“Well, isn’t that nice,” said Oscar, preening his beard below the smirk that suffused his vacuous visage. (Honestly, I could have PECKED him for his smugness.) “Another e-mail of appreciation for the column that I slipped in between your monthlies, Jonah. Really, people are so sweet, it was no more than a few notes about auditions.”
I said nothing, just dug my claws into his shoulder and glared at him.
The trouble is, you see, that he likes to pontificate. Because he’s roughed it at various levels of Theatre, paid and unpaid for more than fifty years, and because he can write letters after his name, he sees himself as a sort of theatre guru. On this basis, he considers it his right to send articles to Janey at Amdram under my name, without even asking me for my permission to do this. At best, I consider this to be bad manners.
We were back in the second bedroom of his apartment, the room he refers to as his ‘Study’ because he set up his computer in one corner of it and erected a couple of rickety bookshelves. Cara, his wife and one of the most civilised quackers I know, refers to it as the G.D.H. IGeneral Dumping Hole), but not in his presence.
Sam Adams sat on the other side of Oscar’s desk, lolling back in the easy chair and grinning as they sipped from their mugs of tea. Sam had traipsed in, soaked and in a state of chaos, but he had been unable as yet to report his news from the riverbank while Oscar was so busy blowing his trumpet. I had spotted them together in the G.D.H. as I flitted home from a hunting trip to the church bell-tower, where those delicious flying mice live, and decided to drop in to supervise their discussion and maybe sip the odd drop of their tea, as I do. Penny and I have temporarily deserted our nest among the ivy under the eaves of the Granary Theatre on account of Gwyneth’s campaign to have us removed and imprisoned in an owl sanctuary. It is expedient, until Gwyneth and her clique forget about us, to find our own sanctuary with our offspring, Larry and Viv, in their willow tree down by the riverside. Yet, horror of horrors, the riverbank is not at present a haven of peace and tranquility, IT’S CHAOTIC! More later.
Simultaneously, the atmosphere at the Granary Theatre has become (to say the least) raucous. In addition to Gwyneth’s snotty activities, the two galahs are revelling in the notoriety they’ve earned as Captain Flints in ‘Treasure Island’. In theory, one is understudy to the other, mother and son, alternating their performances, but the quackers can’t tell one from the other and, if they leave the cage-door open for longer than is absolutely necessary to extract just one bird, they finish up with two pink and grey Captain Flints, both flapping at each other and arguing about who should sit on Long John Silver’s shoulder. Really, they have no dignity or professionalism.
Backstage, in the rehearsal studio, the next play is being got ready and I’d be very surprised indeed if it includes any parts for birds. I mean, how many parts ARE there for birds? We represent a repressed minority among actors. If the Management Committee had any sense at all they’d put those two galahs in a bird sanctuary and leave us owls alone. And my friend Rollo, the bar steward, agrees with me.
“The amusing point,” mused Oscar, beaming at Sam in his self-congratulatory way, “is that some of the material I left out of that article is even more amusing... and more instructional, I might add... than what I included. Did I tell you about Tarquin?”
“Isn’t he one of your university lads?” asked Sam.
“You’ve got the one – tall chap with a swarthy complexion – well, he came to me on the quiet for coaching in his delivery of an audition piece. All of the auditionees had been given the same piece to prepare and perform. I took a look at it and recognised that it was typical college claptrap – obscure and complicated to appease those pretentious professors who can’t recognise good theatre because they’ve never done any, just know how to talk about it, maybe write meaningless theses. Endlessly.”
“Got you,” said Sam, chuckling conspiratorially (...and patiently) .
“We sorted out the pronunciation and phrasing, then started digging around the content, trying to make sense of it. Unrecognisable stuff, probably translated out of the original Esperanto – badly. Poor old Tarquin was so keen to get a part on account that the production was going to the Edinburgh Festival. He saw himself getting a big starring role and having his brilliance recognised, so we worked out a satisfactory interpretation with appropriate emphases and so on – usual stuff for an acting coach - and I must say he delivered it really rather well. The speech turned out to be all about blacksmithery and metallic fusion. Good voice, strong bass tones.
“Week or so later he came back looking really down in the dumps. Apparently he’d impressed the director and producers and assorted hangers-on so much that they wanted to know all about how he had arrived at such a clear understanding. He knew a damned sight more than any of them about the piece... so they gave him the part.”
“Oh, well done!” chortled Sam, still frustrated in his own delivery... of news.
“But that speech WAS the part. There was no more! He finished up attending all the rehearsals just for that one speech, then dragging all up to Edinburgh to watch lesser actors bumbling through the rest of the dreary play in dozens of performances.”
