My Time at Temple Studios, Part 19

Show #19

Sunday, March 9: 5 pm

Here we are, at the end of another run of shows. Just like last time (show 13), I had a dream show in mind – a plan for the entire show, three loops – if, that is, the cast board gods felt fit to smile upon me. Last time, I got one of my three. Would I do any better this time? Here's what I was hoping for, in descending order of likelihood:

1. Ira Siobhan's Claude. He was high up on my priority list pre-trip, and nothing I had seen put me off – but still, I never actually got around to doing it because sometimes that just happens. Fortunately, he was one of only two active Claudes, so there was a 50-50 chance.
2. Miranda Mac Letten's Faye. Ever since I heard she was playing the part, I wanted to see it. She was part of my dream show in December, after not playing the role at all during the rest of the trip. The same was true of this trip, bringing me to twelve shows with no luck. The odds were longer for her – she was one of four Fayes, although one had been on vacation – so somewhere between 3:1 and 4:1.
3. Sonya Cullingford's Seamstress. Speaking of the vacationing Faye, Sonya's Seamstress had been my A#1, top priority. My favorite performer in a new role I hadn't seen her do – how could it not be? Unfortunately, she had been on vacation throughout my entire trip, so the only way I could possibly catch her is if she both happened to start back up on a Sunday, which seemed odd, and happened to be playing the Seamstress if she did, which was unlikely since Faye is her primary role. Astronomical long shot.

Being a bit anxious, I was of course the first person to wind my way toward the cast board, and here's what I saw: Ira was the Doctor. Strike 1. Miranda was not on at all. Strike 2. Sonya was the Seamstress. Strike – wait, what?

It is entirely possible I may have done a little dance in the queue, all by myself, while everyone else was filtering in. Not saying I did.  But I might have.

One out of three, the same as I had in December. But this time, I would get to see the most important one – so I was already off to a better start. As I've mentioned before, normally I like to go in and hit my predetermined loop right out of the lift, but this time I decided to save the Seamstress for third loop. It was to be my last show (possibly ever, but more likely just for a while), and it seemed appropriate to end it on what I had to assume would be a high note. This left me with a dilemma – what to do until then? There were, of course, plenty of other loops I wanted to see, but how to decide which one? Suddenly the door to the maze opened, and we were off to the lifts. No more time to think, had to decide.

What I decided to do was essentially not to decide. I would start off the night hitting a few things I had enjoyed in the previous shows, then move on to a full loop once I saw something that grabbed me. This meant that my first stop was the desert. I had never been up there at the start of the show before, and I wanted to spend a bit more time with Laura Harding's Dust Witch.

When I got to the desert, I found it completely and utterly deserted (or so I thought). Some of my friends have told me that the desert at the top of the show is just about the eeriest place in Temple Studios, and I'd be hard pressed to disagree. With no signs of life around, I decided to explore the Dust Witch's chapel for a bit until she appeared. It's an odd structure, shaped like a cross and low enough that you have to duck around most of it. It's very earthy, dirty and grungy in a way that feels more like it came from the dirt, rather than being coated with it. The most intriguing thing I found in there was a copy of the postcard that William sent to Mary sometime in the past, which was kept inside of a birdcage. This meant that there were three copies of that postcard in existence at the same time (Stanford has one as well) within the world of the show. How very strange.

As I turned away from the postcard, I caught a glimpse of the doorway, all the way at the other end of the chapel. There, a tiny bit of black fabric fluttered past, disappearing to the side almost before I saw it. My pulse instantly skyrocketed, both from the excitement that the Dust Witch had arrived and from the fact that the glimpse of fabric was easily on of my top 5 scariest moments at The Drowned Man. So. Damn. Creepy.

I rushed outside and found the Dust Witch standing just around the corner from the door, in shadows so deep I could barely see her. There was no sign of motion, so I just stood and watched. Finally, she moved around the corner toward the door, and as she stepped into the light, I saw that her hand was extended just a bit. Did that mean - ? But before I could react, she pulled her hand back and stepped inside the chapel. There, she made her way to her cot and went to sleep.

Curse my inadequate night vision. I think I just missed a 1:1. And now she's going to take a nap instead.

