The actress Judi Dench often tells of the first time she appeared in a professional play. Her character’s opening line was apparently: “Where are you, Mummy and Daddy?”
On the first night in question her real parents shouted back from the auditorium: “Here we are darling, row H numbers 23 and 24.”
Dench's story sums up perfectly the heady mixture of fraught nerves, tribalism and imminent calamity that comprises opening night performances for stage actors the world over. I can speak from experience as I've just survived one myself – in my case, in Noel Coward's classic comedy Hay Fever, which opened last week in London's West End.
Psychologists have estimated that the amount of stress endured by actors on first nights is akin to that experienced by being involved in a minor car crash. I don’t know how they measure such things, but I can well believe them.
The irony of opening nights is that while they’re supposed to represent ideal conditions – namely, a full house and just enough nervous anticipation to sharpen your senses – in reality they’re anything but. On any other night the auditorium will indeed be filled with ordinary punters, who’ve come to see the show out of a genuine desire and who have no agenda than to enjoy themselves. But first nights are crammed with people either desperate for you to succeed or willing you to fail. “Them” and “us”, as I like to call them.
The latter group – “us” – includes producers, directors, agents, friends and spouses, all of whom have an emotional or financial interest in a successful outcome. The other group – “them” – includes celebrities out for a free “jolly”, rival producers and actors who unsuccessfully auditioned for the job and who (through curiosity or schadenfreude), are anxious to see what they’ve missed.
And then there are the critics. Their job is to view the show with a detached eye and then write up their pronouncements in next morning’s newspaper; and their conclusions can make or break an actor’s career. We may not be able to see them from up on the stage, but we know they’re out there in the dark somewhere, their biros flickering across a jotting pad, noting down their impressions of both the play and our performance. The only glimpse we get of them is of their backs as they scurry up the aisle to the rear door at the curtain call to write their review in time for tomorrow’s edition.
But we don’t need to wait for the “crits” (reviews) to know whether we’re in a hit or not. The first indication is usually to be found in the eyes of friends and relatives who cluster backstage afterwards to offer their congratulations. If they throw their arms around you and ruffle your hair you can be reasonably sure the show has proved a genuine success. If however, they enter the dressing room with a rictus grin and carefully chosen platitudes such as “We loved the costumes, or “Well, what about your performance?”, then you know the show’s in trouble.
Whatever their reaction, there’s nothing left to do once the performance is over but to take off your costume, hand in your dressing room key, and go off to enjoy the first night after-show party.
Such shindigs serve a useful purpose in allowing the cast and creatives to vent some of some of the surplus adrenalin that has been coursing through our veins since late afternoon.
Yet such occasions can quickly turn to ashes in our mouths as the early morning newspaper reviews begin to trickle in; and indeed, at Sardi’s restaurant in New York, a popular location for Broadway post-show parties, there are stories of waiters suddenly stacking the chairs on the tables the moment the first bad reviews appear, even if the revellers are still eating.
Thankfully in the case of Hay Fever, the reviews have been kind, not to say ecstatic, and a week on, we're safely up and running. The stress of first night has been replaced by an easy confidence, the best possible circumstances for playing comedy; and both the audiences and us are enjoying ourselves thoroughly.
But all actors know that this feeling of contentment is only temporary. Soon enough the run of the play will end, and the whole stressful process of securing another job, and eventually surmounting another excruciating first night, will begin again.
Where are you, Mummy and Daddy?
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer who lives in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins
