Two Bag Ladies go to the Theatre

“Which show?” asks the box officer, once I’ve given my surname.

“Made in China?”

That’s not the full title, but the truth is, I don’t know how to pronounce the first part of it, and I’m really not feeling up to guessing right now.

I’m still ill.

And feeling sorry for myself.

And it’s a Monday.

Even worse, a Monday evening.

At least I’m on familiar ground here.

I’m at RADA. For my third visit of the marathon. Of four. Or potentially just three. It’s hard to tell.

I thought this place had a studio theatre. I’ve seen it on the hire page. But in the ten months I’ve been tracking these things, I’ve yet to see a single show being programmed in that space.

I’m kinda hoping that it doesn’t exist.

Not that I don’t enjoy my drama school visits. Just, you know, at this point I’d run over my own grandmother for the chance to knock a row off my spreadsheet.

And before you get all offended, both my grandmothers are already dead. And no, neither of them were run over. Not by me, anyway.

The box officer switches boxes and starts looking through it, pulling out a ticket and tearing up the ream into its individual components.

“Ticket and card receipt,” he says, handing them to me. “There you are.”

From the box office, I walk into the cafe space.

I know how things work here now.

A queue lines up along a wall covered with student headshots. Doors open. Tickets are checked. And everyone files into one of the three (or potentially four) theatres. It’s a busy space and the front of housers take no nonsense.

“There’s seven tickets still uncollected,” says a young woman into a radio as she rushes from the box office over to the main doors.

A voice comes over the sound system. “GBS Theatre. GBS Theatre. Tonight’s performance of Stoning Mary is about to begin.”

That’s not me. I’ve already done the GBS. Shame really. I like the sound of Stoning Mary.

The bar is all decked up for Halloween. Cobwebs creep their way around the bottles of spirits, little paper ghosts bounce over the coffee machines in a row of bunting, and there’s even a pumpkin.

I very much approve. So festive. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.

At the end, a table has been set up with wine and snacks. Good snacks by the looks of it. No crappy bowl of crisps going on here. Oh no. These people have cheese twists.

Sipping wine and very much ignoring the excellent snacks, are the very important people. The casting directors, I presume. Theatre people.

I’m not a casting director, and barely count as a theatre person, so I table a normal seat at a normal table.

The tables are covered with photos of costumes. I hadn’t noticed that before.

I settle in and look around for a programme seller. There doesn’t seem to be one around here. There is a sign on the wall though, listing the locations of all the theatre spaces.

The GBS is in the basement, the Gielgud on the first floor, and the Jerwood Vanbrugh or floors two and three.

No mention of the Studio theatre.

If it exists, RADA has no intention of owning up to it.

A front of houser rushes over.

“Are you here for a performance?” she asks a woman standing near me.

I look around.

The woman is rolling a suitcase behind her.

The front of houser looks down at the suitcase with a significant glance.

“I’m like a bag lady,” says the woman with a sigh of resignation.

The front of houser tells our bag lady that suitcases are not allowed. But, she has a plan. “Unofficially,” she says, lowering her voice to emphasis that things are about to get sneaky here. “I can take it…”

And she leads off the bag lady to some back room, where the suitcase is put away. Unofficially. And the lady, sans-bag, can enjoy the performance. Officially.

“Welcome to this evening’s performance of Keffiyeh/Made in China,” says the disembodied voice over the sound system. Keffiyeh! So that’s how you pronounce it. “The auditorium is now open.”

Across the way, a front of houser opens the door which leads to the theatres, and a queue lines up against the wall with the headshots. I join them.

There’s no time to make friends with the headshots though. We’re on the move.

I show my ticket to the ticket checker and get nodded through with an instruction to head “upstairs to the Gielgud.”

As I turn the corner and make my way to the stairs, I can hear the ticket checker’s voice behind me. “Oh my god,” she cries out. “You’re Stoning Mary! That’s already started!”

The owner of the Stoning Mary ticket must have demonstrated some upset at this news because the ticket checker quickly switches to the role of calm problem-solver. “Don’t worry! Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll get you in.”

