In 3000 years of theatre no one has yet come up with a better way. There’s a fortune to be made when they do.
You rehearse. You rehearse some more, then you technically rehearse and you drink too much coffee. Then you have a production week complete with long days, previews, coffee, tweaks, adjustments, new ideas, things you should have thought of before, oh, and coffee.
And then in an unholy melange of caffeine, nerves, uncertainty, mid hysteria, anticipation and fatigue … you open.
We opened last night. Come and see us if you’re nearby!
The next best thing is to go to Ireland and drink, in this order, some Guinness, some whiskey, some po’teen; preferably while attempting conversations on the greats of Irish literature – in no particular order; George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, C. S. Lewis, Miles Na Gopaleen (aka Flann O’ Brien), Sean O’ Faolain, Edna O’ Brien, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Hugh Leonard, Brendan Behan, J P Donleavey, and James Joyce – to name but a few, and we haven’t got all day, but you’ll find literary discussion widely available. There is something in the water, the Guinness, the Whiskey, the Po’teen.
You can also watch films like, The Guard, The Field, and if you really want to slow things down, The Man of Aran.
My own antecedents John and Mary McPhillamy of Irish extraction were transported from Scotland to Australia in 1816 for making whiskey without a license – surely a crime in name only. But I digress.
If you can’t get yourself to Ireland, the next best thing is to get yourself into an Irish play. I’m in one now. It’s called The Cripple of Inishmaan and it’s by Martin McDonagh. And we’re doing it in Florida. An Irish play written by one of London, England’s best dramatists of Irish descent, in West Palm Beach, FL, USA. It seems so obvious doesn’t it? Surely just a question of who gets there first.
Mind you, this from Palm Beach Dramaworks, the theatre with the stones to have lately staged Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, you know, the one, along with much of Stoppard’s work that requires audience members to be educated to doctorate level.
You don’t need a degree to enjoy this one; and if you don’t do booze, and can’t take on a pre-show po’teen, never mind, the play itself is sure to nudge open the doors of perception in the way that theatre can from time to time.