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Monday, June 1st 1998, Labatt's Apollo Hammersmith
One night on BBC, I watched this TV series. To this day, I have no idea what the name of it was. In it, group of young men trained to go to war. Hard and cruel months passed by until boys turned into men. When it was time for them to leave, they showed their nervousness in many ways. Some boasted and spat in the face of the music, others wilted and went back the scared young boys they were before.
No longer were any of the cast going to rehearse at the Ovalhouse Theatre. We were off to do battle, though without any bloodshed. Maybe this wasn't war, but I saw the nervousness on everyone's faces. We had somewhat become used to the BBC's documentary crew filming us while we did our best to practise without distractions. We had even gotten used to Julie Andrews' occasional visits and the famous people she brought with her.
But Hammersmith was a beast all on its own. It was as if we had landed in Normandy's beaches; everything about the theatre was majestic and bigger than life. Ovalhouse could be imagined: a few hundred seats and a modest stage. Rehearsal rooms could've been any a warehouse. Hammersmith was gigantic, bars combined chrome, Victorian and Renaissance in ways that somehow made sense. Recessed ceiling with cove lighting added dimensions to the long hallway. Green wallpaper and Roman pillars, windows with designer frames, floor with mosaic tiles, red carpets. It was all decadent but tasteful because it was a theatre, the right place for such styles. We were currently walking along with the big wigs from Hammersmith Collective. My understanding was that these were the folks who were paying Leslie and Steven. Also the reason why Dolittle was making rounds in the news, £4 million spent on production. It was a record, currently number three in the world; the figure was completely overshadowed by The Lion King, which cost £25 million and opened the year before. But it was a true record for West End productions.
My breath caught as I followed the cast and executive producers through a double door. To my right, the stage loomed — massive and pitch-dark, with no lights in operation. Three sets of curtains were visible; the last remained closed. Could there be another three sets behind it that would go on for eternity?
When I shifted my gaze from the stage, seats stretched out in every direction. To my right, near the stage, twelve rows of twenty. To my left as I looked to the back of the theatre was three seperate columns, wider at the center and curved so each person had a direct line to the stage. Each row climbed higher upward, raised like the cinema that this theatre once had been. Seven more rows sat at the end, almost hidden with how prominent the red doors for the audience looked. A spiral staircase wound up to the mezzanine, where even more seats looked down at us as if heaven itself were observing the earth.
"Three Thousand Four Hundred Ninety," Paul said, the big Chairman guy.
I felt the number and tested it against what I saw. Thousand was just a number, but then you saw what a thousand was. Three thousand was something else.
"Come up on the stage! See the sight you'll see every single day. Though it wouldn't be so empty," Paul laughed.
We only had to walk a dozen feet to go up a stair that blended into the stage, appearing almost invisible. The sight from the stage stole my breath all over again. The Art Deco ceiling had these two giant scuttle holes framed in layers of decoration that made the recessed feature out in the halls look tiny. The way the house elongated away from our perspective made it look like a leviathan had its mouth open, recessed decoration mixed with shadows to make it appear like sharp tooth. I gulped, as did many others who had never been on a stage so grand.
We only had to walk a dozen feet to reach a stair that blended almost seamlessly into the stage, appearing nearly invisible. The view from up there stole my breath all over again. The Art Deco ceiling featured two giant scuttle holes, framed in layers of ornamentation that made the recessed features out in the halls seem tiny in comparison. The way the house stretched away from our vantage point made the recessed feature look like a leviathan opening its mouth, the interplay of recessed decoration and shadow giving the impression of jagged teeth. I swallowed hard — as did many others who had never set foot on a stage so grand.
"Beautiful, is it not?" Paul asked loudly.
People around me made agreeable noises.
"Let's show you all your rehearsal studio," Paul said.
—✦—
#
"This is the usual reaction," Paul chuckled. "I love showing the studio after the stage. Makes you really appreciate the gravity of what you're doing."
"You kidding, mate?" Bryan asked in shock.
I agreed completely with Bryan; we were not in shock or disappointed. No, we were impressed.
"This is huge," Sarah said.
"Modern," John added.
"Are those ballet barres?" Phillip asked, pointing at the handrails near the walls.
"Why is the ceiling so high?" I said.
Paul looked like the cat that got the cream.
"I've forgot where you all came from. This is the Apollo Hammersmith. You are in the largest theatre; you are the largest and most expensive production this side of the Atlantic. Get used to it!" Paul said in a mock commanding tone.
