Jarkko Lehmus Diary

Sex, Drugs and Pantyhose

It's a healthy looking baby!
Photo by me ©

After a week of absolute technical madness the company delivered a healthy show. And what a beauty it is! Opening night was last Wednesday, 17th of December, in the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh. Marie was danced by lovely Mara Galeazzi, hijacked from the Royal Ballet for the season. She's an absolute stunner as a performer and as a person. The role of the prince was danced by our own Cuban stallion Jose. They looked fantastic together. A lot of the credit for that goes to Irek Muhakmedov who's been teaching and coaching us for the last month. He's been there, done that, went around the block a few times and come back with a t-shirt saying: I'm a superstar. So when he talks you tend to listen. He knows his stuff and is a lovely bloke in the process.

I won't bore you with the storyline of the show or stuff like that and I'll let the reviews do the talking on the quality of the production as well. What you can't read in the papers is often much more interesting... Since Wednesday we've practically had a first night every night with four different casts of Drosselmeyers, Marie's and Princes and two casts for the rest of the characters. Plenty of excuses for partying then. More of that later. Wednesday night was a typical first night: lots of excitement, plenty of nerves and a huge relief with the rapturous applause in the end. Just about every show has been like that until last night. Saturday evening saw the second show of the first cast of Mara, Jose, me and the rest of the culprits. It was the first show that felt settled and relaxed and the audience felt it too. It's our show now, it's in the bag and we can really start working on it.

I'd personally love to be able to watch the whole show as a member of the audience. I find watching and performing narrative work very interesting because of it's complexity. Who are the characters? Where do they come from? What do they want and why? Finding the right personality for a character is not necessarily physically as challenging as doing the big jumps and multiple pirouettes but mentally and emotionally there is no contest. I've only scratched the surface of Herr Drosselmeyer, the Royal clockmaker, adventurer and possibly a magician with a passion for strong ladies. It would be very interesting to see the production to get a more complete idea of the story and be able to develop the characters with that information. Sadly, or luckily, I'm second cast Father, Dr Stahlbaum, a bit of a flash git and a germanic playboy with a huge appetite for booze and women. Because of the casting I'm on stage every show and during early week matinees do both roles during the same day. Once I get a proper hang of the characters it'll be ok but at the moment I'm noticing a slight leakage from one character to another. Schitsophrenia is interesting.

Possibly due to the stress of the past two monts I've been out on the razzle every night since Wednesday and am writing this in an internet cafe somewhere in Edinburgh. Every morning I've woken up thinking that tonight I'll have a good night sleep in my bed but instead ended up on the floor of my mates' room in the Holyrood Hotel and passed out in someone elses bed the next night. Words like big, clever and not spring to mind. It's partly due to the friendliness of the company though. It's a great bunch of people. Unlike most ballet companies out there everybody in Scottish Ballet actually talks to each other and there's minimal bitching and backstabbing. Instant social life, just add alcohol.

What ever reasons I presented above are really just excuses. I just want to get out and have some fun like most young people. It's a bit of a balancing act though. Trying to have a life of sorts but not let it affect work. Army taught me some serious tournament endurance though... It's all about priorities really. People work to get money and then spend it on tickets to come and watch us. They should always be given the best show possible and it's up to us to do what ever necessary to give them just that. Work hard, play hard, work even harder the day after.

A great show, great people, great fun. And it's all because of Ashley and his motley crew of artistic staff and supporters. He has kept his cool during the entire lenght of the rehearsal period addressing what ever issues needed to be dealt with in a very smooth and effective fashion, kept working 24/7 with just about every single aspect of the production without losing it. I don't know how he does it, I don't know if he knows how he does it himself but it is very impressive to watch and it does produce some serious results.

Gentlemen Page and Barron... and Miller.
Photo by me ©

I'm off to bed now.

Posted by Jarkko at December 21, 2003 06:30 PM