Body on the Stage (31 page)

“Good God, I almost forgot! This
cutting up process really messes with your head, doesn’t it? Yeah,
after the show then. Cool. Just shove something food-like in my
mouth for now and I’ll be brave and carry on.”

“You got it, Superman.”

When they arrived at the theatre
that night Dennis was astonished at the change in atmosphere. There
was an indefinable sizzle of energy about the place, from the sound
of hurrying feet across lino floors to the urgent buzz of
conversations in every corner.

The only person seemingly
unaffected was Gert, the elderly props lady, who was methodically
laying out the numerous items the actors would use on the props
table, each neatly in its outlined space. Everyone else seemed to
have been given fresh batteries, or been plugged into mains power
for a massive recharge of energy.

Adam moved among the performers,
giving a few last-minute reminders here and there. Tony was doing
the stage manager’s check of set and scenery while Gazza ran
through the lighting cues and the sound guy checked the mikes and
speakers. Dennis wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to be doing
anything and hoped somebody would tell him if he was.

“Is it always like this?” he
asked Cathy quietly.

“Oh yes, once there’s an
audience out front the whole game changes. Even the smell of the
place will be different after tonight. Jessica told me about it at
the first show I did and she was absolutely right.” She smiled. “Go
into the foyer during interval and you’ll see.”

“Half hour call!” said a young
blonde woman walking through the Green Room. “Half hour call.” She
disappeared through the make-up room leaving increased activity in
her wake.

Dennis glanced around to see
what the actors were doing. Ricky was practising one of his
routines over in the corner while Simon did some stretches. Warwick
filled his water bottle and Mark sat hunched over his script,
re-reading his lines for the first scene. They’d been made-up, had
their hair combed, fresh squirts of deodorant applied, and were
wearing the scruffy casual clothes required for the opening scene
at the pub.

By the time the calls girl came
around saying “Ten minute call, ten minutes to curtain everyone,”
the tension was strung like a bow.

At “Beginners please,” the Green
Room emptied. Dennis swam with the surge of bodies out to the OP
side of the stage and immediately noticed a strange hubbub coming
from the other side of the vast red curtain. Behind it, everyone
was quiet, moving silently and conversing in whispers. Out front,
the rustle of programmes and clink of glasses punctuated numerous
conversations as the evening’s patrons took their seats.

Dennis saw the performers
exchanging excited smiles as their adrenaline levels rose to the
occasion. This was why they did it. The set of pre-show music faded
away and the audience slowly hushed.

The house lights went down.

The curtain went up swiftly as
Warwick, Ricky, Simon and Mark bounded onto the stage as if
spilling out of their local pub, already calling out their lines to
give the show an energetic start.

Dennis was mesmerised. The stale
old lines he’d heard a hundred times already suddenly seemed
brilliantly clever when the audience laughed, and that response
swept the actors even higher. The whole show suddenly seemed much
wittier, and lines Dennis had seen no merit in before got roars of
applause.

He felt a tug on his sleeve and
Tony pulled him backwards from the edge. “Dude, stay back. If you
can see them, then they can see you, remember.”

“Sorry!” Dennis whispered,
retreating to a safer spot in the wings.

It was almost time for the first
scene change and his palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his black
jeans and took a deep breath to steady his nerves.

Blackout. The actors went past
him feeling their way offstage and he picked up one end of the
couch with Fenton at the other. It felt unbelievably exposed
walking out onto the stage, even though the lights were so low he
could hardly see. But he could hear, and the sound of nearly four
hundred people so close by was very intimidating. As the music
played there was a rolling laugh as parts of the audience
recognised the LMFAO song and how appropriate it was.

He put down the couch, did what
he needed to do, and hurried back to the shelter of the wings as
‘I’m Sexy and I Know It’ faded out.

The lights came up, the next
scene started, and Dennis identified what he was feeling as sheer
exhilaration. He hadn’t been seen, but he’d walked onstage and done
his job and been part of the show, and there was a warm glow of
satisfaction about it. He could feel himself grinning like an
idiot.

