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Friday, June 5th 1998, Labatt's Apollo Hammersmith
The world was currently shaking in its boots with nuclear bomb tests going down between two rival countries. Out here in London, no one seemed to care. Perhaps, with how tedious our rehearsals had become, Dolittle cast members were even more clueless than most. After our sitzprobe, we went into wandelprobe; if you are familiar with German or with any Romance language, you may have guessed it meant walking or wandering rehearsal. If so, you are absolutely right.
The Wandelprobe was performed in our everyday clothes, with Steven fully in charge. All the scenes we had rehearsed before had taken place in a rehearsal room. Where we used tape and portable platforms to stand in for the actual stage. This time, the stage might have lacked the ninety-two animatronic animals and the full lighting setup, but it had everything else — the real props, furniture, and backdrops. Best of all, it was the glorious Apollo stage, ours to command for the next four months. As we ran through the show, the technical crew scribbled notes furiously, marking every cue and adjustment while we pieced the production together at last on its proper birthplace.
Since the wandelprobe, full performance had been done three times, but we had done dozens of scenes individually as well. We practiced the dance choreographies almost religiously. Each day we met up to warm up and dance before we went into technical rehearsals. Steven had adjustments for everything. Sit there like this, have your arms to show you are daydreaming, open your eyes wider so that people can see your dreaminess. The person who received the most adjustments and directions was poor ol' Phillip. He was a great performer but a terrible actor. Steven seemed a man about to choke Phillip whenever he delivered his lines too quickly. Yet he looked a man about to rain kisses on Phillip whenever he sang his numbers.
"Slow down, for God's sake. You are not on TV, you're not reading off your damn teleprompter." Steven's eyes softened — only so much abuse could be directed towards the star of the show. "The way you move when you sing, the confidence that you have! Bring it into your scene work. Think of it as singing, speak on beat if you must." Steven told the lead actor.
Phillip improved since then, of course, but not to a level that Steven was happy with.
—✦—
"Listen up!" Steven said after his customary claps.
Cast called it the Shakespearean applause on account of Steven having directed mostly Shakespeare plays.
"Tech's done some dry runs on the recorded cues. Now we'll do a wet run — that's the cast and tech coming together. Lighting and cues; if there are mistakes, we'll reset and go from the last cue. First, get backstage and get your mics fitted."
If you've never been backstage, let me tell you that it is a mess. Wings — that is, stage left and right — would always be an exit or entrance for us, but in some scenes, there were doors or stage props that we could use. That area at the back was called the crossover. As we all made our way back, we were respectful of the queue like no one else. Missing our cues could have us bump into someone in the tiny area; queuing up solved the issue.
If you've never been backstage, let me tell you — it's chaos in the most organised way imaginable. The wings, meaning stage left and stage right, serve as both exits and entrances for us actors. Depending on the scene, there might also be doors or other props we could use to enter and leave. Behind the stage is a narrow passage called the crossover, which lets actors move from one side of the stage to the other without being seen by the audience. Everyone learned quickly to respect our cues and not dawdle or make ourselves scarce from the area. In a space that cramped, missing your cue or cutting the line could mean literally bumping into someone — cracked forehead was not what I was after.
The line moved as quickly as the assistant sound engineers could place mics. Each microphone was different, some wore a metal wire folded into the shape of an ear, some had it clipped onto their forehead. The room was full of digital equipment — monitors, analogue or with screens. Green and red lights were either on or off to indicate which mics were hot. A radio receiver and station were set to the side; occasionally, a tech crew member radioed in information.
My turn finally came.
"Katie," a lady introduced herself. She sat on a large worktable with various tools around.
Most eye-catching was a plastic sack hanging from a wire. It had pouches built into it, wireless microphones and transmitters all sorted nicely with the actor's name marked. Clear plastic reminded me of someone's stamp collection with how the clear plastic displayed the mics proudly.
"Tommy," I replied distractedly.
"This," Katie brought up a transmitter — a silver rectangular piece with a label taped on it that said Mic-17/Tommy-1. A wired microphone was plugged into the socket. "It is worth four hundred quid. If you break it, it'll be off your wages."
I had clocked her as a nice lady, but you couldn't always judge a book by its cover.
"No tapping the transmitter, no bumping the transmitter against the wall or your chair," Katie said, her voice louder with each warning, "No touching the transmitter!"
"Right…" I said. She wasn't going to get a Christmas card from me.
"If you turn off the mic and go on stage, it will be mayhem. Here," she said as her hand reached around — a wire from the transmitter went behind my right ear.