I watched her sleep for a couple of minutes, then wandered outside, planning to stay close by in case she woke up. On exiting, I saw that another white mask had arrived, and was staring up at the top of the nearby sand dune. I had to get very close before I could see that the new Miguel (Georges Hann) was crouched there, unmoving. He must have been there the whole time.

This was the point in the loop where he would normally either be finishing up his anointing with the Dust Witch, or having a white mask wash him off from the same. Since neither of those seemed to occur in the first loop, I could only assume he'd be sitting up there until Dwayne showed up. In other words: nothing to see here. That was when I realized where I was standing – right next to the infamous potion room that I had never seen before. So I got down on my hands and knees, crawled through the secret tunnel, and checked it out. I didn't spend long in there, however – I heard a bit of commotion outside and emerged to find that Dwayne (Vinicius Salles) had arrived, and not long after, we were joined by Faye (Katie Lusby). It was quite nice to revisit her desert dance after the wonderful loop I had with her at show 16, and since it was early first loop, the scene was just as empty of white masks.

As the scene drew to a close, I discovered two things. First, the bright light emanating from the chapel that illuminates Dwayne's rage has a side effect of massively over-lighting the interior of the chapel, which doesn't do it any favors. Second, the Dust Witch (who had finally roused from her slumber) is, if anything even more creepy in bright light. Something about the contrast, I guess.

Everybody else had left with Dwayne, Faye, and Miguel, so I followed the Dust Witch, alone, over to Mary's shrine, where she performed that amazing prayer ritual. This time was even more impressive, as I positioned myself in the perfect spot – dead center in the aisle between the scarecrows (but far enough back not to disrupt the view of anyone who might show up. I'm not heartless). When the shack lit up at the end, it looked like I was inside a tunnel of light. Magnificent.

Not long after, Dwayne returned, and I took that as my cue to depart. Sean Edwards was back as Badlands Jack for the first time since my first show of the trip, and I wanted to revisit the end of his loop. I found him leaving the bar with his noose package. Not much to say about the subsequent events that I didn't already say in my write-up for show 14, but I very much enjoyed revisiting it (doubly so, now that not only Sean, but also the entire character of Badlands Jack have departed the show). Around reset time, he disappeared into his trailer for a 1:1, as before – but with a bit of a snag. The girl he selected wouldn't go with him! He grabbed her arm and pulled, but she held fast to a friend with her other hand (imagine my eyes rolling at this point). He gave one more unproductive tug, then released her. Fortunately, the next person he grabbed seemed to be very pleased with the turn of events.

At this point, I remembered that I had intended to spend some time with the Barman sometime during my six shows, and had largely failed to do so (my five minutes with Luke Murphy at show 17 don't count, on account of only being five minutes). I wandered into the Horse and Stars to make up for this deficiency, only to find the place dark and silent, and the barman asleep on his counter with a hat over his face. Not the best time then. Now what to do?

I went back to the desert to catch the Dust Witch's reset encounter with Mary (Laure Bachelot). The scene was just getting started as I arrived. Many people have described the Dust Witch as a comforting presence, and while I did get that feeling from my 1:1 with her way back in my second show, I don't generally see that in her interactions with other characters. This time, however, watching her and Mary with that idea in mind, that aspect of the relationship was staggeringly obvious. Mary yearned for her touch the way a child yearns for its mother, and was soothed by it in just the same way.

Immediately after that, the Dust Witch disappeared into a 1:1 and I left her domain, for good this time. A short hop down the stairs took me back to the Horse and Stars, where the Barman was up and about – and, surprise surprise, he was played by Nicola Miglioratti (the cast board said Ed Warner, and listed Nico as Andy). I leaned on the bar to watch him and almost immediately he gave me a shot. Can't complain about that. Not long after that he poured me a second one. I gave it a look and he shrugged, explaining “You're a big guy.”

He spent the next bit doing some cleaning and dancing a bit to the soundtrack (“I Wanna Hug Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya”), and my mind wandered back to who I wanted to follow for my middle loop. Then it hit me: Harry Greener (Simon Palmer). He'd impressed me during his first scene with Faye, I hadn't seen much of him, and the character in general is one of my favorites. Easy choice. All I had to do was figure out how to find him. I knew he had just recently left Faye, and that he'd run back into her after her audition, but that was a couple of scenes down the line. I wracked my brain. Where did he go in between? Where? Where? If only I could remember. . . .

