ARABIAN NIGHTS – Production Day 8 – ANDREW MCDONALD
These People Sit for Hours
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Royale Theatre. Before the play begins, could you please take a moment to switch off all mobile phones and pagers; and perhaps this is a good moment to unwrap those pesky little candies!” This is the exact pre-show announcement delivered in a jaunty American voice before a matinee of Arthur Miller’s ‘The Price’ at the Royale Theatre in New York on my one and only visit to the States. It came back to me as we were sitting on stage the other day and the audience started to assemble for our show. Someone unwrapped, very loudly, what sounded like the biggest sandwich in the world. “Glad he’s done that before we start!” I thought, because unwrapping and sorting out your lunch can be a delicate business in a fairly intimate space like ours. As anyone who has tried will testify, those “pesky little candies” or, indeed, well wrapped sandwiches make a heck of a row when you’re trying to be discreet. But you’d be surprised, during a performance of a previous Lunchbox show a punter ate the loudest bag of crisps in the world all through my narration of the Miller’s Tale. No number of dirty looks from me in their general direction seemed to alert them to the fact that it would be hard to make more noise if they tried.
But in general, our audiences are a bunch of people (some regulars of all three Lunchbox shows we’ve done so far) who respond to the invitation to bring their lunch to eat while watching the show, but have the good manners and sense to bring a ‘soft’ lunch, i.e. one well cushioned by mayonnaise or in a liquid form. (I was thinking of soup, but speaking of which I have observed that some of our Friday audiences in the past have been noticeably more demonstrative in their appreciation of the show – a couple of loosening pints before we start, to celebrate the onset of the weekend perhaps?) Whatever the reason, we welcome it with open arms! It can be a lonely place, the stage, when an audience is listening intently and we don’t know if they’re actually enjoying what we’re doing. Thankfully the Lunchbox shows attract a great deal of appreciation from their audiences and we love them for giving us so much back! By the way, full marks to the gentleman this afternoon who, with his female companion, chuckled appreciatively throughout and then accompanied our curtain call with a loud BRAVO! Whoever you are, sir, I guarantee you a couple of comps to any further ‘Arabian Nights’ performances you wish to attend!
We sincerely hope to be back at the Bridewell soon with another show and hope to build upon our regular audience. I can’t think of a better ‘review’ of what we’ve been offering than the woman overheard leaving one of our Lunchbox shows with the phrase “Well, after the crap morning I’ve had, that’s (the show) exactly what I needed!”
Please come and join us in our final fortnight. The stories may be familiar but I suggest the manner of their telling is not.
And remember – NO CRISPS!
Hope to see you there soon.
