About six years ago Bill Hayes, the producing artistic director started talking about doing a 20th year anniversary production of The Dresser by Ronald Harwood.
Remember The Dresser? – 1983 film with Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney following huge success in London and New York.
TV film 2015 with Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins.
A love letter to the British backstage in the early years of the Second World War when all the able-bodied had left to fight. – Not for the first time …
“And leave your England, as dead midnight still, Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women …”
Henry V, Act III prologue – Shakespeare.
What with the pandemic interfering, there will now be a 25th year anniversary production, and in a few weeks rehearsals will begin.
That’s Bill Hayes as Norman (The Dresser) placing the crown on the hairy guy (Me) who is getting ready to play King Lear.
The Dresser by Ronald Harwood, opens December 18th 2024 at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Florida
There are parallels between the practice of theatre and the practice of astrology.
“Oh yeah?” I hear you cry. “How does a planet or the stars in the sky correspond to the life of some out of work actor?”
Image courtesy of Unsplash
This is a valid question.
Consider: an actor gets a role. The parameters of the role are defined by the script. The expression of the role is guided, sometimes obstructed, but certainly shaped by a director. Within those limits the actor is free to make choices, to interpret.
My Lear will be different from your Lear. (well, one hopes).
AI generated image courtesy of Pixabay
Consider: We come into incarnation – a fancy way of saying we get born. And the mystery begins. Because: where have we come from?
Plato has it that the natural habitat of each human soul is one of the stars above and that we pass through each of the planetary spheres acquiring the qualities of that particular planet and its placement in the zodiac at that moment. We take on the costume for this incarnation and the script as written in the interplanetary potentials.
And in the play of life, with its exits and entrances, we can choose how we play the part. We don’t have ham it up.
And according to Robert Frost, Wordsworth, and particularly Shakespeare, we have all signed up for a round trip. The mighty seven ages speech from As You Like It exactly describes the progress of a life and the return. But return to what?
J B Priestly’s character Henry Ormonroyd put all of the above a lot more succinctly when he said (in When We Are Married)
“We all come here and we don’t know why. We all go in our turn and we don’t know where…”
Your blogger as Henry Ormonroyd, Guthrie Theatre 2008
My friend and sometime fellow student Maggie once said to me, “When I heard you’d become an astrologer I thought – Oh he’s lost it. … But then later I thought, oh no, he’s fond an angle.”
I have indeed lost it in the pre-Enlightenment mystery of the endless study that is astrology.
As for the angle, yes that too, Maggie was right. Though not in the sense she meant. The angle or rather the angles plural, are the horizons over which the stars rise and fall on a daily basis and which contain the clues to the weird and whacky interplay of pre-destiny and free will.
Still with me?
As part of my research into how to establish an astrological practice, I joined a networking group of holistic practitioners I’m here to tell you there is more woo-woo per square inch in Westchester, N.Y. than is commonly. suspected.
I have met some lovely people. Unsurprisingly perhaps in such a group every member is an empath – it’s almost like being with a bunch of actors.
But the point is I have been exchanging services with these people. I give them an astro reading and they give me – whatever it is they do. For brief accounts and testimonials go here.
And talking of Lear …
I have an up coming gig in West Palm Beach, Florida. I will go there in November to rehearse and then play ‘Sir’ in The Dresser. For those who don’t know the play, ‘Sir’ is a bombastic, self-obsessed old ham of an actor … and for some extraordinary reason they’ve come to me …???
In the manner of the late great Barry Humphries who proclaimed his “first farewell tour”, I’m intending this to be my last one for various reasons.
So if the stars should align, come to West Palm Beach. We open December 18th. Palmbeachdramaworks.org for details.
I would like to say that straw bale building is the future.
Why so?
Because straw is currently a waste product.
Because when properly constructed with the right techniques, straw bale building is
thermally efficient, durable, eco-friendly.
Because it’s a lot of fun.
See what we did?! You could have one too!
But much as I’d like to say that straw bale building is the future, returning home along i80 through Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and finally New York State, and becoming increasingly aware of the monoculture that flanks an interstate highway, as mall follows gas station, and giant placards advertise what passes for food in our chemically infused culture, possible though straw bale certainly is, at scale it seems unlikely.