Then, as if by magic, he walked right in and took up a spot on the bar opposite me. Of course. That's where he goes in between. I suppose it was meant to be. I shifted around to the active side of the room to catch a rousing rendition of “The Devil's Right Hand," which I hadn't seen since my last Harry loop in December (Of course, since I never follow Dwayne or the Barman, how would I?). After that I followed him to the Buchner house, where he did his polish sales routine for Lila (Kath Duggan). This was my first time seeing Kath during this trip; presumably she was also freshly returned from holiday. I hadn't really noticed her absence while she was gone, but it did feel really good to see her back on set. Even though Lila isn't a critical character for me, she (as well as Kath's portrayal of her) is a key part of the fabric of the show.

Eventually we wound up back at the motel, at the point where I had once had a 1:1 with James Sobol Kelly's Harry. This time, there was no 1:1, though - instead, he got himself ready to head to the drugstore, slowly preparing the flyers he would hang in the phone booths, cutting each slit in the paper, making the tape loops. . . it wasn't boring, per se, but it was a tad protracted. At least he kept up a steady stream of patter throughout.  But it was uneventful enough that the other white mask in the room audibly scoffed before bailing out.

Finally we actually arrived at the drugstore, where I got my big shock of the night: just before calling Temple Studios to see if he got a job, Harry did THE ORGY LINE DANCE!!. All by himself, standing atop the black and white checkerboard floor, he ran through the entire routine. What does it mean? Hard to say for sure, but it certainly cast a much more sinister light on poor Harry. In conjunction with his odd encounter with the Grocer just outside of the drugstore a few nights earlier, I may have to accept that he's a lot more tied into things than it seems at first glance.

Then things lightened up a bit with the arrival of the Drugstore Girl (Isabelle Cressy). This scene between the two of them is a favorite of mine, a nice, sweet moment amidst the doom and gloom. It also turned out to be Simon's finest moment in the role – he was a glowing ball of energy, constantly in motion. He sold the hell out of the scene in a way I haven't seen anyone else manage.

After that, it was off to the Horse and Stars for a rather unpleasant (in a good way) encounter with the Barman, as Harry's descent accelerated. Nico's Barman seemed to be the most sympathetic to Harry out of all the Barman I've seen do the scene, letting him get away with a lot more before he got angry. It mostly served to make Harry's drunken betrayal that much more awful. Soon after, Harry was stumbling down the street with his “I want and need work” sign, ranting on about this and that. Among the subjects- a certain philosophical argument that had been made to me by Luke Murphy's Barman at show 17. Yet another connection for the man who had seemed to perpetually be on the outside looking in.

When the Gatekeeper (Paul O'Shea) came to rouse Harry from his drunken stupor and send him down to Studio 3, I was treated to a scene that played out very differently from what I had seen before. It used to have very bizarre, sinister, almost supernatural overtones, enough so that I had begun to contemplate the idea that Harry didn't pass out, but actually died – and the Gatekeeper resurrected him. James Sobol Kelly played that sequence almost as a zombie, and the Gatekeeper seemed to command him. There was none of that with Simon's Harry – it was just a plain, simple encounter between a fallen celebrity and one of his last, biggest fans, who was there to give him a hand up.  It was really odd to have a bit of warmth at that particular moment.

Harry's song in Studio 3 also played very differently. Following a brief, lovely moment where he tried to enter through the locked doors, Harry rushed in just as the band was striking up the music, applauded like a conquering hero. He sang his song (no problem holding a key here), then rushed out again as soon as it was over. It really helped to keep the energy up and sell the moment as a high point for Harry, even though I did sort of miss watching the execs fawn over him a bit.

I followed Harry out of Studio 3, and back up to the first floor – but there we parted ways. I had already seen Simon do the next bit of his loop, and leaving at this point allowed me to end Harry's story with him as happy and successful as he ever gets – how could I resist?

Okay, okay, those were kind of secondary reasons. The real reason was that, by my calculations, it was time to go see the Seamstress. From previous experience, I knew that she would end her third loop by doing a 1:1 right around this point, then head to the finale. If I timed it right, I would catch her just coming out of the same 1:1 in the second loop, thus ensuring that I would have one full loop with her exactly.