He was actually big enough that he could fire anyone in the production, so we all laughed nervously. The rehearsal hall had two whole floor equivalent of floor-to-ceiling windows. The pillars visible from the outside, divided the windows so it looked like an aerial prison. I loved the sight. But what had me really excited was the sight in front of all of us. Yellow tape, just like what we had at Ovalhouse, surrounded small cubes and rectangles. Unlike at the Ovalhouse, those represented the space that the orchestra controlled. One such cube held a stool, surrounded on three sides by various musical implements. The front side had the sheet music holder, a speaker, and to the left and right were violins on stands or in a hard-shell case. Similar cubes had a similar setup but with different instruments like piano, bass or drums. The smallest spaces were for the flute, trumpet, horn and trombone. Behind the orchestra were our very own folding chairs. Sitzprobe stood for seated rehearsals, and we would sit on those if we were not singing.
[Clap-clap]
We stood in attention. Steven had trained us well.
"Orchestra is out for a break. Take a seat, everyone; principal singers here at the front. Ensemble, there and there," Steven pointed to microphones.
Layout was in layers. At the very front would be the lead singers. Four microphones were on a stand. There was no sheet music for them or the ensemble, we were expected to perform without scripts. Behind them would be the orchestra in a wide half circle. Behind that layer was another row of microphones; the distance between them was much wider than the one for the lead singers. Ensemble moved in and out and only had lines they had to sing; room was for the movement. At the very back was another long row of folded chairs. I sat next to Bryan while ignoring Maddie's mad eyes. After what happened last Friday, I decided to simply ignore Maddie. There was nothing else I could really do, and the words I threw in her face were way out of line. The only reason I felt no shame was my righteous fury at her.
We were joined by the orchestra; they basically ignored us under Mike Dixon's commands. All took their positions and started their sound checks. Mike Dixon and Michael England were both fussing over the equipment. Instead of us practising our music, we listened to half an hour of sound checks and eq work by Mike Dixon. Would it not be more effective for everyone's time if the orchestra did this beforehand? Or better yet, we just went acoustic, as most of the instruments were. Only the mics would need to be at a proper volume then.
Once Dixon and England had finished their fussing, Leslie walked to one of the four mics for the lead singers.
"One, two," he said, checking. "Everyone good? Ready? Okay," he said, receiving thumbs up from the Music Director, Supervisor and Sound Engineer.
We had an audience, albeit a small one: all of the members of Apollo Theatre Group and some of their children and friends. Parents and guardians of child actors, Leslie's wife and, of course, our illustrious Julie Andrews.
"Hello!" Leslie said; the mic had a feedback loop, seeminly on purpose, to catch our attention, as it never happened again.
"Hello, Apollo, and hello, friends," Leslie said with his soft voice. "Please welcome the original cast of Doctor Dolittle the Musical!"
Our little audience cheered, but they couldn't cheer as loudly as we, the cast, could; all of us were proud and happy to be here.
"Of course, we can't forget our lovely orchestra, who will add soul to the musical." The orchestra did not cheer as loudly as we cheered ourselves; they seemed more professional and quiet compared to us.
"I want to thank the Big Guns of Apollo Theatre Group, and specially Paul Gregg, for making this production possible."
We all cheered happily; that was who was paying us after all.
"Eight years ago, I started the awful and most complicated process of acquiring the stage rights to Doctor Dolittle from Twentieth Century Fox and the estate of the late author Hugh Lofting. As with most of my work that I am excited about, I started to write before the rights were mine. First draft I made, I hated, so I tore it down and rewrote it." Laughter echoed the hall. "Second draft was even worse, so I did it again." Claps. "I had lost my count on rewrites, but I hadn't lost my count on the years. Jim, who gave me the idea to put Dolittle on stage, never lived to see me start the right acquisition. In the five years it took my lawyer, Bruce, to finally get everything signed, I had lost even more friends."
The happy faces around our new and fancier rehearsal studio faltered. Leslie looked so young because he had no wrinkles but he was a couple of years away from hitting seventy.
"But I'm happy to have made more friends than I care to remember in the same time frame. Theatre community is special, and I'm happy to know all of you." Leslie turned to us and bowed.
Everyone clapped as loudly as they had done in their lives.