But I’m half way up the stairs already, rushing down the corridor, trying to keep up with all the young people as they make their way to the Gielgud.

The ticket checker on the door is tearing tickets. I fold the tab on mine back and forth to make it easier for him.

Inside there’s another front of houser. This one with programmes. I was worried there. Thought there wouldn’t be any.

“Would you like one?” she asks with an enthusiastic grin.

I absolutely would.

“They are one pound.”

Bargain.

I mean, not really. The ones at LAMDA are free. But outside the world of drama schools, these would be a considered a bargain.

Pity I can’t find my damn purse.

“Sorry,” I say, as the rummaging drags on a second too long. “My bag is so full.”

“It’s one of those days,” says the programme seller cheerfully.

“It is! Such a Monday.”

“And it’s a Mary Poppins bag!”

It is huge. And I do keep an umbrella in it. Turns out RADA has two bag ladies on their hands tonight.

But my purse is located, as is the right change. “There we go, two fifty pees,” I tell her as I drop them into her waiting palm.

“Perfect. Here you go,” she says, handing me a programme. “Enjoy!”

That done, it’s time to find a seat. Shouldn’t be too hard. The Gielgud is a titchy tiny theatre. Only a few rows of chairs in front of a diddy little floor-level stage. Not that they haven’t done the absolute mostest with it. There’s a proper set going on, with walls that look like they are going to move around and provide all kinds of backdrops. As for the seats, there may not be much in the way of rows, but every single one is working for it. With raised platform and different height chairs meaning wherever the casting directors are planning on sitting tonight, they are going to get an excellent view.

I dismiss the front row immediately. Not just because it’s the front row, but because it has those hella awkward chairs with the cut down legs. Corgie-legged seats are the preserve of the young. I’m not about that nonsense. Instead, I go for the first row with normal height chairs. Which is to say, the second row. Right at the end. Because I do like me an aisle seat.

The man who sits next to me is immediately greeted by everyone around us, with the young people twisting around to say hello.

I slink down in my normal height seat and have a look at the programme.

I will give the RADA programmes this, they may cost money, but they are beautifully printed. Nice thick paper stock, and with a green seam hidden under the saddle stitch binding so you get a flash of colour every time you crack back that spine. That’s some classy shit right there, and I appreciate it.

From the credits it looks like we’ll be watching a lot of short plays tonight.

I count them up. Nine. That’s a lot of theatre. I hope there isn’t an interval. Not that I don’t enjoy the whole RADA experience, but the experience of going home and having an early night is one I would enjoy a whole lot more.

Lights down. We begin.

And I find myself sitting on the side of the thoroughfare as the cast rush on and off stage. Coming together to shift the set around and then running back off again, leave behind only two of their brethren for the first shortie. It’s sad and confusing and opaque. The dialogue clipped, half-finished and layered. Hinting at a thousand past lives, and casting only shadows of the current one.

A scuffle breaks out in the aisle, and I flinch away to avoid getting hit as the actors blast past onto the stage.

Play after play, taking us from market stalls to children’s bedrooms, moving so fast there’s no time to get bored, with each one leaving a soft thumbprint on your heart that there is no opportunity to process or contemplate before the next one starts prodding at you.

And then it’s over.

One of the ushers steps out.

“Just to let you know, there will be a short after-show discussion if you want to stay for that.”

I do not want to stay for that. I slip around the seats and make my escape.

A few people follow on behind me.

“Didn’t you want to stay?” someone asks their companion as we slip back down the stairs.

“Nah, if I wanted it explained to me, the producers will do that down the pub.”

As for me, all I want explained is where the hell is the RADA Studio theatre.

Sweat-proof and transfer-resistant

More bag checks. It’s weird to think there was a time when this didn’t feel normal. That you could walk into a West End theatre without revealing on the embarrassing items that you tote around with you.

The bag checker on duty at the Gielgud clicks her little torch and peers inside the black depths of my rucksack. All good. The torch clicks off. “Mind the step and ticket collection is on the left,” she says all in one breath.

Right then. Better go left.