He found a place to sit in the
wings and watched the next scene, revelling in the audience
response and feeling absurdly proud of the whole affair.

By the time interval came and
the lights went down at the end of Act One on a row of near-naked
backsides on the stage, he couldn’t wait to get into the Green Room
and share the buzz with the rest of the company.

‘Isn’t it going brilliantly?” he
enthused to Jessica. She smiled.

“Oh, I know that look. You’ve
been infected, Dennis. You now have the same disease as the rest of
us who are doomed to spend our lives in the dark worshipping the
cruel mistress of live theatre. Welcome to our merry band!”

“I never knew it would be so…”
he dredged his mind for the right word, “exciting, compelling,
rewarding. Is this how you feel every show, Jessica?”

“Well, it does wear off a bit,
and some shows are more successful than others, but yes, the magic
never quite goes away.” She stroked his arm fondly. “Go and grab a
coffee while there’s still some food around. The actors will have
had their share by now so there’ll be a scramble among the crew for
what’s left.”

Dennis thought about the rice
wafers tucked away in his bag but decided the eating plan could
stand the small deviation if he helped himself to a piece of
Erica’s fruit loaf. He’d do a few extra press-ups next morning to
work it off.

He noticed a group clustered
round the notice-board staring at a piece of paper and went over to
see what it was.

“Good figures for an opening
night,” said Tony, looking pleased. “I know a heap of them are comp
tickets but there are no empty seats at all. The reviewer should be
impressed.”

Dennis had given his
complimentary tickets to a couple of the women in his office and he
hoped they were enjoying the show. Perhaps he’d see them afterwards
in the foyer.

“Act Two, five minutes!”

Dennis returned to the wings
with renewed excitement. He couldn’t wait to see how the strippers
would be received by the women in the audience at the end of the
act.

At last the second act drew
towards a close and the stage emptied.

Jayden went out dressed in his
tail coat with white cuffs and collar, and waved the lights up,
bowed, and exited in the dark. The actor playing the MC strode on
in full drag and got a roar of applause as the audience recognised
him as the ineffectual dancer in the toga with the grapes. In a
long sparkly dress and high blonde wig he made a fabulous nightclub
hostess, carrying on a chatty conversation with the audience,
interspersed with risqué jokes, while Dennis knew that backstage in
the Green Room, the actors were being rushed into their stripper
outfits and getting ready. Warwick was probably already waiting in
the ceiling ready to slide down his fireman’s rope.

The buxom MC looked to the
prompt box for confirmation the first stripper was ready and he
could leave the stage. Receiving the nod, he wound up his chat and
tiptapped off in his high heels, waving an elegant, long-gloved
hand to warm applause.

The house went dark, then with
perfect timing the follow-spot hit the ceiling and the music
started bang on cue as Warwick descended from the roof in his
bright yellow fireman’s coat. Screams of delight rang out as women
twisted around to see where he was coming from and realised he was
lowering himself into their midst. He landed gracefully in the
centre aisle, sprinted up onto the stage, and began his
routine.

The place went nuts.

Dennis couldn’t believe how much
the excitement level had ramped up now the audience was getting
what they’d come to see. Continuous screaming nearly drowned out
the music, especially when Warwick went down into the front row and
invited a girl to pull his shirt off. There was no shortage of
volunteers for the next item and his belt was disposed of even more
quickly. Dennis shook himself and realised he’d better memorise
where all these discarded items were heading. The scatter range was
wider than during rehearsals as Warwick clearly had his mind on the
women in front of him and not the stage behind.

The music entered its last few
bars. Warwick stood centre stage, and whipped off his posing pouch
just as the lights went out, running off in the blackout in just a
tiny G-string.

Dennis had forgotten to cover
one eye and had no night vision, but managed to grab all the bits
and pieces by feel and whisk them off the stage in time for the
lights to come up on the next round of the MC’s abysmal jokes.

Somehow the outrageous costume
and camp delivery made the MC’s material funny and the audience
reacted warmly. He paraded round the stage for a few minutes then
introduced the next routine.