Of course, one thing that should be obvious by now is that I'm terrible with timing things right. In this case, I was a little early, and she was still out and about, doing Romola (Aoi Nakamura)'s makeup. I caught just enough of a glimpse of her to see that it was indeed Sonya (after the Andy/Barman casting discrepancy, I was a little worried about my plans falling apart), then rushed off to the Doctor's office. No sneak previews for me. There, I found. . . absolutely nothing. No sign of the Doctor. So I contented myself with exploring the set for a bit, and when I wandered back to the Seamstress's domain, I saw that the door to the 1:1 room was shut. Just about showtime. I took up a spot against the wall, and in short order a white mask emerged, followed a minute or two later by the Seamstress.

Almost immediately, after a bit of tidying up, she headed through the clothes maze to her shop, followed closely by her white mask from the 1:1. I hung back slightly, torn between not wanting to get in the way between them and ABSOLUTELY wanting to get in the way between them. Fortunately, my dilemma was quickly resolved when the other mask disappeared around the end of the next scene.

The purpose of heading into the shop was, of course, so that the Seamstress could reset Frankie (Carl Harrison). When I saw this scene with Kathryn McGarr's Seamstress, I was struck by how gentle and nurturing she was with him, in contrast to her generally sassy and evil ways. I had even started to theorize that she might actually be his mother. Sonya was, if anything, even more gentle and kind – but watching her and Carl together certainly made my motherhood theory look. . . well, utterly ridiculous. You know, given that he's got to have at least five years on her. Sister, maybe? Now I'm just throwing darts at a wall.

After that, we headed down to Studio 4 for the first real scene of the loop. I will confess to using my previous experience as a guide and planting myself in what I now know to be the Seamstress Attention Spot, in the hope that it might work for me again. And sure enough, it did – but this time I didn't receive a charm – instead, once the cameras began to roll, I felt her hands on my shoulders, and heard her voice in my ear as she began to describe the beginnings of Wendy's breakdown.

There are certain instincts that people have, and there's not a lot that can be done about them. One such instinct, for me, is that when someone talks to me, I look at them. So as soon as the Seamstress began to speak, I turned my head – and suddenly she fell silent, staring straight ahead at Wendy (Sara Black) and Andrea (Kirsty Arnold) as if she had never spoken at all. So I turned to look at them, and she began to talk again. I turned back to her involuntarily. Silence. Turned back to Wendy and Andrea. She began again. Then the scene ended, and she cut off mid-sentence. Apparently I had wasted so much time with my inability to get with the program that she hadn't managed to get through her piece. Oops.

On the way out to the dressing room, there were enough people around that I foolishly decided to try to zip through a shortcut (a longcut, actually, but presumably faster due to the lack of traffic), rather than attempt to follow the Seamstress directly. The intention was to make sure I didn't get stuck behind anyone and lose her, but it kind of backfired – by the time I finished coming around, she had already handed a couple of dresses to another white mask, for him to carry up to her workshop. This, of course, meant that she was also about do take him in for a 1:1, and of course, that is precisely what happened. Heartbreak! Jealousy! How could she pick him, after whispering in my ear? Actually, I didn't really want that 1:1, not really. In my ideal scenario, I would get it at the end of the loop instead, and finish off my night in style.

I took the opportunity to nose around Studio 5 for a bit, and when the Seamstress emerged (the other white mask took off as soon as he was let out of the room), I followed her back into her workshop to find Stanford (Sam Booth) waiting. He and the Seamstress shared their brief moment of plotting and scarf-swapping, then he departed, taking every single other white mask with him. It was just me and the Seamstress. I figured I was in for a bit of downtime with her, maybe some behind the scenes work or shuffling around of props – but instead, she threw me a curveball. She headed out to the main hallway and took the passageway next to the Drugstore out into the arcade. Oh, this was very interesting indeed – I had no idea the Seamstress ever ventured that far into town. She headed to Tuttle (Jude Monk McGowan)'s toyshop, where she delivered a mysterious vial to him. It looked rather a lot like Conrad's vial, and the contents were red when he dropped a bit into his paintbrush water. He expressed disappointment in the amount, and she said it was as much as she could get her hands on. Then he poured a bunch of jelly beans into her hand as payment, carefully picking back the red ones (anyone who's seen the end of Tuttle's loop knows why she doesn't want those).

