Blow high blow low

An Irishman's Diary
Frank McNally (Tuesday 27 June 2006)

To stage a play outdoors in Ireland is a major logistical challenge. You need to assemble most of the country's known reserves of optimism to start with. Then you need luck. But even if you have both of these, to stage a play called The Tempest outdoors in Ireland, well, that seems to be just asking for trouble.

...[like I@m going to put the full thing in here]...

The transformation of Fitzgerald's Park was complete. Fairy-like insects flitted on the pond, taking their bow. The trees whispered applause. A balmy breeze - several degrees above zero - swept in across the Western Road, from the general direction of Africa.

Cast off

Well there are only 2 shows to go, so I thought I had better look up the cast.

Prospero : Enda Oates
Miranda : Suzy Lawlor
Ferdinand : Aonghus Og McAnally
Calaban : Jamie Beamish
Ariel : Aidan O'Hare
Stephano : Charlie Bonner
Trinculo : Damien Kearney
Alonso : Denis Tuohy
Gonzalo : Brendan Conroy
Sebastian : Gary Murphy
Antonio : Liam Heffernan

roll out

Honey,

Remember those Lord of the Rings movies you got me to sit through.

Well....


I'm going to the Transformers movie. You can come but expect me to whoop a little too much and from which story line the various bits come from.

I'm a bit bouncy now...

Grooving down the river

It's only now that we've gotten in out groove.

Corcadorca's The Tempest ends on Saturday, but after a week and a half, the casts collective bodyclocks are now used to the long hours and well, the mess.

Costumes start to stink after a while, but wetsuits used daily without being able to dry out correctly... not a nice smell. Just as well the audience are not up close and personal.

The ducks are also getting bigger. And used to us. Last night they decided to snuggle up to the "sleeping" Ferdinand (Aonghus Og McAnally). I suspect they are looking forward to the end of the production so they can get their pond back. Their numbers are dwindling... somehow I suspect an altar somewhere covered with bits of (crispy?) duckling thanks to the good weather we've been having. It hasn't rained once during a show.

And there I go and jinx it...

Technorati Tags: acting cork irish shakespeare

Mouse law bites mouse?

It looks like the law that Disney lobbied to get in the US has gone and bitten them back in the case of
the legal rights to "Winnie the Pooh".

Technorati Tags: copyright law

I could never eat a whole one

Mary?
What John?
Want to go halves on a baby?

showtime

Last night we have our first audience.

I think it went well. However last night was freezing. Our near naked Caliban is really suffering. I think everyone is going to be wearing lots of layers under the costumes tonight.

At least the body clocks are sort of recovering, except for the cast who were also in The Wind That Shakes the Barley. I suspect they are really suffering after the Irish premier last night.


take care,
Will

Tired and shiny

Last night's dress rehearsal went more or less OK. A few microphone problems (forgot to turn on, battery runs out), a wardrobe malfuction (water down the sleeve of the wetsuit), bugs (no, real insects), ducks nesting on the set (!) and a chef from Cafe Paradiso bringing a large lunch for the entire cast... but only 4 forks available.

It finishes pretty close to midnight. So run off. Remove costume and make-up then home.

Unfortunately I have a problem with the make-up. For the "masque" at the end of the play I end up in glitter make-up. Who the hell do you take this stuff off? Instead of removing it it's spread all over my face.

I'm slightly shiny still, two showers and wipes and make-up remover later.

sparkingly,
Will

oooouch

It's now that web advert sites are getting better.

Reach out and touch someone with sunburn at www.oooooouch.com. It's an advert for suncream, and in interactive piano of sunbathers.

Or www.shaveeverywhere.com which is as scary as it sounds and requires a good broadband connection. It's also very funny thanks to the censorship in the US they have to get around the dirty words in the most amusing way possible. The music video is good too.

take care,
Will

CJ's dead

Charles J Haughey, born September 16th, 1925; died June 13th 2006 .

Irish Times Obituary: The death of former taoiseach Charles J Haughey brings down the curtain on one of the most colourful and controversial political careers in the history of the State.

Bloomberg

Guardian

RTE

Blogorrah

Personally, I now have that "Charlie's Song" playing in my head. "Arise and follow Charlie" now sounds like a zombie movie gone wrong.

The gentleman became mistrust personified. Tribunals may stall around this death. The secrets hidden away will still haunt a few people, Irish politics is going to get very interesting as the man juggled bombshells... Let's see what drops.

Will

Under the water

Arrived for rehearsals. The set was under water.

Somewhere upstream a dam was opened. It appears that the pond has a "link" to the Lee, so then the water level rose, the island sunk.

The musicians had a few minutes to get their instruments (and their power supply) from the rising water.

Needless to say, things were delayed.

However we almost did our full run-through (once the levels went down a bit). The almost is because a few props were slightly floaty, or unavailable. What and the resident ducks sort of taking things over a bit.

We finished at 22.15h. The starting time of the play on show nights. The twilight is magical as it is. It's going to be fun.

take care,
Will

My island in the sun

I'm burned.

I'm part of Corcadorca's production of The Tempest. The Corcacorca team build an island in Fitzgerald’s Park... and it's interesting. On the bank holiday, June 2nd, the sun shone; mostly white pasty bodies offered themselves as a sacrifice to the sun all around us.

This weekend was, well, miserable. The thunder and lightening (and resulting rain) of Friday meant that the island was a soggy one (the "grass" is astroturf, but it still absorbs water). Cue the overcast and getting ready to bucket weather, and Saturday was a chilly affair.

I managed to still get sunburnt!
I also caught a cold at the same time which is proof of my ability to multitask.

Anyway, we can now see things begining to come together.
And as long as the 5 lighting conductors we put in the pond aren't used by the elements, we'll be fine.

If soggy.

take care,
Will

Been there, done that, too many times

"Oh wow, this is great!"

He was standing on the stage of the helix generally in awe of the auditorium.

This was the first time I had been there, and it's a nice hall, but not that amazing.
Beside him stood a regular member of choirs and he agreed with me.

The awe is gone.
I realised why I thought the gig on the Late Late Show wasn't a big deal. It wasn't. For me that is. I mean that I've done a lot. My active (and singing) CV spills over quite a bit, and all of it on stages large and small across the country.
I left out the stuff I did as a kid (playing the Gaiety in Dublin when I was 13).

Being on a stage is no longer impressive. I find the auditions more nerve wrecking than the performance.

I miss the awe. I miss being impressed.

Will

More C4 Transformed

Yes I'm back, and I'll probably be back-filling my blog posts for the time I've been away.
however...

Remember the Transforming Dancing Citroen C4?

Well, he's back! And this time he's got his skates on.

Some of you are no doubt saying "so what?".
Well the company that did the first advert (and probably did the second one) are supposed to be doing the new Transformers movie.

And they can't have Bumblebee as a Volkswagen Beetle, so a yellow Citroen C4 is possible...