A week and a day ago I drove out of Westchester County, New York, crossing the Cuomo bridge and then along i80 West, in company with many trucks. For the first 4 or 5 hours thickly wooded slopes on both sides were all there was, all punctuated by the above-mentioned malls, gas stations and placards. Another 4 or 5 hours and I arrived in Cleveland Ohio for a stop-over at my old friend Haley’s house. She and I braved the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999, and she and her family are recently transplanted from urban Brooklyn.
The next day I drove to lower Michigan and found the building site about 3 miles from the small town of Manchester.
I arrived a day early and set up my tent, having had some practice with a couple of Haley’s helpful elves along the way.
Me and the tent elves
The forty acre site comprised two alfalfa fields over a rolling hill on one side, leading to a small wetlands area and a flat height on the other, divided by an unmade road.
Dawn at the site
Preparations had been made. Two shipping containers were in place, one holding tools and building supplies, the other stacked with foodstuffs. Generators were powering a mobile kitchen, and there was overhead tenting above trestle tables.
A fire pit was ready to go, and further down the track the house itself, with pristine wooden framing rising from a concrete slab. The gaps between the wooden studs were waiting to be filled with the straw bales which were stacked in a cart and, somewhat concerningly, open to the sky. You’re meant to keep the bales dry at all costs – or so I thought. On either side piles of lumber were neatly arranged.
Getting ready to unload the bales
This was reminiscent for me. Many years ago – and for my younger readers I mean way back in the previous millennium in England, I did a similar building workshop. The company then comprised 20 people ranging in type from a muscled eighteen year old bricklayer (male) to an elegant retired seventy-two year old ballet teacher (female), and everything in between. The build was a conventional wooden frame using many 2” x 4” lengths of timber, many 8’ x 4’ sheets of ply, and lots of sheet rock. And I did use these skills when I later built a studio at the bottom of my London garden.
Ah … but that was when the world was young, and I was too.
Don’t get me wrong. In this group seniors were well represented. I met a lady farmer in her seventies, clearly infused with the pioneer work ethic whose constant effort made me mildly embarrassed by comparison, and a married couple of similar age who travel in their mobile home. I was the lone Brit in the group, and there was the odd Tea and/or 1776 joke, as well as a Bill Bryson connoisseur who had spent a year at Durham university, where Bryson was Chancellor from 2006 to 2011.
Brandy is enthusiastic about Bryson (and plastering)
Others in the group – and we were 54 people give or take one or two – were couples of various ages hoping to homestead and build a non-toxic house. You know the kind of thing – the house that does not release chemical gasses, the one made of bio-degradable materials.
Bruce about to trim a bale with a chainsaw
Wall going in!
The deal with these eisteddfods is as follows: the owners of the site, the ones who already have a site and want to build a house (in this case using straw), host a week- long workshop which is run by an expert straw-bale enthusiast, a chap called Andrew Morrison. Check the site. It’s easy to find because it’s usefully called strawbale.com. Some time ago I joined his mailing list, and so I knew that this was to be his last workshop (his 98th). So if I wanted the skinny it was now or never. Actually he is handing the brand over to a couple of successors – Timbo who has successfully designed and built straw bale for clients, and Dainella who shares the passion and has a business background.
Kyle fine tuning a bale with a chainsawMichael gets a special visitation from “Porridge”
Hosting included supplying the group three meals a day, and some mobile toilet facilities (this last feature needs no description and is best left to the imagination). There were four showers of varying temperament rigged in the field delivering water of varying heat. But the cuisine was impressive and nicely varied – especially so, considering we were in field conditions.
Maria and Chrisie
Indian food in Michigan – who knew? Delicious!
So. Straw ……
Yes, I know the story of the three little pigs.
Here’s how you do it – follow this method and I am assured that you can achieve an R-Value of 40 (as if I knew what that means). You compress the straw by re-tying the bales, and then leaning on them in a move known technically as “bale-humping”.
