Today felt incredibly odd. . . because for the first time in what feels like months (but it’s only been weeks) I didn’t have to go anywhere near the Carthage campus or anywhere near my score to John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. Yesterday was the last day of J-Term and today begins a brief break before second semester on Wednesday, and I very deliberately did nothing at all that had anything to do with the opera that we have been working on so intently since January 4th. Instead, I did some long-postponed cleaning in my studio at home.
So what did I think about all day long? You guessed it: The Beggar’s Opera! But it wasn’t so much out of worry as it was a sense of mounting excitement that we might in fact have a wonderful show on our hands that people will genuinely enjoy.
Well. maybe there was a little bit of worry there- especially because Michael Chase, who has the largest role among the men, fell ill and missed both Wednesday and Thursday’s rehearsals….. meaning that the rest of the cast had to act out certain scenes without being able to interact with the main character there. I know it was frustrating for them, but I think a few them actually realized without us even pointing it out to them in so many words, that there was something beneficial about having to rehearse with one of the most important characters absent…… because everyone had to work just that much harder to keep everything straight and use their imaginations a bit more. Of course, the drawback is that every moment Michael was absent was a moment when we could have been working to polish and perfect his portrayal of Macheath- but that polishing will have to happen first over break (one-on-one with me) and then over the first three days of the new term- which are also the three days before we open. Fortunately, Michael is one of the most experienced singers in our cast, with tons of shows under his belt – and if anyone knows that has to happen over the next few days, it’s him.
I’m thrilled to say that MIchael is surrounded by a really superb cast , who seem to be throwing themselves into the stage production of director Matt Boresi with great enthusiasm- and trust. Matt developed a really smart concept in which the opera is performed by a group of beggars living in cardboard boxes and wearing the kind of clothes one sees worn by the homeless…. who step out of their boxes from time to time to assume their role in the opera itself. He also came up with certain modern references to our most recent economic meltdown, most dramatically by inserting into the libretto some key texts like a Gordon Grecko speech from the movie Wall Street or an extended excerpt from President Obama’s first speech about the crisis. My job was to figure out how such texts could be gracefully sung to familiar English melodies like Greensleeves or Barbara Allen- a challenge which had me pulling my hair out before it finally became fun and even exciting.
Early this past week, Matt and I were both feeling a rising sense of panic (our short hand way of talking about it was to say that “what’s giving me a stroke right now is. . . “ or “I’m pretty sure I won’t have a heart attack if. . . “ ) that is to be expected at that point in a rehearsal process when all of the theatrical and musical elements are really coming together but are still too new for the cast to handle them. You get this picture of someone juggling and singing a song while riding a unicycle- exciting but scary and especially in the early going, something or someone goes splat on a fairly regular basis. What compounded the problem for us was that we concocted a lot of stage business and extra music to keep the full ensemble busy and engaged- but that also means that almost the entire cast is onstage the entire time, which basically prevents you from taking the chorus in the other room and running through their music while Matt works with the principals. . . plus it gives everybody more to do and to remember. It’s great- I’m glad we did it this way- but it also set up an incredibly difficult challenge for every single person in the cast. And that’s why for days on end Matt and I were talking about trying not to have a stroke or heart attack.
And then- especially during yesterday’s rehearsal – there was this definite sense of things coming together at long last. . . like tumblers inside a lock finally falling into place. To be sure there is still work to do, including the shaking off of rust that will almost certainly settle in during this break between terms – but I think all of us are convinced that we have ourselves a show, and that our audiences will be intrigued and entertained, which is the greatest feeling in the world.
Performances of “The Beggar’s Opera” are at Carthage College’s Siebert Chapel on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 4th and 5th – 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.
pictured above: Some of the beggars in our cast with the signs they painted.