There’s a neat desk set into the wall over here. Which would seem like the perfect location for a box office. But the people at Gielgud Towers (or should I say Mackintosh House, home to Delfont Mackintosh, which is right next door) wouldn’t agree. Oh no. They have their ticket collection point on a small concession desk. The type where you’d expect to buy a programme, and maybe a bag of Minstrels.

But there's no bag of Minstrels here. Just tickets.

I join the queue and look around.

The Gielgud is a bit fancy, isn’t it? I mean, you kinda expect that from a theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue, but this one really is glowing.

There’s an oval-shaped mezzanine above the foyer, and people are up there, leaning on the balustrade to gaze down on all the newcomers, like sneaky angels perching on the edge of an oculus.

Small spotlights are placed strategically to make the gilded walls glow and shimmer. It’s all rather spectacular.

It is entirely the wrong place to watch SWEAT.

This tale of the American factory workers is much better suited to its original home at the Donmar Warehouse. I saw it there last year. One of the last productions I went to before going into marathon-mode. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed by it. Perhaps it was just suffering from being overhyped, but I thought it was just a whole pile of words, and I wasn’t that into it. I mean, it was fine. It’s not like I thought it was bad. Watchable, you know? But the Pulitzer prize win baffled me.

So, yeah. When the West End transfer was announced, I wasn’t all that enthused about going again. But I couldn’t get my act together early enough to book into Company, and I really didn’t want to get stuck in the mess of the Les Mis holding cell. So here we are. At SWEAT.

But I’m not mad at it. The theatre is nice. The seats are comfy. I can just lean back and maybe have a little nap.

I reach the front of the queue, give my name, and get my ticket. No fuss.

Right, where am I sitting?

Row A. Stalls.

Okay then. No napping for me. Martha Plimpton might notice. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s offend Martha Plimpton. She scares me.

When Martha Plimpton asked me to get out of the way at Shakespeare in the Abbey, I got the fuck out of the way.

I better go in before she tells the ushers to keep an eye on me.

Hmm. Not sure where I’m going.

There’s a door to the stalls over here, just up these steps. But then there’s another one across the other way. Neither of them have numbers on them, and my ticket doesn’t have a left or a right on it.

I pick a door at random. Which basically means I select the one closest to me.

The ticket checker leans around his doorway and hands a single ticket stub to the front of houser standing guard at the staircase leading up to the circle.

“Here you go,” he says with a big grin.

That’s… odd. But perhaps she collects ticket stubs. If so, she’s sure in the right job.

He glances at my ticket and let’s me through. So, I guess my guess was guessed right.

Down some stairs with some frankly exhaustingly patterned carpet, and an equally enthused wallpaper. I slow down so that I can admire the posters. They’re properly old ones. From back when a typesetter was king. All text. No images.

Probably for the best, given that wallpaper.

Lots of John Gielgud shows, which I suppose makes sense.

There’s only so much lingering in stairwells you can do with only text-based posters to look at, and I make my way to the bottom and into the auditorium.

There’s a programme seller in here. Which reminds me. I have the programme from the Donmar run, because of course I do. I wonder what they’ve done differently.

I buy one. It’s £4. Which is an alright price. Almost a bargain.

Let’s see what’s in it.

I find my seat, in the front row, stuff my bag and jacket under the seat and settle in for a good peruse of the programme. There’s an article by Stephen Bush. That was in the Donmar programme. “Class hatred is Britain’s original sin.” Nice. What else? Another article! That’s what. It’s not often you get double articleage in the West End, I can tell you that for sure. This one’s by Jocelyn L. Buckner. “Blood, sweat and tears.” About how Lynn Nottage empowered the residents of Reading with their own story. That… that sounds familiar. I check the photo I snapped this morning. “Labor Negotiations: The Power of Community Forged Through Sweat.” By Jocelyn L. Buckner. Same article. But with a souped up West End title.

There's also a short piece about Les Mis, which we definitely didn't get at the Donmar. But it's all facts and figures and numbers and dates, and my god it's boring. I mean, come on, this is just glorified marketing copy. No one wants to read that. And I say that as someone who writes marketing copy for a living.

