If you came to see our production of ‘Blackbird’ (first of all, thank you)then you would have seen our set. Pacing backstage as the audience came in, every night I heard at least one group of people laughing or making jokes about just how much of a state this break room was. We even had a comment from one person that we had ‘got a bit carried away’ but here’s the thing...we hadn’t. We knew what we were doing, where each group of litter needed to be and had been very organised about it.
Let me explain, when you’re putting together any set you have to take into account what each piece will be used for and how the actors are going to interact with it. As a result, you are very aware of what is safe and, more importantly, what is not. Any risks you find will then have to be mitigated. Now I’m sure this is the same in any place of work but I don’t think most places consider the sturdiness of a suitcase that you want a person to sit on. Just a hunch. The risks that I have found in the past have been around this kind of thing and have always been sorted by Kyle reinforcing suitcases and desks (he was very disappointed to not have a woodworking project for ‘Blackbird’). Looking at it, you wouldn’t have thought that there would be much risk with our set – it was essentially a table, four plastic chairs, lockers and the litter. Yes, of course there was the throwing of the chair but that was stage combat rather than anything inherently about the set (even though a piece of set was being used). So what exactly were the risks?
The first thing that we had to think about was biohazards. We couldn’t use anything that actually had food or drink on or in it because food expires and goes mouldy. We also had to think about food allergies, so of course nothing that had once had nuts but also anything that could have had dairy as in some severe cases, even the smallest contact with dairy can provoke a reaction. We had asked the cast about any medical conditions, including allergies, as we always do and none were given (just an intense dislike of sauces that could have a vinegary texture) but we couldn’t guarantee the same from our audience members and we certainly didn’t want to turn anyone away because we decided that having a packet of cashews on stage looked good. This is why you’ll have seen so many Greggs bags and small pizza boxes on stage – they were constantly clean so we kept them and used them. The one exception to this ‘no food’ rule was the pastry that was onstage every night for James to step in but they were always in date (in some cases, bought that morning) but even the type of pastry was changed for the final performance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The second thing to think of was what kind of rubbish we wanted on stage. The obvious thing would be what stuff was made of – we certainly didn’t want glass bottles being kicked around the stage every night! For a few nights, there were two tin cans but they were removed after a near miss which I’ll talk about later. I genuinely don’t know what I was thinking when I put them on stage! But the other thing is what looked good and what felt out of place in a break room of somewhere that does ‘dentistry. Sometimes pharmaceutical’ stuff. For instance, during the summer I have a bit of an obsession with Oreo cookie ice-cream sandwiches. Knowing this,Kyle bought me a box after one rehearsal and I ate them all on the way home (don’t judge me). Because all of the ice-creams had been wrapped, the box was completely clean and perfect for use on stage however, during the first few rehearsals with all of the trash, I kept getting distracted by this box that just felt so incredibly out of place. Now, I’m not saying the fine people of the play’s unknown company can’t have a sweet tooth but with just one of them, it did look a little bit like the work experience kids had been in and left it there. Yes, I could have got more but it was easier to just ditch the one.
‘He runs at the bin and kicks it over. It falls, rubbish spills out. He kicks the rubbish. Una joins in. They kick together.’As you can imagine, especially in a very intimate theatre, a scene where the characters start kicking litter around the stage could be a little risky. To try and minimise the risks, when rehearsing the scene we had the rule never to kick into the audience which is simple enough and we never had any problems. Things were going well. However, when you're in the heat of the moment and the adrenaline is pumping through your body things can easily go a little bit wrong. After the second performance, I was informed by one of the ushers that a tin can (again, I don't know what on earth I was thinking) was accidentally kicked into the audience and nearly hit an audience member. It also hit a plastic bottle on its trajectory which also went into the audience. I would like to emphasise that no one got hurt (I don't even think the lady that it happened to realised it had got as close as it did) and accidents happen. It was, however, a near miss so we had to act accordingly. The first thing that I did was remove any cans from the stage and then following day we all had a sit down to chat about it. We agreed to move back the invisible line that litter could be kicked past and that the bin that was thrown had to be aimed behind the lockers.We had already got a similar rule in place about the placement of bottles on a certain area so that they wouldn't interfere with a part of stage combat so these were all very simple fixes and we didn’t have any more problems with this section of the play.
The last, and slightly unexpected, thing that we had to consider was the lingering affects of stepping in a custard Danish. To be fair, I had already anticipated that there would be mess (that was kind of the comedy) so I put various things in place to try and minimise it as much as possible. Firstly, the pastry was always placed on at least two napkins. Once stepped in, James would wipe the bottom of his shoe with one of the napkins that I had left on the table before throwing the food in the bin. Lastly, I would be standing backstage with a wet wipe for him to give his shoe a proper clean when he came off stage thirty seconds later. Even with all these steps followed perfectly,on the third night one pesky blob of custard refused to be cleaned up. I have to tell you that hearing a loud thud that you weren't expecting in a fight sequence when you’re backstage and have no idea what is happening is absolutely terrifying. Luckily it was right at the end of the show and the injured knee was iced (much to Katie's annoyance). We switched the custard pastry to a muffin for the final night (we needed to buy something fresh anyway).
So there we are, a fairly surprisingamount of things to account for when you have litter on stage. I hope you'll agree with my earlier statement when I say we didn't go over the top. We knew exactly what we were doing.
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