Avatar on Tour - Stornoway
The Highlands and Islands part of the tour kicks off with a night in Ballachulish Village Hall - a well-established stop on the touring venue. For me, it's back to the day job as writer in residence for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, and a chance to catch up on the work that's piled up meanwhile. Fast-forward over this bit (too traumatic) and on to the weekend, when Suzanne (Graham, literature development officer) and I are heading up to Lewis for the first time, along with Birmingham Royal Ballet's Anne Gallacher, who's spending a couple of months working at the Traverse on a Clore Arts Fellowship.
The show is on at An Lanntair, the beautiful new arts centre in Stornoway, which opened last year with a Traverse play: I was a Beautiful Day by Lewis writer Iain Finlay Macleod. Programming officer Alex Macdonald shows us round and introduces us (not least) to the real live map-suit seen on the poster, which is now a prize exhibit (see pic).
Once again, the technical team are wrestling the set into an unfamiliar space. Each venue has its own quirks: for An Lanntair, half the Traverse equipment has been left on the mainland, to avoid the terrifying expense of transporting everything to Lewis (a three-hour trip by ferry). So the already-stretched techies are working with unfamiliar kit, too. And then there's the different acoustics, which call for almighty projection from the actors. In Lanntair, they're a fair distance from the audience - whereas in Carlops, they were practically on their laps. So again, get-in time is tight - no chance for the actors to try things out and get used to the space.
In the interval, a couple of familiar faces in the bar: writer Derek Ross and his wife Chris. I'd love to say they'd made the long trek from Dumfries to Lewis just to catch the play - but no: they're on holiday in the area. An Lanntair is hotching with visitors - there are two gallery openings the same night. Stornoway's a happening sort of place.
I'm tempted to post some pix of our post-show discussion (eh? ed.) in the Lewis Lounge in the small hours. But after threats from the production team, here instead is an exclusive pic of the Lewis get-out: It may just look like a wild blur captured by a writer who's spent the interval propping up the bar, but no: that's what it's really like. Lee, Gemma, Hazel, Phil, Mark whirr round with by now clockwork precision, backed up by the An Lanntair team and the actors. Yep - forget all notions of the glamorous life of actors. Banish them. Now. Pauline, Una, John and Patrick don't actually have to do any hands-on lugging. It's not part of their job. But the set's big and the night long. The more people chip in, the quicker they can all go home.
By now, I'm starting to get a feel for how it goes: Clear the set - , snow, books, carpet and all. Pack everything into crates. Strip the gaffer tape from the cables and wind them into coils. Take off the festoons and pack the bulbs. Unscrew the set elements and lower the flats. Lift the stage floor and unclip the slotted boxes it stands on. Then down come the overhead bars so that the lights can be unbolted. And everything has to be carted outside and loaded like a vast, impossible, ton-weight jigsaw into the two vans. A vast, impossible, ton-weight, delicate jigsaw - think plasma screens, lights, plywood, leaves...
Delicate - after Lewis, that word will come back to haunt us.
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