Wearing a cape. Making a big noise in a room filled with people. Flinging myself and my work pals around. The lights on my face. The buzz of a live audience.
These are a few of my favourite things about being back on stage for the first time in seven years.
Right now, I am touring a new play called Thrown, for National Theatre of Scotland, written by the brilliant Nat McCleary, about five women who form a backhold wrestling team to compete on the Highland Games circuit.
The play begins with a fantasy sequence in which all five of us appear as crazy, caped-up WWE-style wrestlers, and it’s so mad and fun I can’t quite believe we’re getting paid for it.
We first previewed Thrown in Dunblane’s Victoria Hall on July 2, and have since played in Dunoon, Helensburgh, Ballater and (shameless plug) are appearing tonight at Woodside Fountain Centre, Aberdeen, before heading to Mull, Oban, Birnam, Skye and Edinburgh for the International Festival. Come and see us!
This is the first play I have performed in since landing a job at River City in 2016 and it feels like being bitten by the bug all over again. More so perhaps as we’re mainly playing town and village halls, much like the one I made my first ever stage appearance in.
If my “bitten by the bug” moment was stepping on the Stonehaven Town Hall stage as “Hairy Hannah” in a youth theatre production of Bad Day at Black Frog Creek in 1993, then hurling myself around Dunblane’s Victoria Hall as the “Haggis Horror” on the opening night of Thrown was like coming full circle.
I knew I’d missed performing on stage, but not how much – although the cape is a career first.
I’m very grateful for that cape, because evidently, whatever confidence you might lose in a long hiatus from the stage, can be instantly restored by wearing one.
You probably don’t need to wear a cape to feel like a superhero – or a WWE superstar – but it helps.
And indeed, any lapses of confidence I’ve had doing the show so far have been while un-caped – but more on that later.
Rehearsing a play is brilliant because you get to try everything loads of times, in loads of different ways, before an audience sees it.
It’s the best fun ever, and the closest thing you’ll find to “playing for a living” – even though it’s bloody hard work and often very sweaty, especially when it involves wrestling all day.
When you get into tech rehearsal, a magical thing called stage lighting comes into play. This brings me alive like nothing else.
I love being lit up on stage – or anywhere, for that matter. I’m like a moth to a flame.
When I open the fridge, I do a five-minute monologue – okay I’ve never done that, but the urge is there.
Finally, the real magic comes with the audience. Nothing beats that shared live experience.
But it is risky. Actors can drop lines, muck up choreography, accidentally lock eyes with a critic on press night – all of which I’ve recently done.
You never know what might throw you, especially after a seven-year hiatus. The trick is to embrace it all, in all its riskiness – and where possible, wear a cape.