"I have composed the music and written the lyrics, but I am no longer the one in charge. As what we are doing today is called a Sitzprobe," Leslie pronounced in German, making it sound like zitzprab,
"it's no longer my responsibility. So please welcome our brilliant and bright musical supervisor, Mike Dixon!" Leslie gestured to welcome Mike and hopped away to join the audience.
Mike was all smiles as he took up his space in front of the mic and turned to the audience so that we at the back could no longer see his face.
"Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for having us in your amazing theatre," Mike said, acknowledging the financiers as was their due.
"This is my favourite day in any production. It's the first time the orchestra meets the cast face to face, and we get to play through the music together. This is the very first time we're doing it as one, so you're all in for a treat — especially our performers," he added with a grin, turning back to watch us briefly.
"Let's get Bill up here. Oi Occleshaw! Come up and introduce your orchestra," Mike said, and made a quick exit to take up his conducting spot.
Bill was a ginger guy with the thickest moustache I had seen so far in my life. His French hat made it seem like he was a few centuries behind in style, yet he looked as regal as any man could.
"Thank you, Mike. I'm Bill, Orchestral Manager. Here's my amazing orchestra, the best musicians in London," Bill said, laughing.
I noticed a few V-signs and middle fingers directed at Bill from the orchestra. Clearly, they were being humble.
"On Keyboard 3, we have a man more experienced than most of us in the room. Maestro — Corin Buckeridge!"
Cheers went on and on from there as Bill introduced each and every member of the orchestra. The orchestra was a large group of musicians; it differed from a concert band in that there was a string quartet. We had two violins, a cello, and a viola. The wind ensemble was quite large, but our percussion ensemble was a one-man army of Joff Morgan. His taped section was the largest: full drum set, cymbals and gongs hanging from a wire, and xylophone and woodblocks of various sizes. Revelations were firing dry at the sight, clearly not an orchestral musician. Drums had levels to it, and I was clearly at the lowest rung. Joff on the other hand was at the peak; he was the watchmaker who would count every beat of the musical performance. Time signature that all of us would get our cues from. His stool was different from the others as if acknowledging his importance: thick leather cushion and shinier metal, his space was a building with four walls of instruments. People played one instrument, and Joff was playing thirty different things on three different planes of existence.
Bill had finished his introductions and it was our turn. Ensemble members introduced themselves one by one on the mics.
"Duncan Smith, I'm Mayor of Puddleby, First Cover for General Bellowes, Second Cover Albert Blossom."
"Angela Lloyd for Gertie Blossom and second cover for Emma."
"Jane Housley, Swing and understudy for Chee-Chee the Chimpanzee," Jane said.
I sat there worried until it was my time to introduce myself.
"Holli Hoffman, Chee-Chee."
"John Rawsley playing Albert Blossom."
"Hadrian, I'm Charlie."
Finally it was my turn and my comrades: "Wilfred Price, Tommy Stubbins."
"James Paul Bradley, Tommy Stubbins."
"Darien, Tommy Stubbins." We said in turns.
Only James Bradley and I would sing today at the rehearsals, and Darien joined the audience. His role was to learn the parts, but he was shunned from most things. Similar things were happening even in that introduction. Ensemble members had at least two and up to four different roles they were covering for. Some were also understudies and swings. The way we introduced ourselves let everyone know who was important. If you only played one role, you would only say that role. That meant you were important.
"Peter Gallagher, Straight Arrow," Peter said in his smooth voice.
I hadn't talked about him much, but he was the most talented person in our cast. More than Phillip, more than Bryan. Two-thousand-pound music lessons were something Peter never paid for; he was a natural baritone who could go halfway into tenor and halfway into bass. The darkness and timbre of his voice were so special and unique. This man was the trigger to one of the largest additions of knowledge. He had been in dozens of shows and dozens of films, and those were the only ones that I knew about. Palm Springs was a movie I couldn't help but watch when I was bored. Curse of his amazing voice was that lead roles were almost always tenors. The curse followed him onto screen so Peter didn't get lead roles ever. But he worked nearly 365 days a year and had been in six different musicals for six years running and probably on six different continents. I had a sneaking suspicion that he would steal the show; it was sad that he only had one song as his solo. Perhaps, Leslie would've written another song for him if he knew who was playing the role.
Once everyone had been introduced, Mike took to the mic again.
"There will be some dialogues for cues. Remember them and commit them to memory."
Trumpets and horns started their bright tones to kick us off. The overture played in its dazzling glory, a medley of Doctor Dolittle, Talk to the Animals, and more, played until things slowed down, turning into simple background music. After a wind instrument finished its note, I jumped in. Play started with Tommy Stubbins as did the line in the overture.
