Crush a pop and watch the silent shock of arms falling off with a hinge to bear. Certain demographics hit the theatre on opening night with lots of light dresses flowing from seat to seat. Sydney Mayor Clover Moore hovers around in the mix, careful not to linger too long with the crowd. Balloons hide in the programs waiting for their turn later in the night.
Sleeping ghosts lie awake at night writing epitaphs on their own tombstones. Coordination of tickets for the first production of the year at the Stables Theatre trips up against the holidays. Seconds later and with doubles in hand, a stand against the back drop of a blank wall with cards and posters adorning. Familiar types of people flock with their Bundies and wine glasses, their mutterings overcrowding.
Free alcohol blocks the entrance of the Stables Theatre. Chattering drunks move, mill and mull like horses ready to stud and make expensively cheap glue. Women, men, all the same. Plastic cups in hand, they watch each other's eyes turn pink and flush their systems with copious amounts of ghostless spirits.
Of shadowy machinations and motives, witnesses to the triumph of love in the darkness of jealously and spite, The Sleeping Beauty is an almost gothic affair. Complete, undeniably, with romantic trimmings and an at times whimsical and soothing orchestral soundtrack.
Salsa lessons smack the floorboards with the gut of man squeezing past boundaries over tables in the dining area. Dinner and show, offers a package for food from the Cat and Fiddle bistro and stage antics of The Crypt Theatre. Winner in this equation, the theatre. A four dollar pasta ripe with chicken strips and small on edible weight. Sarsaparilla almost forces the hand of the fresh barkeep to taking a bottle from the back. Its non-existence foiling ultimate plans concerning Dr Pepper's mediocre substitute.
Empty save for the large water bowls, darkness explodes into the light with the six cast members singing into the bleed and with minimal setup. Minimal to non-existent introductions in the first paragraph of the performance run smoothly into setting up the first chronicle of life under a South Africa during the years of apartheid.
Under a blanket of black darker than the soul of man, Nerve 9 opens with a scurrying of whispers and snitching sounds from deep in the stage floor area.
Broken circuit city ushers with exceptionally long eyelashes and wires jutting out all over the foyer of The Studio set up the freaky nature of the night. Mute and jerky, the women bump about handing out disclaimer forms; signing the waivers probably optional. Nobody checks them nor do they inspect tickets on the way into the dark of the floor.
Keep them waiting. Forget the time, that's irrelevant. Start about an hour after the post and even then, don't come out first. Instead, send out another man to warm the crowd up. A few of them are sleeping off the week. Others getting well blotto for the upcoming weekend. Others still are actually looking forward to the in between. Whatever and wherever that is.
State Theatre. Sydney Theatre. Same initials, two very different locations. The State is on Market Street. Out over on the back of Walsh Bay near The Rocks, Hickson Road sports two theatres under the Sydney Theatre banner. One's for dance. The other, well, that's for another night.
The Downstairs Theatre seats patrons on a massively steep incline. Distance between the rear wall and the lip of the stage is remarkably close. Intimate with a hint of blood letting for the altitude of the back row. Flooring is hollow, a medium weight to steps giving the stands a shaky feel.
Everybody takes the chance to stomp on a lady's foot as they seat themselves. Disdain and hidden anger playing easily into the production notes for Spooky Duck's The Young Tycoons.
Feeling a pinch of pain in the shins and suppressing a hiccough with skill, the doors to the Darlinghurst Theatre close with a late arrival. Uncertain as to where in the night the night actually begins, the audience are as clueless as the man on stage.
