It's odd, preparing to perform Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister. The biggest thing for me is to make sure I know all of my lines. As I've just performed the show twice at The Tristan Bates Theatre in London, I'm pretty sure I've got the lines. And then it's a question of what comes next. Today, having had a massage, it's time for some shut eye as I'm still tired from the journey, tired from the Christmas break, tired from my life in London.
I remember when I started performing the show and it seemed... unperformable. I think I still have a sense of that impossibility, that this show cannot - should not? - be done. But now I have many, many experiences of performing it behind me and, well, it has been done even if, fundamentally, I still believe it cannot be achieved.
Focus is what comes after the lines, and I start running through ways I can find which help me focus. Sometimes I'm sleepy, sometimes I'm wired, sometimes I'm worrying about a conversation I had earlier and I have to find a way of letting the show come to the forefront for my mind and my body, which is not always easy. I might discover I've had a coffee when I shouldn't have and am all skittery, or I might find I am unaccountably sleepy and need to rouse myself with some caffeine, or that I've got one of those headaches in which I specialise and the only way I'm going to function is to put those painkillers into my system, the ones which basically turn to morphine in my bloodstream, mmmmmmm.
Today I need both to rouse myself and to try to contain my nervousness. What am I nervous about? As we are performing for a festival I have none of the fears which go along with my main role in this production: not as writer or performer, but as producer. In fact, not only is this a festival so I've no need to worry about audience numbers, but we have a great producer who has been working hard to get this whole thing on the road. The festival and Anna are the reason I did an interview way back, oh, at least five days ago, in London for SAfm and why I've been ducking around trying to find quiet places in central London to do press interviews. Anna and Musho! have that all sewn up between them.
But I am worried about how the show will be received and although it's not important.... in the big scheme of things, I am scared of what might be the silence of boredom, or disapproval, when I tell one of our brilliant jokes about my sister's murder - you know, one about bodies being refrigerated or the bit where I swear at the god I've already clearly stated I do not believe in. I'd like to pretend I'm not afraid, and in fact, on the night, I largely do, chatting with the audience pre-show, meeting some of the journalists who've interviewed me over the phone over the weeks, having a laugh with the front of house staff and the Zimbabwean artists we met earlier. The Rebecca Peyton I play in the show is not afraid of things like this, she is cavalier and at ease with her weirdities. But I am not her. I am committing an act of, well, at least foolishness, I think to myself as the Musho! Festival Director introduces the show. It's a pretty full house, there are lots of people with notepads, and before I know where I am I am slipping from beside the stage, where I can see everyone's faces, into the light, where they all vanish. And I pick up my glass, take the whole room in, and I'm off, for better or worse, into our play.
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