“Now ladies, mind your P’s and
Q’s, or you’ll be feeling the long arm of the law!”

Simon, dressed in his American
cop’s uniform, walked out on the stage in darkness and crouched
down, curled over, until the lights came up with an eerie blue cast
and the sound effects from Terminator echoed round the auditorium.
Dennis wondered if Jack Matherson was anywhere in the audience and
would be offended by the fake policeman. Simon slowly uncurled and
stood up, moving into a robot-like routine as the music played. The
audience response was a little reserved until suddenly the music
changed. Simon pulled a baseball cap from his jacket pocket,
swiftly exchanged it for the policeman’s cap, and whisked off the
jacket to reveal a brightly coloured silk shirt underneath. The
sombre navy trousers disappeared with a flick of the wrist leaving
baggy cargo shorts in their place.

The girls erupted with delight,
screaming and calling out, begging for attention. Simon looked them
over slowly, drawing even more responses, before launching into his
fast and energetic hip hop routine. With the coloured lights
playing across the audience, the outstretched hands waving, and the
relentless beat of the music, the theatre was transformed into a
dance club with three hundred and eighty patrons all stamping their
feet.

“Bloody hell!” Tony shouted into
Dennis’s ear, “I don’t know if the floor will be able to stand this
for long. She’s only held together with woodworms and glue!”

“It’s lasted a hundred and
twenty years – it should be all right!” They grinned at each other,
enjoying the electric atmosphere.

This time Dennis remembered to
cover his eye as Simon got down to his shorts, giving it time to
adjust as the boxers, briefs and thong were removed to hysterical
screams.

In the blackout he scampered
across the stage crabwise, scooping up all the clothes and shoes
before retreating to the OP wing to drop them on the table where
props and wardrobe would take care of them.

He was looking forward to the
next part; Ricky’s entrance from the trapdoor.

Once the MC had calmed the
audience down with his next section and the stage was ready, he
left with a flick of his white glove to turn off the lights.

There was silence, broken by a
few anticipatory giggles. Dennis heard a faint hiss as a smoke
machine activated, then a single spotlight from the back of the
stage illuminated the white cloud hanging in the air. Several
dramatic chords rang out as a helmeted figure rose slowly through
the mist, arms held across his chest, unmoving. As his feet reached
floor level the familiar strains of the Top Gear theme music hit
the air and there was a roar of applause. Dennis thought there
would probably be a few long-suffering men in the audience who
would be relieved to see something they could relate to.

Ricky burst into action,
sweeping across the stage in an acrobatic display that had the
whole audience applauding.

Just then Dennis glanced over to
Tony and saw him frowning, listening to something on his headset
then speaking into the microphone. He beckoned Dennis towards
him.

“Do you have time to go
backstage and check on Mark? Something’s wrong. I need to know if
he has to be replaced by Jayden and if he does, is Jayden is
ready?”

Dennis took a quick look on
stage and checked that Ricky was still in his white driving suit.
“I’ve got about four minutes. I’ll be back.”

He made his way out through the
heavy padded stage door and through the make-up room to the Green
Room, where he found Mark slumped white-faced in a chair and Sherry
sobbing in the arms of Erica with a group of other women huddled
protectively round her. He went straight to Mark.

“Are you fit to go on stage?
Tony needs to know right now. Yes or no.”

Mark looked up at him, his eyes
dull. “No.”

“OK then. We’ll sort you out in
a minute.” Dennis looked around for Jayden and saw him already
being helped into his vampire costume. He went over.

“You’ll be ready to go on? Do
you need the MC to stall for extra time?”

“Yes, get him to do a couple
more of those bloody awful jokes so I have time to get in position
up the back. Oh, and tell the music guy in the control room so he
plays the right piece – it’s labelled ‘Twilight compilation’.”
Jayden was clearly sparking on all cylinders with adrenaline
spiking through his system. His eyes were alight and he quivered
with suppressed energy. “Thanks Dennis. I’ll try to throw my
clothes neatly for you!”