05.02.2008

wrapping up

One lovely and quite unexpected thing about Vancouver is the constant presence of sea-birds. I think they are mostly some variety of gull. Anyway in the mornings I can hear them squwarking from the tops of the buildings over the road and then at various times during the day I become aware of them in the soundscape of the city. It's great.

Also yesterday there was a beautiful sunrise and then a really clear view of the snowy mountains to the north of the city. All day they kept peeping round buildings, reminding me of time and space and nature.

The last two performances went really well. During the second this great thing happened where a family was coming out of the library towards the end of the show. I could see them out of the corner of my eye...there was about six of them. They slowly made their way right through the centre of the space and as they got closer to Simon and me they realised that something not very nice was going on. So they stopped and watched, clearly wanting to make sure that everything was okay. I was just getting to the part where my character is offering sexual favours to Steve, so dropped my voice even more and came really close to him, trying to avoid letting anyone hear what I was saying.

But they must have heard because there was a great shout of laughter from the audience and I heard later that the father, upon hearing my words, had been really shocked and had bustled the family away from us and gone to speak to security about it. It was a good moment for the audience and also fantastic to know that people care enough about other people to intervene.

The other great thing that I found out later was that two separate people, independently, who had seen the play as part of the regular audience with the headphones on, then decided that they wanted to see it from the outside and were sitting at separate tables in the space during the last show, reading the newspaper, having a coffee and watching us and the audience and the life and world around the play. I think that's pretty cool.

Finally, the Back to Back team started the dancing off at the PUSH Festival after party. Simon and Sonia busted some excellent moves, and Margaret (one of Jim's other selves) really came into her own...it's clear that all that step training really does help...Actually Margaret and Leanne Carol (a new alter ego of mine) stayed on the dance floor for quite a long time. I'm not sure that Leanne Carol is a very good influence on Margaret. She is, let's be gentle, a little rough around the edges. We're not talking soft pink velour pantsuit here, more like leopard-print lycra leggings. But they certainly had a lot of fun together and most of it was clean. It was a very satisfactory ending to the tour...Although there is a plan for one final breakfast this morning...of course. We need to eat pancakes, make a few more speeches and say goodbye.