I wish I could fly, way up to the sky, but...
Greetings and apologies, it's been a turbulent time for me, and blogging has been a casualty.Speaking of casualties, as I write, I should just be waking up in my Brooklyn apartment around now, sadly I am not, as the result of my climbing a poorly attached ladder in Dublin last week. I can confirm with a fair degree of certainty that the theory of gravity works for me unless and until somebody comes up with something better. I am now in possession of a rather splendid plaster cast, and am confined to the use of one leg for another seven weeks.
I was in Dublin as the first outing for my new employers, and doing a rather good show that is produced by Scotlands foremost theatre company. I was beginning to enjoy working on a show that actually demanded that I use some of my technical skills, and for which I had had to learn quite a bit too. The show is presented in large semi-industrial venues where possible, as the staging is in traverse format and rather idiosyncratic, and in Dublin we were using a hall in a local showground, a complex that includes sports arenas, rock concerts, cattle shows, and fine art all at the same time. It swiftly became apparent that they operated the venue in entirely their own way, we spent a week putting the show in, relit, teched and dressed it, and then had to take the whole thing out again as there was a wedding and honeymoon show booked into the space.
When it came to putting it back in, this was when the rot set in, we hadn't bothered to put the seating banks in first time round, and they were scheduled to go in from midnight. We sauntered in at Eight, expecting to find an arena with eight hundred seats all set up for us, instead we found a sad collection of sagging structural elements, their ends propped up on stacked banquetting seats and, other than the entire space being cluttered up with randomly dumped piles of metal, little sign of activity. It transpired that they hadn't had all the bits that they needed, and the man with the key had gone home (I'm not making this up), not only that, but although the seating system belongs to the venue, the secret knowledge of how to erect it had not been shared with anybody who was present. The motley collection of philipino wine waiters and russian gardeners who had been entrusted with the task were plainly out of their depth, and also adept at swinging the lead.
Our difficulties were compounded by the tech crew we had working with us, on the first time around, we had several HOD grade technicians who were fab, second time we got the grunts, who, as became evident, were happy to cut corners. By the end of the evening I was pretty happy, we had reset all my stuff, I'd been able to check the focus points for the moving lights, and as far as I was concerned I was in a good position for the final dress next day. All I needed was for the seating to be completed, as this was critical to some focusses. So, I was heading up the ladder to the lighting control position to start the switch off, and had just got to the top of the (too short) access ladder, when it slipped sideways and I went flying. I landed squarely on my heel, the bone proved unequal to the pressure, and I have a text book 'humpty dumpty' fracture. I'll cast a gentle veil over my first experience as a hospital patient, 26 hours on a trolley in a corridor with no painkillers for 14 of them was not pleasant, life on the orthopedic ward was intriguing too, maybe I'll come back to that later.
As a postscript, there was a near riot at the venue on the next night, shortly before the preview performance our stage management were fascinated to observe the seating bank (with 400 people on it) starting to subside in the middle. After a great deal of debate, and delay, it was decided to cancel the performance. There have been a number of incidents since, I think everyone concerned is very glad to be out of there. Hopefully they are having a much better time in New York.
posted by Lampy @ 10/09/2008 10:25:00 am
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