Manchester

A flash banner.

In Fair Verona Where We Lay Our Scene… or, in this case: MANCHESTER

For those of you that haven’t seen us yet (why would you not have? O, why?), our Romeo is from Manchester, which adds a nice touch to this week-long run in what seems to be everyone’s favorite northern city.

The day we arrive, the cast are overjoyed to realize our green room will not be a tent this week: our faithful camper-van backs onto the regal pillars of Dower House, which is the HQ of the Manchester Bee-Keepers Association. The lodge inside is adorned with information about the life-cycle of bees, bee-diseases to keep an eye out for, and stark warnings about climate change and it’s effect on the bee population. All very sweet and menacing, much like the bee itself. We’re regular apiarist professors by the time we leave. We even have an observation hive in our changing area, and every time someone opens it up I have the alarming image of escaped insects chasing half-dressed actors out from the hive-house and into the arms of a bemused audience.

The audience seating is on two levels, strangely — Dower House has a Ha-Ha (yes, I’ve not heard it before either) and the Ha-Ha is a sudden dip in the earth to keep cows from grazing on the lawn, but one that can’t be seen from the house itself. This proves a tier-seating system, much like an old cinema in London, where you have to choose to sit beyond the crevice or near to the stage. It makes for a lovely orchard wall for Romeo to hide behind.

Although we had been warned, the fact that Manchester is ridiculously wet comes as a nasty surprise. And the fact that we have a couple of matinees means that the SMs and costume supervisor are on red alert for keeping the actors toasty and cold-free. They accomplish themselves admirably, producing steamers and hot-water bottles and ironing any costume at the slightest hint of interval-damp. I think the worst downpour came during the Queen Mab scene, after which I believe the words ‘I’ve never been so cold and wet in my entire life’ and ‘It really can’t be healthy’ were used.

There’s some concern over the fight scenes, but as our fight director says, it’s like driving — you only take it as fast as you feel safe with. Even in a real fight, you wouldn’t pretend it wasn’t raining. That said, being the Jack & Jill of the group, I’m expecting some injuries. During the Mercutio fight my knee gets knocked and I end up limping through the rest of the melee. Not so much Prince of Cats as Prince of Flamingos.

We are in the middle of nowhere in Heaton Park, which could explain a dip in the audiences, with the rain to boot. Especially after two sodden shows, the last thing you want is a twenty-minute walk to a half-hour tram ride home. And yet, this must be nothing compared to what the players back in the day went through. And they had the plague to deal with. We just have sniffles. I develop a deep and meaningful relationship with my bath-tub.

We all take up the offer of physiotherapy, and most people have some sort of doom-tinted finger pointed at their lower back or calf muscles. Apart from Benvolio that is, who gets a clean bill of health and spends his session furiously working out with the physio instead of being pampered.

We don’t get, I think, as gleeful a reaction here as in other venues. I blame the fact that the space is so rectangular — ideally you’d have a baseball-diamond, but here it feels like an Olympic swimming pool and anything given to the right is lost on the left, and vice versa.

We are all exhausted. Our mid-tour holiday cannot come too soon. My shoes get replaced in a fortuitous trip to TK Maxx, much to the costume supervisor’s delight. Tybalt isn’t fussy about his footwear. Paris, on the other hand…

It’s difficult finding the space and time to muster up the fury of Tybalt. Especially in this case, as no solid reason is given for his hatred of Romeo, other than the fact that he is a Montague. We all came to our own decisions about where the Montague/Capulet feud sprung from, but the trouble with a long run like this is that the same triggers don’t always work every time. Acting is such an unpredictable mix of hard work, deployed technique, moment-snatching and adaptability, that the fury, or love, or laughter possesses you in a slightly different way each time. And on top of that, you don’t want too much emotion to mar the beauty of the verse. It’s refreshing though, especially uprooting from venue to venue so quickly, that nothing can be laid in stone.

The high-point of the week’s mishaps, much to my mischievous glee, is Lady Capulet’s wayward spit —directed towards Benvolio— being carried by the wind and landing on an audience member’s face. Whoever you are out there, accept our humble apologies. But it did allow us an illicit giggle. Please don’t sue.

The low-point is the bee-keeper’s toilet overflowing, to which our valiant SM, resplendent in yellow gloves, tosses herself into the breach without a moment’s hesitation. If the Globe bigwigs are reading this, those girls deserve a raise…

Back to top