"Who's John Dolittle?" I asked.
"John Dolittle is the greatest animal doctor in the world today and a close personal friend of Matthew Muggs…" Bryan asnwered.
"What does he do?" I said, in my stage voice. Louder than the last.
"He's a genius, that's what he does. He talks to animals," Bryan said, his hands on my shoulders while he looked up.
At this point, we had practised and run through the play enough that I couldn't say a line without my body wanting to move as per the choreographed play.
"Talk to them?" I said, my stage voice full of wonder and almost too cartoonish.
"Speaks their language, he does. Just like you and me are chatting now. He'll have a word with the little fella in duck talk. Put him straight in no time. He knows everything to know about animals, science, and the sun, the moon and the stars. He's altogether a marvellous man… and he understands the Irish," Bryan said with a little jig.
We performed our physical cues in place and in front of the mics, like a restless leg syndrome. A bit unnatural for what had become reflexes at this point, but better than not moving our hands or feet. Our muscle memory demanded it after all.
"And any man who understands the Irish can't be reckoned altogether bad."
Sitzprobe started for real. Bryan's voice was amazing.
I ran back to my chair at the rear to listen to Bryan's song, accompanied by all the ensemble singers. Orchestra sounded full and bright, bringing a layer to the song that wasn't present with Dixon's solo piano or recorded instrumental. Two minutes later, they finished the first part of the song while the drummer, Joff, went on fire. He used all kinds of percussion instruments and even a really long tube to make the sound of rain and thunder. Spinning in a full circle as he hit every odd instrument, wood block or drum cymbal in time. It was nothing short of marvellous. For a scant few seconds, the orchestra died down; all went quiet. Before, we had heard this piece on a speaker; now we heard it live. The difference was so apparent: tone was so full.
Best ensemble female singers sang along to a lone violin with high notes, ghost like.
My friend the Doctor says
That every time it starts to rain
And people run indoors again in swarms
If you remain
Out in the rain
You'll think you're drinking pink champagne
And you'll spend your life
Praying for thunderstorms
After the If you remain line, the orchestra instruments joined one by one until they played with full accompaniment. The sadness of the rain in the scene was washed away as people sang crazily in the wet and cold. Mind you, there were no rain or cold but we acted as if there were. Ensemble did a version of the chorus sung only by the women, while Andy, an amazing vocalist, did a marching-song version of the verse Bryan sang earlier. All of it combined with the orchestra to make this complicated, larger-than-life song. We had heard it hundreds of times, sang it hundreds of times, but this one felt special with the live music.
I finally stepped back to the front. My Grandad took off his hat to bowl it in his hand nervously. My only sung part in the song was fast approaching, and Grandad managed to look excited just for that part. Brash he may be, but he had a way of showing his pride in subtle ways.
Bryan finally rejoined his own song when the ensemble stopped singing. His tone bright and happier than he started.
My friend the Doctor says
The world is full of fantasy
And who are you or I to disagree?
My time had finally arrived,
Let's hope and pray
That, that's the way
The life we love will always stay
For my friend! the Doctor!
I sang my lines just as I had practised so many times. Bryan's voice was a lovely tenor; mine was high and bright enough to pierce it and sound distinct from his. Any listener would focus on the high note more in duet lines. Amazing for the singer with tenor or countertenor voice. Terrible if you were the only child; can't be stealing the spotlight from the rest of the cast.
My friend the Doctor AND ME!
Bryan finished his solo, and just like that, our first song was complete. Applause erupted, filling the large rehearsal studio and spilling over the tall walls. I think I even smiled at Maddie in the euphoria that followed. I had sung just four lines in that song, but it was enough to let me feel what being part of live music truly meant.
The cast and orchestra had practised separately, in different parts of London and at different times, but the magic only happened when we came together. An orchestra wasn't an orchestra without its string section, a band wasn't a band without its accompanying instruments, and a song wasn't a song without the singers carrying the melody.
I went to hug my Grandad, then Julie. Returning to the folding chairs, I gave hugs to Bryan, Phillip, Darien, and even James Bradley. Mike Dixon caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. I smiled knowingly — I had never doubted it. We were almost done.
Soon, I'd have to leave the rehearsal studio. Unlike most of the people here, I had an album to record — my very first one in a proper music studio. Recording my first album right before I turned nine, was that a record of some sort?