Sometimes when I write these things out, I have to marvel at just how bizarre it all is, and just how suppressed my WTF?-response is when I'm in there.

We re-entered the workshop through the clothes maze, and the whole way the Seamstress was popping jelly beans like candy. See how messed up my perspective was? I actually just thought it was notable that she was treating the candy like candy, rather than like pills. Why would I even think of pills at that point? Anyway, let's hope it was just candy, because at the end of the clothing maze (and let me tell you, she can zip through that thing like no one's business. Impossible to keep up), I found her waiting for me with one of the jelly beans in hand, which she then proceeded to feed to me.

At this point we picked up a couple of other white masks, but lost them again almost immediately, because as soon as the Seamstress finished writing out a note for Faye, she took me by the hand and led me to the 1:1 room. The 1:1 itself was, easily, my favorite of the three that I've had with the Seamstress, if for no other reason than because Sonya's version is rewritten slightly from the others and no longer feels like it was written for a female white mask. In addition to the gender-appropriateness, the rewritten ending is also considerably more ominous and intense than before. Finally, it also began with an interesting character-based bit that really helped to cement my understanding of Sonya's version of the Seamstress. She's the nice one. Where Kathryn Mcgarr seemed to revel in her evil manipulations, and Kate Jackson went about her duties with a cold dispassion, Sonya generally tries to comfort her victims, and ease the pain as much as possible. That much is clear from watching her even briefly. What I picked up from the question she asked me in the 1:1 is that she's not being forced to do any of this. She's not a victim – she may hate the specifics of her job, and what she has to do to people – but she's on board with the overall purpose. This leaves her in a very difficult place, mentally, and her plea for understanding – her desire to explain herself, was surprisingly moving, creeping up on me from out of nowhere.

After I was ejected from the 1:1 room, I had a couple of minutes to myself, and the side effect of having that 1:1 occurred to me – I would, therefore, not get it at the end of the loop.  In other words, on account of just having had an awesome 1:1, I had also just lost any chance of the walkdown. Holy mixed feelings, Batman. Fortunately, I was having a great time with the loop and enjoying a bit of a rush from the 1:1, so the disappointment took a fairly distant back seat.

When the seamstress emerged from the 1:1 room, we wound up hanging out in the hall for a bit, waiting for Faye to emerge with her new dress and shoes. While we waited, we munched on the last two jelly beans. It's for the best that this was the last of them - after all this time in her hand, they were. . . a little warm. When Faye came out and had a brief talk with the Seamstress, my brain had a little bit of a fritz. Why is Faye talking to Faye? Surprisingly difficult to process. Back when Sonya and Katie were just alternating Faye and Romola, there was never a point where their two characters crossed paths, so I never had to deal with this before.

After Faye left, the Seamstress gathered some things and went out to her shop, where she set about threading a charm on to a pendant. This must have been approximately where I had come in when I followed Kathryn McGarr's Seamstress, which meant we were about to hit the point of the wall slam/charm delivery inside the clothing maze. Thus, I was slightly saddened when a couple of people emerged from the clothing maze in the midst of the charm-threading, meaning I would not be able to follow the Seamstress directly through the maze. Turns out, it didn't matter – nothing out of the ordinary happened inside the maze, and the charm (a car, I eventually discovered) wound up hooked over the clipboard with the Romola makeup instructions.

After a bit of scheming with the Doctor (Ira Siobhan), it was time for the infidelity ballet.  During the prep for the scene, I managed to pull my patented “stand out of the way in exactly the spot where the character is going to need to go in a minute despite having seen this scene several times” move, after managing to avoid doing so through all of the rest of my March shows.  So close, and yet, so far. 

 There was also an intriguing and unsettling moment when Wendy started to talk about seeing people all around her. When she asked the Seamstress if she could see them, she looked me right in the eye when she said “no.”