There seems to be rather a lot of that here. Marketing under the guise of editorial. There's a whole thing about Mary Poppins just a few pages further in. This is the kind of stuff I put in brochures. Not programmes. Oh well, I suppose we can just chalk 'em up as ads and move on.

“I haven’t got a programme,” says my neighbour. “Will you be offended if I don’t spend money on a programme?”

Well, actually I would rather… Oh, he isn’t talking to me.

Ah.

I mean, perhaps he got himself one during the Donmar run. That might explain it. You’d have to be pretty darn obsessed with programmes to buy the exact same content, just in a different format, with added advertising...

“It’s stunning!” says his companion.

I look critically at the programme. It’s alright, I guess. Not quite the slick sophistication of the white and red Donmar programmes, but it’s got a nice image on the front.

She stands up to look around the auditorium.

My neighbour twists around in his seat. “Yes,” he agrees. “A real Edwardian gem.”

Honestly, it’s like these people aren’t even interested in programmes.

“The set is very evocative and very realistic. I don't think it's for doing things with, a la our national theatre,” continues my neighbour. “I suppose the men from the factory could come down from the pulleys but I don't think it’s the kind of play.”

He’s right. It’s not that kind of play. No swinging from the chandelier here. Although I’d have a great view of it if any of the cast fancy getting a bit acrobatic.

Someone in theatre blacks comes along to adjust all the small microphones set on the front of the stage. We all shuffle out knees around so that he can get through, but really, there’s plenty of room. I can stretch my legs right out and my toes don’t even touch the stage. Benefits of front rowing, I suppose. I should really do this more often.

The house lights dim and Martha Plimpton’s lovely voice comes over the sound system, telling us to switch off our phones. I’ve already put my phone away, but I get it out to double check that, yes, my phone is on airplane mode, and yes, it’s on silent too. Ain’t no buzzing going to interrupt Martha Plimpton’s flow. Not today.

Except, it’s not Martha Plimpton who comes out on stage.

It’s a man with tattoos. On his face. Nazi tattoos. On his face.

A man sitting really fucking close to me. With Nazi tattoos. On his face.

Shit. I’d forgotten about this.

I’m surprised about how uncomfortable it is. To be sitting so close to a man with Nazi tattoos. On his face. I know it’s not real. I know it’s just makeup. But I can’t help but think about the poor actor having to apply all that every day. And the momentary panic he must have every time they don’t wash off quite as quickly as they should.

But it’s only a framing device.

Soon enough, dust sheets are being pulled away, bits of set lowered from the rafters, and we're in a bar, and there's Martha Plimpton, dancing away. I think she might be a bit drunk.

At the Donmar, I was stuck right at the back of the circle. Watching the play from above. Here, well, I have quite the opposite angle. I can see right under the tables. I can even count all the bits of chewing gum stuck underneath.

And oh my lord, what a difference sitting close makes. I'm not going to start claiming that I believe in the second coming of SWEAT. But you know, it's good. I'm enjoying it.

And when Sebastián Capitán Viveros's Oscar flips over each of the tables in turn, and chisels off the chewing gum, I get a certain satisfaction seeing them turned back again, all clean and gum-free. Almost as if I'd hacked away at the white globs myself.

And when the fight scene comes, well, I find myself leaning as far back as I can, convinced that someone's going to come flying off the stage, legs and arms flailing, and quite possibly knock my nose off on their way down.

It doesn't help that it's a pretty fucking intense fight scene.

The audience audibly winces as Oscar takes a wallop to the stomach. A soft hiss of air escaping from between the audience members' teeth as he goes down.

Oof. That reqlly doesn't look good, mate.

Play over, I feel like I've been released. And not just because it was over two and a half hours.

I was pinned down for far too long. Pushed back into my chair with that heady stream of words.

I can see why people like sitting in the front row. But it's a bit too much for me. Too real. Too present. Too vulnerable-making.

And, let's be real. If a play is so intimate that it requires sitting in the front row in order to really feel it? Eh... I mean, perhaps a traditional theatre isn't the right place for it.

Anyway, another theatre checked off the list. Gielgud is done. And at least I don't have to debate with myself whether the staged theatrical concert version of Les Mis that's coming in next counts as theatre or not.