Year of the Queen: The Making of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical (23 page)

I squint through the gathering dawn light to the clock. My guts turn slightly as I see I’ve only got a few hours before I have to be back at the theatre. I know only too well what a sore throat means at this stage of the game. This is day one of the final week leading up to opening night. Ground zero is upon us. The final stages of technical rehearsals and the last few previews are now the only things which stand between us and the curtain going up for the world premier on Saturday night.

In my mind’s eye I can picture the moment. Me, standing side stage amongst the flap of nervous performers, nervous myself, feeling the cling of fishnets and the crush of the corset beneath my overcoat, ready for my first entrance. The rippling murmur from the audience as it flows through the curtain from the auditorium. Then an excited crescendo as the house lights die and the orchestra stabs at the first few bars of the overture. It’s a scene which bristles with excitement and fear and adrenalin. It’s akin to giving birth in the sense that, after gestating this thing in rehearsals, suffering the misgivings and uncertainties of putting your heart and soul into a performance, then finally the agony of the overwhelming nerves, we deliver the show to the world, wide eyed and innocent for all to scrutinize and critique.

Every piece of publicity insists on billing it as ‘the world premier’ of
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical
, as if just, Opening Night isn’t enough to make you fill your brown corduroys. But now this niggling sore throat which I’ve been keeping at bay for two weeks, has decided to sink its teeth in at the worst possible time. I need all my health and all my strength because the week ahead is going to be hell.

Once daylight comes I fly down to the doctor’s and demand antibiotics. In the chemist, as I wait for my prescription to be filled, I trot down the aisles filling my basket with vitamins like I’m on an Easter Egg hunt. I open a prodigious account of pills, potions and remedies.

I return home and report to Annie. She’s been holding the fort the last two weeks with our two little terrors, both of whom seem to be coming down with what I’ve got. As I’m trying to elicit as much sympathy as possible, the phone rings and Sandra stuns me with the news that Judith Johnson, our extraordinary publicist, has died. This is the kind of enormous news which puts everything else into perspective and I go easy on the self pity. Although her death was unforeseeable and unrelated to the show, it’s hard to not to feel like
Priscilla
has claimed her first scalp.

I head into work. In a terrible twist of irony, today we’re scheduled to shoot the T.V. ad. This has been organized by Judith, and in her absence, her grieving assistant must suck it up and hold the fort. Aside from all the technical madness backstage, there is now a sizable group of people in serious mourning for Judith. She’s been a theatre stalwart for years now and a lot of people around me were very close to her, so the atmosphere is fractious. Aside from this we’re rudderless. Simon is in Melbourne presiding over the launch of the next MTC season so we have no real leader.

We assemble to start work on the ad, but it seems utterly insane to be shooting it in favour of actually getting the show up and running. We keep looking to each other askance that this folly is continuing. Surely we should stop right now and finish teching the bloody show.

The list of the routines we’ll be shooting are pinned up on the notice board and we make our way through each as the day progresses. Impressive camera equipment is set up in the auditorium and we run each number a couple of times for the benefit of the camera. Gradually we get behind time and the last few numbers begin to become rushed. Tempers fray and the work load expected finally defeats us. We cut several scheduled scenes and the ad director is forced to make do with what he’s got.

After a quick meal break we begin to get ready for another preview. Ten minutes before the curtain goes up we’re assembled on stage and informed that the bus has broken down again. Once more we’ll have to do the show without it. I look around me and see the cast’s patience and sense of humour has almost run out. My throat is deteriorating and I ache to be home in bed. We muck through the show as best as we can but my anxiety about actually being ready for opening night begins to soar.

Wednesday, and when I arrive at the theatre today I find my dressing room packed with suit bags. Last week I tracked down Fernando (can you hear the drums?) and asked him to dress me for the opening night party. Aside from an aversion to shopping, I also knew I wouldn’t have a second to actually find anything to wear. With all the hype and the thousands of press there, I didn’t want to turn up looking like a hobo. For a fee, Fernando would do all the shopping for me. I could simply choose the outfit I wanted, send back what I didn’t need and keep the rest. I just didn’t count on an avalanche of clothing coming into my already clogged dressing room. I now have more suits and shirts than actual costumes. The brief I gave him was ‘masculine’. If I’m going to be dressed like a girl all night on stage, I want to go to the party looking like a man. Perhaps the message didn’t get through, because as I flick through the outfits I see a hell of a lot of floral. Troy, who also happens to be a NIDA trained designer, helps me chose which suits me best. It’s not hard. One outfit is perfect and we settle on that pretty quickly.

Today is another exhausting day of technical rehearsals, breathing acrid smoke machine fumes, capped off with a preview. As the day wears on I can feel my voice getting weaker and more compromised. The infection is moving onto my chest and it’s now become painful to cough. My sense of humour has run out.

The show is still chaotic. Even though the bus is now working again, for the last three shows we’ve been doing quick changes in the wings or in bizarre alternative places, so to readjust to using the bus again is a major shift. Of course the bus is still not teched properly so her moves around the stage are clunky and we still have to do a lot of filling in. I’m deeply tired and getting very sick of keeping everything together. It’s also unpredictable where and when props will turn up, if they turn up at all. In the dressing room scene in Woop Woop, I spend the entire scene getting dressed on stage ready for the song which follows. I slip on boots, put on lipstick and glitter, a skirt and then my head piece. All of this is timed to fit into the dialogue. Every single night we’ve performed the scene, the props and costume have been set in different places, so not only have I had to play the scene, I’ve had to assess where everything actually is and then work out how to get into it, all in the time appointed before the song starts. Tonight when I pick up my head piece to put it on, the make shift costume rack that the props department have made to put it on, over-balances and crashes to the stage. It’s the last fucking straw. The audience laugh at how clumsy it looks, but I’ve had a gut full. Normally I’d use it, and make a wise crack to the audience, but feeling so sick and so exhausted I’m in no mood for any more stuff ups. I stare down at the mess on the stage in front of me and wrestle with the overwhelming desire to scream and stomp off stage. I decide to simply ignore it and let it be someone else’s problem. For all I care, whoever is responsible for leaving me on stage with such a crappy set up can fucking come on and sort it out. I can’t be bothered anymore. But this is still the real world. On stage, actors rule and any mess must be cleaned up by them. Back-stage crew have the luxury of peeking anonymously through the wings at their mistakes.

I turn my back on the toppled costume rack and continue dressing and playing the scene as if nothing has happened. Dan quickly makes light of it and rushes to clean it up and the audience cackles. I’m grateful, but in my fury I dearly wish he hadn’t. For once I ached for a red-faced crew member to be forced on stage, just to see how it feels.

Desperate for rest, I bolt home straight after the show for a decent night’s sleep and am out to it as soon as I hit the pillow. After about thirty minutes though, as if some mad scientist has heaved down a giant electrical conducting lever in a Frankenstein movie, my heart suddenly bursts into life and begins to pound heavily in my chest. My eyes pop open and I sit bolt upright. In my slumber I’ve had a horrifying realization. I’m going to lose my voice for opening night! I’m awash with panic and I can’t calm down. Spastic scenarios of failure whirl through my mind.

For hours I spin circles in bed, sweating. Finally my restlessness stirs Annie and she mutters, “What’s wrong?” I’m forced to confess that I’m having a panic attack and I can’t sleep. She takes me in her arms and strokes my head and I immediately feel a million times better, until at around four a.m., the kids wake up crying. Their temperatures have soared and their throats are killing them too. Now everyone’s awake and it’s crystal clear to me that the night is going to hell. I sit on the side of the bed with my head in my hands as the kids scream, groaning with despair at the disaster that is about to confront me.

It’s Thursday. I stagger in to work knowing I have to admit to the company that I’m in trouble. So much shit is going down backstage that I’m afraid that I’ll just present as a nuisance. I summon Simon to my dressing room and unburden myself of what is happening. I tell him I haven’t slept, that I’m feeling crook as a dog, and that I’m in a state of panic about not making it to opening night. Tears tumble out as I speak. Simon is shouldering the excruciating burden of ironing out all the disasters of the show and the pressure is showing. The last thing he needs is to know that one of his leads is crumbling. As I speak, I see behind his eyes all the possible scenarios tumbling around in his mind. He keeps a kind face but there’s clearly minimal bandwidth left in his busy head to deal with this. He assures me he’ll go easy on me today and exits, telling me to get some rest. I lie down on the couch in my dressing room and try to sleep.