One thing I've noticed about Sonya is that her voice projects more than a lot of the other performers, particularly the other women, so I had high hopes that I would finally get the chance to discover exactly what she whispers to Andrea during the ballet. I positioned myself right at the edge of the stage, no more than two feet from them – but nothing. It's like she didn't want to be heard (I later learned this was, in fact, the case). Toward the end of the scene, the Seamstress took up as spot on the edge of the main stage, near the bedroom set, then held her hand out to me. I joined her onstage and she again took me by the shoulders, whispering details into my ear as Wendy found the scissors.  Incidentally, this is a fantastic vantage point for that moment, which I never would have guessed. As Wendy headed over to the red stage, the Seamstress turned me to face it and continued her whispering, finally running her hand gently down my back in that inimitable Punchdrunk way as she departed for the backstage when Stanford called “cut.”

Right about that time (okay, exactly at that time), Romola arrived, and my brain had another weirdness fritz. It was so strange to watch Sonya interacting with Romola when I was used to her being the other half of the scene. I followed her over to the workshop to prep the car crash makeup and it felt oddly appropriate, even comfortable, to watch her mouth along with Romola's dialogue as it boomed across the hall.

During the makeup application, I was again struck by how gentle Sonya's Seamstress was with her – even more so when Romola rushed out of the room. Normally it is Romola who protests when the Doctor tells her she was in an accident, but this time it was the Seamstress who kept repeating, “it's okay, it's only makeup.” And when she held Romola as the Doctor fed her the pea/pill that would wipe her memory, she didn't restrain her head so much as cradle it. Again, surprisingly touching.

As Romola and the Doctor departed, the Seamstress grabbed a rose from the shrine, and I knew the night was coming to an end. I had resolved myself to not having a shot at the walkdown, so I didn't rush to follow her to the 1:1 room, winding up behind two or three others – but to my surprise, she didn't take someone in with her and lock the door. She wedged a woodblock under the door and let us all follow her in. Interesting. Maybe things weren't as hopeless as I thought.

Inside, she reiterated her question from earlier (“You understand why I do it, don't you?”). By this time, I really did, and I nodded emphatically. She changed into her dancing shoes, looked down at her apron, and then back up at me.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Apron or no apron?” I gestured in the negative. “You're right. It is a party, after all,” she said, removing the apron.

She slipped easily through the crowd of white masks and left the room, but I was not so lucky, getting snarled in a massive traffic jam at the door. By the time I made it out to the hallway, she was more than halfway down it, with at least a dozen people between us.  Once again, hope faded away - there was no way I was going to catch up to her. But then, at the end of the hallway, she stopped. And when I got to the back of the knot of white masks, she reached through the crowd to take my hand.  I guess the story gets a happy ending after all.

As we walked downstairs, ahead of the others, she chattered on about the film they were making and the final scene that was about to be shot, including a couple of interesting points – first, she reiterated that she really, truly believed in this production, reinforcing the idea that, despite her misgivings, she does her work of her own free will. Second, and perhaps even more interesting, she told me that she thought Wendy would be the one who could finally pull it off, AFTER ALL THE OTHERS HAD FAILED. That certainly puts a different spin on things, although if you've explored the basement enough, you may already have a sense for exactly what she meant by that.

We reached Studio 2 much earlier than the last time I went there with the Seamstress (benefit of skipping the 1:1), and she gave me the usual murder-watching squeezing-clutching treatment. When Stanford called cut, she exclaimed with joy (and perhaps a bit of disbelief), “She did it! She actually did it!” Then she took me over to the platform between the caravans, announcing with a knowing smirk, “best seat in the house.”

I was on quite the emotional high at this point. Both of my previous trips to London had ended with shows that were. . . let's say weaker than usual. In fact, they were probably my two worst shows of all. But this time was different. Not only was it a solid show all around, but the all-important third loop had turned out exactly as I had hoped, and much better than I had expected. As the Seamstress turned to leave me, I wanted to say something to her - “thank you,” I guess, although that seems inadequate. But of course, I couldn't say anything. So I gave her hand a squeeze, the only bit of acknowledgment I could think of. She turned back, smiled, and leaned up to kiss me on the cheek – and then she was gone.

So that's how my third vacation to Temple Studios ended – watching the finale from the best seat in the house, with a giant smile plastered on my face. What more could I possibly ask for?