Article for 2014 Apr 12

2014

2014 Apr

Apr 12 Sat

Today’s was the final performance of “Masque”. Today’s was our last chance to take the audience on our funny little journey from the Waiting Hall to the Magistrates Court, then to that side-room I don’t have a name for, and then on to the Porch where we did the epilogue. Today’s was a powerful spectacle.

To thank us for bringing Chester’s war-time history to the fore in such a compelling manner (if I can bring myself to say that), the Town Hall manager gave us a tour of the parts of the building we didn’t visit during the show or use as our green room. We went up to the Lady Mayoress’s Parlour, featuring decadence unseen by me since Fontainebleau, April 2012. We went down to the dungeons, under the Magistrates Court, which were cold and grey like a convict’s eyes, the only warmth coming from my peers and my (slightly suppressed) wit in these “prison cellars” (as I called them). We also went up into the Tower.

As I’ve thus hinted, some parts of the Town Hall (the parts accessible to the public and aristocracy) are lavishly furnished and richly decorated, adorned with panelling as dark as a living forest and carpet as purple as something so deep and purple I can’t think what it would be and complete this simile. And some parts of the Town Hall are grubby middens.

The Tower is one such grubby midden. The floorboards are grey, as if sprinkled with ash, and despite it being mid-afternoon little light comes through. The wooden ladders between the upper floors are decrepit and dangerous and off-limits even to us; the metal ladders are dusty and rusty, but at least they’re secure.

The longest ladder had forty-four rungs in all, forty-four narrow iron rods to hold onto with your hands and step onto with your feet. (I promise you that’s how a ladder works.) So let’s say the height to climb was ten metres. Ten metres between the Town Hall’s second floor and the third floor. Ten metres to climb if you dared. I dared, as did all my peers.

To climb such a ladder with your eyes on the wall in front of you is quite nerve-racking. To look up even more so. To look down... Don’t look down, except perhaps to remember how far you’ve come. But you receive some comfort, enough comfort, from the inflexibility of the iron and the encouragement of your friends above and below you. Their calls ring true. You can do each rung. You can do no wrong.

And you continue to climb. You cannot bring yourself to do wrong.

You couldn’t bring yourself to do wrong. You’ve done the best you can. You arrive at the next floor, the highest floor feasible. And your friends at the top pull you onto the ledge. And you behold the view, out over the city of Chester, out in every direction, to the cathedral, the river Dee, the shopping precincts, the homely suburbs. The buildings look like paper cut-outs in the sun. The people on the streets look like ants, and you remember being an ant yourself.

But you scaled the ladder of theatrical heights. You brought a play up from a school nativity to a hard-hitting thought-inspiring drama. And what’s even more wonderful is that your friends were with you every step of the way.

To see photos relating to “Masque”, see Theatre in the Quarter’s Facebook page.
And the Chester Chronicle wrote a review.