Almost too soon, she cut out a clear adhesive tape and stuck the mic to my cheek. She used her hands to move my head up and down as she ran the wire through the side of my head, behind my ear and down to my neck. Each time, she taped it at those spots, making me move my head so there enough room for free movement.
"Just because the microphone doesn't seem close doesn't mean you have to speak or sing louder! We can increase the gain at the back — the volume, I mean," Katie said, dumbing it down for me.
"I understand—" I started to say.
"DO. NOT. TOUCH!" Katie said, slapping my hand as I reached to find the mic. "Touching the mic is very bad — pretend that it doesn't exist."
I sighed; Katie was serious about her mics.
"This will help." Katie handed me a skin-coloured waistband.
The waistband had two wide slots in the back and velcro to keep it tight.
"Or do you want a pouch like this?" she asked me, holding up a single nylon pouch with a cord through it.
"I get a choice?" I asked dryly.
Katie actually seemed to ponder over that for a moment before shaking her head.
"No. You get the pouch. Keep it in your jacket or the back pocket, wherever it doesn't rub much." Katie said.
As soon as she placed the transmitter into the nylon pouch, she put it in my trouser's back pocket and kicked me out of the room.
Outside, I waited for all the cast members with singing parts to get their mics fitted. Idly, I admired all the animatronics that the Creature Shop had built for us. We had horses that looked like the biggest nerds — realistic but just uncanny enough to be fantastical. The Doctor's house had foxes, a pig, a dog, a chimpanzee and birds of many kinds. Only Chee-Chee the Chimp and Pushmi-Pullyu were being played by humans. The rest were all going to be operated by advanced RC remotes, with voice actors voicing them from backstage.
Today's tech rehearsal had me excited for one reason. Well, I'd be lying if there was only one reason, because the lights added seriousness that was not present before.
But my real focus was on a parrot made of plastic, silicone and electrical parts soaked in glue and rolled in feathers. Polynesia the wise old parrot was going to have a voice for the first time. I felt that it would be weird to speak to Julie's voice instead of Angela reading out the lines. My Nain had made a fast friend of Julie — so I heard from my grandma, of all people — regarding my fellow cast member having gone to a recording studio. Julie hadn't been in a play in London for four decades. How odd was it that her first time back, she was almost like an outsider. An old thin lady worked her RC remote in mad ways, which made the parrot bob and weave as if dancing to an invisible beat. Stage Manager would call the shots for when the recorded lines would be played.
We were only missing the dress rehearsal after this. In one week, previews would start. Family and friends would come at first — it would be our roughest performance. Steven would still keep directing us and changing the play into something that fit his vision better until press night. Then a week after that we would premiere for real. Everything was turning more real as days passed.
"That's everyone," Steven said, clapping loudly.
Cast members were all ready to put on the performance of their lifetime.
"Save your voices for tomorrow or Dixon will kill me," Steven complained.
"Oi oi," voices replied.
The overture started to play — the band was inside the theatre yet invisible to us. I held my thinking pose, looking like a boy daydreaming. The worst set in the production so far was the dock — the very place the first scene started with. Doctor's house was work of art but this set looked like Woodfield's production of Oliver! Underneath my feet and the stage was our orchestra, playing music in a basement like a newly formed band. I looked up on cue, said my lines, pushed the cart until Bryan started his song.
Over the past seven weeks, I had improved as an actor, a singer and a dancer. Children of the Forest taught me some things, but it hadn't taught me stamina or the ability to turn off and on my acting within moments.
My most natural method of acting turned out to be what some may wrongly call method acting. I didn't act like my character on or off the set, but I did try to understand my character's motivations, psychology and limitations. Falling into that character and coming out of it could be emotionally draining. Acting as Pablo, I pretended that I was stuck in a place where I did not speak the language, without coin or food — depending solely on the kindness of children. Fear was easy to understand and portray.
Some characters were easier or harder to get into. I found Tommy easy at first, but harder as the days passed. This character was cartoonish, unrealistic and full of boyish charm and foolish wonder. The more I put on that state of mind, the less effective it became.
Theatre training and rehearsals kicked in then. Rehearsals break you down until you are nothing; you prepare something for so long that every dance move becomes so ingrained in your muscle memory that you no longer have to think about it. The same applied to acting — I no longer needed to really dive into that state of mind, instead I could fool my body into feeling the excitement.
Julie taught me how to cry on command, which I used to manipulate my mother into taking my wages to pay off bills. What I was doing now used the same concept, only I manipulated myself. You could cry for real by going the standard method-act route — recall bad memories and make yourself cry. That sort of thing can drain you. How terrible it would be if I had a crying scene and had to fake cry each day, and it would be real. Each day would be miserable as you went through a bad memory, reliving it daily.
