Theatre
How to live a braver, wilder life
Published 04 September 2008
Having a production on always feels as if you've been in a boxing match. I'm beginning to care less about the critics' jabs, which implies I'm entering a state of either Zen or monomania
I have just returned from a holiday camp in Cornwall and a first-ever family holiday. Rain, caravans, arcades, wigs, a six-foot gorilla in a kilt who hugged my young nieces. I expected the innocence of Yellowcoats, but instead there were obese male wrestlers who kept pulling each other's sequinned thongs down. But the beaches were stunning, all mist and sand, and a seal swam near us in St Ives - so everything was wild and beautiful again.
I came back to a vicious diatribe against my play, Her Naked Skin, in the papers. Having a production on always feels as if you've been in a boxing match: no external bruising, but sharp internal hooks and punches. But I find I'm beginning to care less about the jabs, which implies I'm entering a state of either Zen or monomania. I dreamed before the first preview that I walked into the amphitheatre-like space of the National's Olivier Theatre and, instead of the set and seating, the whole area was covered in patchy grass, very like a Plymouth park of my childhood. The audience were invited to roly-poly down it, rather than watch the play.
A trapped bird
In the foyer of the National, I unexpectedly see my friend Emma McNally. She's an incredible artist: her drawings in graphite are epic and stunning. She stares up at a high inside ledge. Others watch with her. A pigeon has flown inside the building and flaps against the glass, hurting itself. People throw things at it and try to shoo it out. "It's terrified," Emma says, and follows the confused bird as it flies into the bookshop, hurtling into more glass. People harangue it as though it were a witch. Emma approaches slowly, takes off her jacket and wraps up the trembling bird, then sets it free outside. It reminds me of the perfect haunting poem from Nabokov's Pale Fire . . .
I was the shadow of the waxwing
slain
By the false azure in the window
pane.
Emma stopped a drunken brawl once simply by stepping between the two men. She is a suffragette for the third millennium.
Playing poker with ideas
I go to a meeting for a film, part of the double life I lead whenever I venture into "the movies". The venue is the Landmark hotel, all piano-playing and high ceilings. On the street I take off my luminous bicycle vest, roll my leggings up under my skirt, and walk in endeavouring to look as if I'd be at home in Cannes. I sit in the foyer on a waiting chair beside a man who sits in the only other waiting chair. I suspect it is the director, whom I've never met.
When the others arrive, the atmosphere fascinates me. There's an economy of movement and words, a caution: it's a poker game with ideas instead of cards. I blow my deck by smiling too much and offering to pour the tea. I once asked the unaskable of the producer after a ninth draft and another U-turn: " So what you're saying is that, actually, you've changed your mind?" Pause. The producer, handsome, authoritative, looks over. "No Rebecca, we never 'change our mind'. We've had . . . an evolution of thought."
New York to London
I saw the film Man on Wire today. It was inspiring. Philippe Petit's face breaks into a beatific smile as he walks between the twin towers. He lies down among the clouds, pure human poetry, flirting crazily with death. The cops clumsily bundle him into a police van after he has conquered the world and transformed an otherwise misty day in New York. He juggles with the cop's hat. He has the same air as Nureyev when quizzed by the paparazzi, who stared back at them like a beautiful creature, then just winked. Both men have been touched by something unearthly.
I walk my bike through Trafalgar Square, resolving to live a braver, wilder life. An old drunk with a cut-up face dances to a busking violinist. He puts his arms round me, all sweat and piercing blue eyes. "They don't know!" he says. "They don't know," he whispers, and holds me tight. We stand and sway in each other's arms for a few moments.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play "Her Naked Skin" is at the Olivier (National Theatre), London SE1, until 24 September
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