologies to Jack Kerouac and On The Road]
…May evening near the railroad earth, in a spare, reclaimed Distillery rehearsal studio haunted by the spectre of virtuous Victorian industry, the sun’s last dusky rays streaming through factory glass and casting silent mottled shadows on wooden floors worn smooth from the tread of dancemakers making dance, a beatific company of seriously inquisitive and bravely earnest lawyers meets diligently to create artistic precedent, angel-haired litigators assaying the Bard’s ancient roles, putting a new twist to the staging with a fifty-year old setting; the Athenian nobility proud and unwavering and stubborn like dogged litigators arguing Supreme matters, shark-skinned narrow-lapelled and martini-ed, the youthful lovers headstrong and foolish, governed by dear hearts and wild herbal confusion, the rudest of mechanicals stumbling in nerdy naivety, oblivious in their bumbling, Quince and Snout, timid Lion and hysterical Moonshine, bedevilled Bottom playing the ass in proud bewilderment; snap, snap, snap, too cool beatnik faeries swaying to a ferocious bongo beat, running and leaping through a star-lit forest, children of a warring haughty king and sensuous queen, mischievous imp infusing opposites with hallucinogenic nectar, chaos and confusion and comic relief, a roundel and a lulla, lulla, lullabye; bemused production team, playing on a strange and different stage, lovey-inflected theatrical direction, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-contained stage management, Value Village costumes and Esquivel sound cues, try-it-all encouraging smile assistance, pushing and prodding and stretching and angular choreography, copper coffee pot vocal warm-ups, text coaching unfurling hidden Elizabethan language meaning, archaic becoming familiar, unusual becoming natural, words on the page slowly being transformed into characters on the stage, satisfaction sweetly savoured as amateur professionals find satori in Shakespeare’s enchanted world and enchanting words, lonesome travelling and dharma bumming, and dance, and pose, and dance, and pose, and dance, and pose, and go, go, go…