Fabulous Mary Poppins had another idea — she simply yawned. Try yawning right now; exaggerate it as much as possible, close your eyes, cover your face and yawn. You'll have a few tears if you dab your eyes. The same muscles that you can feel moving when you yawn, you can also move without opening your mouth. Our bodies have their pre-programmed responses to all things life would throw at us.
Getting myself excited could be triggered by so many such things — fast breathing, sugar in my system, jumping around restlessly for a minute, focusing my eyes on something until my eyes dilated. These were the tells I had learned from drawing real excitement from being on the show, then seeing what my body was doing. It worked the other way around, just like the yawning did. Maybe it wasn't as effective as the real thing, but it offered me more control without the cost of drained emotions.
Today was completely different.
I had a light on me in the very first scene. When I crossed from upstage centre to downstage left, a light went off behind me and another was lit up in front of me. It made me feel giddy and excited. I drew that emotion into me and channelled it into my performance. Before, we were dancing and singing under the dim lights. Now the stage lights shone on me like sun on my skin — the heat was comparable as it warmed me up like summer day. That warmth was instantly associated with me being the centre of attention. My personality wasn't the kind to seek attention in normal situations, but when I was on stage, I needed that light on me. The audience needed to see me — see my emotions and how much effort I put in. I needed them to appreciate my performance.
Steven complimented everyone in between transitions. It wasn't only me feeling the excitement today. Our performance was almost perfect — or maybe that was just the lights making it all look so shiny and new.
The role of Tommy usually bored me — he was onstage for what felt like the entire play. But today, I didn't mind it as much. I was standing under the lights in every scene, and somehow that made all the difference. I didn't even care that my character was deliberately upstaged in almost every scene; the lighting made it feel like the audience could see themselves through me. After all, in most scenes, you could barely even see my face. Children would see this play and put themselves in Tommy's shoes, it was a good practice for Harry Potter.
#
I laughed dozens of times during the rehearsal with the mishaps in technicals. The large snail head could only fit through the stage with six-inch clearance, so everyone who moved it had to do it perfectly or things went awry. The same could be said with the mammoth, the pushmi-pullyu (two-headed llama who had two woman inside of it) and the craziest animatronic ever — the Giant Lunar Moth.
Phillip refused to get on at first; his understudy was happy to take his place and "flew" on the moth. The lights hanging from the purple monstrosity made it look more fake than every other animal that the Creature Shop built. Though nothing could really rival the grand size of the moth, nor the way its body moved in conjunction with the flap of its wings. The puppet masters had breathed life into their craft — realistic movements made plastic and paint look indistinguishable from real natural movement.
Our reprisal of Talk to the Animals had more energy than all the other times we had performed it before. As Michael waved from the giant flying contraption to the empty theatre hall, Phillip finished the play from his spot at the sidelines.
"To me!" John Dolittle shouted, music reached a crescendo.
Lights went crazy, and we held our final poses, then bowed to our technical crew and creative team as we would our live audience when we had our first preview.
"Brilliant!" Steven said — his claps this time were of pure joy and wonder.
After seeing it all come together, his frustration with the production seemed to have been washed away. He was incredibly pessimistic about the animatronics being completed on time. Yet here we were — on schedule and nailing our rehearsals.
I, Wilfred Ingrid Price, had received my very first standing ovation. Theatre was special; I felt like I knew all of my cast members better than my family. The way we danced together could be done in a dark room, and I doubted any of us would bump into each other again. Theatre had destroyed me and rebuilt me piece by piece. I was no longer a small boy from Puddleby that Dolittle called me.
Call me overcome with my emotions, but I promised that I would do theatre until I was senile and too fragile. Even then, only falling from a stage could take me off it. Theatre was not just a job; it was a community of the friendliest and warmest people around, and we grew our friendship every single day through our teamwork building activities. Soldiers did the same, but that built a colder person with deadlier capabilities — our purpose was to awe and amaze our audience and that made all the difference.
"Tutoring for Wilfred and Darien!" Maddie shouted and dragged me away from the large hugging pile the cast was in.
Steven wasn't even mad; he laughed and joked, "Make sure he rests his voice — we'll be recording the songs tomorrow."
My schedule had ballooned for June: maximum allowed six-day-a-week rehearsals, studio sessions for the cast album, auditions for ITV and BBC productions. Then there was something that could change my projection in the entertainment industry. Nain had sweet-talked her way to Julie Andrews and got a ticket for Hey, Mr. Producer! — a tribute concert to Cameron Mackintosh, who had been recently knighted for his contribution to musical theatre. Julie was going to be the host, and I would see the Queen in person.
"Ahhhhh!" I screamed silently in excitement. I would wander into the event for the elites.