For theatre actors, opening night performances are something of a Mount Everest to be scaled. After all, our finely tuned performance, honed in the privacy of the rehearsal room, is finally to be laid bare before a paying public, one that will also include critics, producers and influential directors. There’s a lot at stake.
But however taxing they are for those on the stage, these occasions are even worse for their colleagues and rivals who attend such glittering occasions as part of the audience. We, too, have to give the performance of our lives.
The anguish starts when you arrive outside the theatre just before 7 pm. Will you be recognised and shepherded in through the front doors on the red carpet, as you hope, or be forced to shuffle in the side entrance along with the ordinary theatregoers? In showbiz, anonymity is a more heinous crime than incompetence.
Yet even if you are accorded VIP status, will the waiting paparazzi know who you are? More often than not one’s arrival is greeted by bewilderment.
Ah well. That’s showbiz. At least you’re now safely in the building and installed in your seat. The auditorium is already filling up with the movers and shakers, all greeting one another like old friends. There’s that famous director you’ve been trying to meet for the last two years. And over there is the casting executive for the Disney Corporation. You smile nervously in their direction, hoping your imploring grin will be returned. Looking round, you note you’re the only person here you’ve never heard of.
The start of the actual play offers some welcome respite from your mental anguish, but this, too, is short-lived, for this exhausting game of peek-a-boo is repeated at the interval. So what now? Remain in your seat or work the room on the pretext of stretching your legs?
Perhaps it’s best to sit tight. But await – the head of BBC Drama is queuing for a vanilla tub in the aisle. She’s nearly within touching distance. Get in the line behind her and you’ll have an excuse to strike up a rapport, maybe nudge her memory as to who you are and what projects she’s planning. Yet even as you’re rising to your feet she’s been collared by somebody else and is now deep in conversation. Your chance has gone.
You sit through Act Two with gritted teeth, ruing your timidity, until, at last, the play is over. Yet for you the hardest part of the evening is still to come; namely, the trip backstage after curtain down.
The stage door keeper, the theatre’s equivalent of a nightclub bouncer, glances brusquely at you through his tiny window. “Yes?” he barks. “I’m here to see my friend Colin. He’s in the show” you bleat. “Right,” he says, eyeing you with suspicion. “Who shall I tell him is here?”
“Who shall I tell him?” you want to roar back. “Don’t you know who I am?” But of course he doesn’t know who you are. That’s the problem. So you announce your name with as much dignity as you can muster and grit your teeth ever more fiercely.
Eventually you’re ushered through, and finally, in the cosy womb of your friend’s dressing room, you can relax, drop your guard and be yourself; that is, as long as you’ve enjoyed the show. But what if the performance – or worse, your friend in it – was terrible? Now what do you say? Do you lie through your teeth, tell the truth and risk fracturing your friendship, or plump for some meaningless platitude?
Luckily, meaningless platitudes are my specialty. “That was something else!” you declare with amazement. Or: “Well, I’ll never forget that performance as long as I live!” Or simply: “Wow!” Don’t worry; Colin will only hear what he wants to hear. He is, when all is said and done, another actor.
At last the evening is over, your friend is off to a party, and with a final pat on his back you’re catching the bus back home. And not a moment too soon. For however good or bad Colin was in his part, you’ve given an Oscar-winning performance. What’s more, it was all for free.
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins