Prologue to Prospect Theatre "A Day In The Life"

Introduction

A friend of mine once said that Cinema makes you rich, Television makes you famous, but Theatre is what it’s really about. My own experience as an actor, my instincts and reactions of many a live audience have so far proved this summary to be true. The agony and the ecstasy of the theatre are their own rewards - and there is no lack of either in a touring company.

On the following pages of this book, you will find, recreated with enormous feeling and perspicacity, the life of a company of itinerant players whose work is no ordinary “mystery”- but captured here is that mysterious ordinariness of their lives for which centuries past put them in the vagabond class of unrespectability. Peter Lewis, a distinguished and ardent theatre-goer, and photographer Robin Constable, dogged our steps for many months, out front and behind the scenes. This introduction gives me the welcome opportunity to thank and congratulate them on a true and affectionate reconstruction of our efforts. The minutiae of an actor’s day, of a production from stomach-knotting audition to stomach-turning opening First Night, are told with the public concern and the private comment of keen and loving observers. Perhaps, the only element missing from Peter Lewis’s description of rehearsal-room, dressing-room, and wings is the “highly charged” language with which the air is often coloured. Perhaps, he thought to preserve our reputations untarnished. So, I thank him. When the Ghost implored Hamlet to “SWEAR”, Hamlet very often did!

I, for one, am grateful to this book that in that answers fully and comprehensively that age-old question put to many actors (by even the keenest theatre-goer): What do you do during the day? It is as if the magic of illusion, the suspension of disbelief, are so strong that there is no impression of the actors having existed (let alone worked) before the curtain rises. Peter Lewis tells it as it is and Robin Constable shows it as it was. The glamour may be thin and superficial but it is worn with a flourish; Leichner can eradicate a multitude of sleepless nights; Doctor Greasepaint still convinces you that your place is on stage and not as you thought, as you tottered to the stage-door, at home with blankets and a hot drink. Not that actors are martyrs, but there is a certain divinity about them, shaping their ends however roughly hewn. We are here described as vulnerable rather than cocky, creatures of superstition and habit, sponges for endless reassurance, haters of critics (apart from ourselves), conjurors of order out of chaos, and mild hypochondriacs.

It’s a pretty fair list. To mis-quote Hamlet, they have drawn their breath (in pain?) to tell our story. As far as I am concerned they have reported “me and my cause aright to the unsatisfied”. I thank them. May you enjoy the show.

Derek Jacobi