Peta and the Great Red Shark
05 Sep 2004Last night the usual suspects went to a production, and sat on the other side of the booth wall. Which was odd, but cool. My addition to the wall was still sitting up there, keeping time nicely, which was pleasant to see… speculation continues as to how long is shall remain, but you get that.
Actually, a few more than the usual suspects — we were joined by Katyana, which was cool, and Sam also came to the party… it was like one big crazy family reunion! Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to stop ourselves from laughing too hard before the production commenced. You have no idea how hard a task that is.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen scaffolding erected in such a manner, nor do I ever wish to again; it was good for a laugh once, maybe twice, but it’s all fun and games until a structurally-unsound-metal-thing-holding-up-little-people-comes-crashing-to-the-ground when the GAFFERS TAPE which is all that is holding it together comes unfastened. I jest not. The scaffolding has different length struts designed to hold it securely together, but apparently it was too much trouble for certain people in the employ of SACS to find appropriate struts. I’ll leave it there. Actually, no, I won’t, because it’s just too damn hilarious. To make matters better/worse/more amusing, the kid operating the spot didn’t actually have a chair, and was sitting on the edge of this scaffolding supported solely be Gaffer’s tape. I’m glad he wasn’t heavy, but at the same time, a morbid, evil, twisted part of me kept wishing that halfway through the performance there would come a scream and clattering sound from the back of the room as this precariously constructed…. thing… collapsed.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the title of this post, that’d be because this “White Shark” was invariably lit with a spot with a beam perhaps 1m at best, with a red gel frame HELD up to the light emitted from the spot. Why couldn’t they extend their hire budget far enough to get a nice-ish Selecon 2.5k spot?! That’s like… $77 day rate from Lots Of Watts, which works out to be $154 for three days (don’t ask about the maths, their pricing is a bit odd like that), not factoring whatever discounts the school can pull with them! Seriously, that’s only 30-odd donations… I have no idea what their numbers were like for all shows, but it’s perfectly manageable. That said, perhaps they should have just hired some damn fresnels at $20 each or however much they would be, instead of filling the FOH bar up with non-safety-chained chrome Par 64′s!!! CHROME!!!! *shudder*
*ahem*
Yeaaahhhhh… so that was fun. The plot was decent, but it was disappointingly lacking in finesse… I’m wondering if that’s because we were in the audience and didn’t see it improve across performances and rehearsals, or whether it was just lacking, full stop. Not that it really matters, seeing the show is over now… but still, it felt so much more like a “dodgy school production” than other things have. SACS seems big on that this year, what with their efforts so far; Showcase Concert, I’m glaring at you.
That finished, we escaped deftly before someone tried to conscript us to bump-out or something else equally stupid, and went our various ways. Ben and myself were forced into Katy’s car (hey, no complaints here!), Ben started making blonde driver comments, and then… and then Katy missed a turn, and we ended up heading over Glebe Bridge (or the Anzac Bridge or whatever it’s really called this week) by accident. Oops! Hehehe. A quick phone call and three minute drive later, Dale had three stragglers on his doorstep, randomly calling then dropping in at about 22:00 on a Saturday night.
Hey, I called first! Yeah. ’twas pretty cool. We took off about an hour later again, then drove randomly around, got invariably lost in the labyrinthine one-way streets of Rozelle/Balmain, before making it back via the city to miscellaneous places of residence. The magic had to stop some time ;)