Both of them found the yarn highly amusing, which must prove something.
“The lesson is...” resumed Oscar, pontifically, “...get to know the whole play before you audition for it, not just the audition piece... but that’s academics for you.”
I must say I admired Sam for his composure. He was sodden and had so much to tell Oscar about what was going on at The Jampot, yet – with his shoes squelching loudly enough for Oscar to have no excuse - he had waited patiently while “the master” (huh!) told his pointless tale. The problem is, you see, that the Jeremy Akehurst Memorial People’s Own Theatre, being built beside a rugby pitch just above a riverbank is subject to flooding, that’s why the original building was built up on stilts to take it well clear of the high water line. Now we’re in the middle of the first flood season since Sam bought the place. You may remember that he filled in the stilted framework with walls, in order to make a warm and dry scenery workshop.
“We got our timing right,” said Sam, starting his story and sipping his tea.
“Not that I have anything against academics per se,” ploughed on Oscar, in pompous disregard of Sam’s attempt at intervention. “Not that I know one called Percy, ho ho ho. It’s more that they seem to have distanced Theatre from the reach and comprehension of ordinary mortals and thereby rendered so many people vulnerable to television and the rest of the rubbish media... see what I mean?”.
“Left them high and dry, so to speak,” ventured Sam. squelching anew.
“Precisely,” agreed Oscar without the least grasp of Sam’s allusion. “Not only distanced them from the boring obscurity of their choice of plays and playwrights, but from Theatre itself. God, how I HATE pomposity, Sam. How’s the weather today?”
“Have you not been outside?”
“No need. Another thing about that session with Tarquin was that I found myself at one point trapped in an endless and erudite discussion about the inadvisability of choosing crucifixion as a method of suicide. Tarquin insisted on being logical ...”
“So you don’t know what’s happening with the weather.”
“I know it’s raining, that’s why I didn’t go out. Must say I appreciate your effort in making the journey to come and visit us. You didn’t walk here, did you?”
“No, Oscar, I didn’t walk – not for the first part of the journey. That would require a talent previously reserved for sons of deities. It would have required me negotiating the rather uneven surface of a fast-flowing and muddy River Mal, now that it’s in flood.”
Oscar blinked uncomprehendingly at his earnest advisor. “Flood?” he checked.
“Torrents of muddy water gushing past my back door and the rugby goal-posts protruding above the water-line with no crossbars showing.”
“Good job we cleared out the scenery workshop when we did,” remarked Oscar.
“Good job indeed,” said Sam, “The celebratory bonfire could well become an annual event. And it’s a good job also that I insisted on the purchase of a small skiff.”
“You mean you rowed here?”
“Only as far as where - at present - the bank rises above the water.”
“Sam, you sound a touch tetchy about this. Have I upset you in some way?”
“Not at all, Oscar. I knew full-well that the Jampot was built on a flood-plain. I’m just so glad that Sinead is away at the moment, visiting her parents in Ireland.”
“Yes, it could be a trifle off-putting, to be drowned while in the throes of love.”
“Now listen, Oscar,” said Sam threateningly (at last), “she’s a good Catholic girl!”
“And you’re a wicked old sinner from way back, so let’s just get you dried out. Come on, now, get those wet things off and I’ll find you a dressing gown.”
Sam stayed where he was, staring angrily at Oscar. Then he said, “I came over here – after considerable effort and inconvenience – to discuss the future.”
“Not again, Sam,” retorted Oscar. “We’ve already started work on the next Jampot production – the historical piece about Malcaster through the ages – and I’m going to run a workshop on playing older people, now that I know what it’s like.”
“I’m not talking about the theatre’s future, Oscar, but mine. Sinead has gone to Ireland to sound out her parents on how they’ll feel to have a son-in-law who’s old enough to be their father.” He allowed this news to cause Oscar’s jaw to drop in horror.
“You mean... but, Sam, you’re a confirmed bachelor, you always have been...”
“Maybe I’ve simply spent my life in search of the perfect person....”
“...with whom to grow old? But, Sam...” Oscar’s voice trailed to silence as he stared at his handsome old partner. He could see that Sam’s mind was firmly set.
“In that case,” said Oscar when he had recovered his breath sufficiently, “I’d better change the workshop to a study of how older actors can pretend to be in the fool flush or flood of youth. Heaven knows how Gwyneth is going to take this news.”
Jonah was a very experience director, teacher and writer who sadly passed away in February 2006. He was also the author of the highly successful "Playmaker - The Craft of Directing Plays (The Way I Seen It)".