Peterson in that technical move
Once cut to size and compressed, the bales are tightly stacked in the wall cavities, and then tamped to achieve maximum possible compression and smoothness.
Meaghan tampes a bale
The next stage involves waterproof flashing (as if I knew what that means), and encasing the installed bales with wire netting which is then sewn with a bale-needle and twine from either side. After that treatment the bales become rigid and stable, such that even a squadron of large pigs or wolves on steroids (I forget which) could not make a dent.
But it’s the three coats of plaster – one of clay, two of lime – that are the great secret. Because the plaster, as it cures, actually turns to limestone, which is a substance harder to penetrate than a 1990s politician’s indifference to global warming. At least so I am led to believe.
First scratch coat
Straw is a waste product. Straw is plentiful. Straw is thermally efficient. And when packed and plastered – fire resistant. Adaptable. Free of toxic chemicals. And although labor-intensive, easy to install.
But… the quality of available bales has declined because Big Ag likes to cut the straw lengths as they are harvested because shorter stalks are easier to dispose of. And.….there is plenty of resistance from the quarters you might expect.
At the moment straw bale building is a niche method and unlikely to become a majority one, but it does have international presence, along with rammed earth, slipstone, log and sod. Interestingly the group on this one reflected, by its diversity of interests, the growing awareness that there might be other and better ways. Permaculture, clean wine, and hydroponics to name a few.
And then…There was that phenomenon that I am used to with theatrical troupes. Which is that by day three you feel as if you’ve been on the gig for weeks, and it’s the only play you’ve ever done, and you’re all one big family with all the well-known family dynamics.
The group watching the first plaster mixing
The inclusivity took its tone from the guy leading the workshop – a man always ready with a joke – but with a depth of experience, and knowledge of building in general, and of straw bales in particular. Also a guitar player and singer who gave impromptu concerts around the fire when the day’s work was finished.
The hosts whose house we were building took their duties seriously, supplying generously, including some choice wines and beers.
Jen smiles
I had answered truthfully when asked what I do, and so it was known that I was an actor. Kyle invited me to give a demonstration. So one evening around the fire pit I recited the fourth chorus speech from Henry V – You know, the one that begins, “Now entertain conjecture of a time when creeping murmur and the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe…”
I have to say it was, more or less, ideal conditions in which to do that speech. It was dark, and the flames leaping from the large metal drum that encased them were casting spooky shadows. The gathering had had a chance to mellow after the day’s work and were lubricated with a little hooch, and I reckon I was a novelty item. By which I mean surely you don’t get more than four or five classically trained actors reciting Shakespeare on any given straw-bale build? And if it’s not too immodest to say so, it went well, and the group was generous in its appreciation.
It’s the working together that brings people together. There were some with experience of working on building sites, and some with none, and everything in between. But having to shift many bales of straw more than once and having to share tools, and having to ask more than once, “How do you do that?” eases the distance between people.
Jen and Yasser
Bob and Yvonne. Brooms were important. Straw gets everywhere
In the mornings Andrew gave a talk and we proceeded to the next stages – the special knot, the wire mesh, the lath, the ties. But (to my mind and eyes anyway) it was at the scratch coat of plastering that something almost magical happened. We, all fifty plus of us, we became a Unit. We rough plastered the exterior of that sucker, to use the American vernacular, in the shank end of an afternoon. And if it hadn’t been so tough on the shoulders and upper arms I would have said it was as much messy fun as a boy could have and stay legal.
Sandy smiles
At some point I turned to Bruce, a fellow straw-baler, and said incredulously, “And we paid to do this?”. He agreed that we did, and we remembered that Mark Twain got there first when he had Tom Sawyer charge his friends goods and money to help him paint a fence, “Does a boy get a chance every day to whitewash a fence!” Says Tom, planting desire of the hard-to-attain in his neighbors’ minds. Genius.
Raymond with a bale
It was a unique experience and a lovely one. To an urban softie like me, the challenge of sleeping under a tent braced by waking in the cold night and having to stumble though alfalfa to pee, was obliterated by the vision on the one night when there was a clear sky, and the vivid stars were secretly commenting on the huge stage where we all live. See Shakespeare, sonnet 15, he puts it better than me.