Soon, Sandra barrels into my room with a head-full of steam. Word has passed around and she’s swung into action. A hotel room has been booked for tonight so I can get some sleep away from the sick kids. Then Garry arrives with a handful of sleeping pills, lovely light blue and terribly tempting, to make sure nothing can go wrong for a good night of reviving sleep. I want to gobble the lot and sleep for a week. I can’t wait.

Today we have a giant press call before we begin tech rehearsals. Terence Stamp has arrived from London and will perform a ‘handing over of the stiletto’ ceremony for the cameras. We get into costume and make-up and assemble side stage waiting to perform a number for the waiting media. The auditorium is filled with T.V. crews, radio crews, newspaper photographers and journalists. Garry takes the stage and addresses them, introducing the number we’ll do, promising we’ll do it twice so the cameras can get a different angle and then he’ll throw the cast open for them to talk to.

We hit the stage and perform the song. Cameras flash and T.V. cameras roll. We get to the end of the number and there’s polite applause. We reset and repeat the number. This time, cameras are closer, running up to the stage trying for a better angle. At the end of the number, our new publicist, Peter, grabs various cast members for interviews. I’m hustled off for an ABC radio interview. We sit in the auditorium and share an impressive looking microphone as we chat cheerfully about why the show is going to be such a hit.

Then it’s Terence Stamp’s turn. It’s amazing what a difference an international star makes to the care factor of the media. What
was
a polite, run of the mill press call suddenly becomes a frenzy. The press flood to the front of the auditorium, jockeying for a good position as Terence appears, looking almost self-consciously casual, wearing a fading Hawaiian shirt and an old pair of shorts, like some old bloke from Maroubra. He’s clearly used to the fuss that’s made of him and he gracefully takes it in his stride. He waits backstage with Tony and Dan and me, making polite chit-chat about the show and telling funny anecdotes about the film.

Then he walks on stage to thunderous applause. He carries with him the stiletto that he will pass to Tony. Tony enters beaming, and the cameras flash.

“I hereby pass this stiletto onto the new Bernadette”, he says, handing the shoe to Tony and giving him a kiss on the cheek. The kiss lingers so the cameras can all get their shot.

After a few more interviews, the place empties and we get back to teching the show. It’s still miles off being ready. There are only two more previews to go and we still haven’t done a show without stopping. Costumes and sets are still missing and we still haven’t done a dress rehearsal yet. Every time I think of presenting what we’ve got now on opening night, a shiver of dread grips me.

After rehearsals and a short meal break I struggle through the show and then slink away into the night, retreating to the Medina Grand in the centre of Sydney. I present at reception in the middle of the night like some kind of eccentric recluse. No luggage, no over-night bags, just a plastic supermarket bag filled with pill bottles which rattle and clink as I walk.

I make my way to the lift and my new sanctuary on the eighteenth floor. Once the lift doors close behind me I begin testing out how my voice feels after the show, making strange “Scooby Doo” doggie noises across the highs and lows of my vocal range. So absorbed am I with this analysis that I don’t notice the lift stop at level three and let in a happy couple of young newly-weds. All too late I look up to find them staring bug eyed at me as I make my insane guttural noises. I cease immediately but it’s too late. They’ve heard me. It’s now become a very slow ride to the eighteenth floor as the bride and groom sincerely worry they may not see out their honeymoon before they’re filleted by the crazy guy in the lift.

Once ensconced in my refuge, I pop a sleeping pill, tuck myself under the crispy clean sheets and wait for the magic sleep to roll in. Sleep finally comes, but my temperature is up and I keep waking in sweat-drenched sheets.

At about four a.m. I wake and I can’t get back to sleep. This time I can tell there’s no use trying. I get up and pace the hotel room buff naked, trying to shake off this excruciating, irrational fear. I open the curtains and stare into the peaceful dark outside, cursing the chaos which assaults me inside. Is this how it will be on opening night? Staring out through the curtain to the still, watchful crowd as I wrestle on stage with this turmoil?