Some of the group survey one of the window openings
I left on the morning of the final day. A few others had already departed to take up their lives again. I reckoned the remaining majority would finish the interior plastering faster without me. That sense of connection with people you don’t really know very well, but who you can quickly talk to when put together in unfamiliar circumstances, has a poignancy to it. Actors know what I mean. Because you never see that exact combination of people again. You might remain in touch with a few of them or even quite a few, but that exact company doing that exact thing – that doesn’t come again.
Charles. I bet him a beer that it wouldn’t rain. It rained on all nights except two.
Civilizations rise and fall. As do houses. When this one goes back into the earth one day, it will have done “none harm”.
The owners Meaghan and Nayan plant the very first bale. An emotional moment. It’s been quite a ride to get to this point!
As the old year comes to a close it seems appropriate to post some early work. I’m grateful to an old friend from college who spotted this eclectic collection.
This little piece is from way back in the last millennium. It is the result of two days work (one per character). They played it like it was a matter of national importance (i.e. a lot) and it remains, thirty five years on, the highest hourly rate I’ve ever been paid for acting.
If it doesn’t load where we want it, the bit with me begins at 5:27.
Other than that:
New Perspective
I’ve taken the unusual step of asking my agent not to submit me for anything outside of certain secret select categories.
I have finally realized the wisdom as expressed by another old chum from college, “I long ago gave up the idea of being a big star, now I just want to be fabulously wealthy!“
“How many of your clients tell you they don’t want to work?” I asked my agent.
“None of them.” He said.
Fair enough. The corollary to an answer given by a doctor to a friend when he asked, “How many of your patients die?”
“All of them.” Said the doctor.
So I’m taking the next year to write, barring something irresistible from the two select categories mentioned above.
I’ve read Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing.
It took about 10 minutes to read, another 10xn to appreciate and I guess it’ll be multiples of 10 hours, months or years (if I live that long) to apply them.
Meanwhile here is attempt at what not to do when writing books, as Elmore has it:
Prologue
There had been rain. Rain that was deeply and meaningfully wet. But nowit was snowing moodily. The flakes drifted down like celestial dandruff. She put the kettle on for tea and scant minutes later the jolly whistle announced water at a rolling boil. “Do you want some honey in your tea?” she enquired abruptly. “How long have we been married?” he rejoined, sarcastically. “Too long!” was her unspoken thought. “Didn’t you oughter know bai now!?” he continued, lapsing into the twang of his rural vernacular, flipping the pages of his newspaper in a huff with a noisome grunt that annihilated any residual sweetness in the room. She sniffed, blew her nose, coughed, dried her hands handily and poured the angry water onto the placid tealeaves.
Forward to 2023
So now that I am finished with acting for the time being (except for the S.S.C. – secret select categories), what to do? I know! … I’ll be a writer.
I’ve read Annie Lammot’s book, Bird By Bird, and Stephen King’s book, On Writing, I’ve thumbed through Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style, I’ve watched masterclasses on Masterclass from Aaron Sorkin to Walter Mosely. I’ve taken to heart the maxims:
Don’t get it right, get it written.
Don’t make it good, make it by Tuesday.
Any fool can write, it takes a man to re-write.
Tricky one that, in these gender-sensitive days. Phases sometimes used in legal contracts to indicate inclusion might help. Is it better rendered: Any fool can write, it takes a woman/man/human/person/sentient being/humanoid native of planet Earth to re-write?
I have no answer.
This comes late for Hanukkah, early for Christmas, but bang on for the Solstice and for Yule.
You could say “Season’s Greetings”. For a comedic take, see Alan Aybourn’s play of that title and my retrospective blog post about touring in it with the late great Marti Caine
Whichever way you celebrate, best wishes to you, and have a fantastic New Year!
Back in 1984 Simon Callow (you’ve seen him in the films) published a book called, Being An Actor. In it he wrote, “I don’t know of any other attempt by an actor of my generation to describe the theater in which we work.”
Well Simon…
Big thanks to you personally and to everyone who has followed this blog. The book would never have been written without you.
