Press Preview Night on Tenth Ave Rooftop

Monday 30^th June

So, after giving up on the APA Studios last Wednesday night, intensive rehearsals ensue for the remainder of the week courtesy of Loie, at her house, a few blocks away from me on The Boulevard. This proves more convenient for all of us to reach by car than driving out to the studios.

Loie has lived here since 1978 when she came from Chicago and was deciding between San Diego or San Francisco. It is painted a mauve hue throughout inside with some artwork, most noticeably an Art Deco style mural on her kitchen wall.

“I commissioned it from an ex- lover of mine, an artist whom I was seeing at the time… before I showed them the door!” she adds dryly with a wistful smirk. Her kitchen is not a room she spends any time in, except to make drinks, preferring the messy and time-consuming business of cooking to be catered for by arranging dinner dates at the many restaurants and eateries of San Diego. Loie and I have already shared a couple of meals out together socially after shopping expeditions in search for costume and jewellery for her stage character of Dr. Edith SItwell in my play.

Bryant, Ryan and I set up on one side of her circular dining table, which seems to take up most of the living room, laptops in front of us, looking, I imagine, like an all male CNN TV news desk team waiting to go on air. I jest “Good evening and thank you for joining us. We’re now able to go over live via satellite to our roving reporter on location to bring you this special report. Ryan, are you there? Can you tell us exactly what is happening in rehearsals, on the ground right now”?

The remaining part of the room with her couch directly in front of us is used as the set. The only thing it doesn’t leave room for is any movement work around it for Cukor, which, as we shall see, was to have fatal consequences for scene 3 of the production.

Ryan’s daily call emails with scene breakdowns seem to come thick and fast. We tackle the third scene on the Thursday evening. I leave it rather late to message Randy if he wouldn’t mind giving me a lift to Loie’s. Unfortunately he has already arrived and kindly comes back for me. I happen to mention that Bryant and I have spotted a great pair of pin striped trousers with turn ups for him in a thrift shop but they are just too small and I wonder, could he perhaps be persuaded to wear them for the duration of an hours show with the top button unfastened? Size 38. “Oh no, they’ll fit me” he said. “I am a size 38”.

“But your resume said 42” I say. Having carefully written down all his measurements from the list he gave me.

“Oh, its wrong”. The next day Bryant and I go back and buy the trousers triumphantly and he finds a perfect 50’s style tie to match, a belt and “suspenders” (braces). Randy already has a white short sleeve shirt and so Cukor’s costume finally falls into place.

During rehearsals I make notes in my journal both for the actors and on lines that may need tweaking or editing. I make notes on pronunciation for Sitwell who is Americanising “bawdy romp”, “book”, “Laughing stock”.

I hear Randy tripping over lines and realise its my fault “ruthless, scheming Queen of England” and cut “scheming” to make it flow better, which it does immediately.

I notice a stage direction that was suggested to me in our rehearsed reading in London of Edith having her legs up on the chaise at the top of Scene 3, while waiting for Marilyn as simply wrong for Sitwell. It just doesn’t look right. Not the kind of thing a woman of her breeding or disability would do in public, so I scrap it.

With Loie and Randy still struggling to remember their lines after having the script a month and Rhianna still on book, we limp along slowly and painfully like an injured pride of wildebeest roaming over vast tracts of empty desert. There is a distinct lack of pace and each night it stubbornly refuses to take flight the way I envisage it. It requires a deft, lightness of touch and I feel part of the problem is perhaps Loie struggling with the enormity of the task of Sitwell’s English accent and the sheer verbal dexterity of the text, which is unusually rich for stage dialogue! I am also made aware that her lines are too long. She often has quotes of three sentences to say rather than a single line. And whilst it is a rich and idiosyncratic texture for a poet, it is also fatal to the rhythm of a play.

Since the play is currently running around an hour and twenty minutes there are clearly going to have to be some judicial cuts made to the script. It’s an intensive learning curve. It’s making me rethink speeches and every word is now having to earn its keep. I’ll do anything to trim time and speed flow of rhythm in the script.

On Friday Bryant collects me around noon. I have spent the best part of the previous afternoon and this morning researching cone or bullet bras on the internet. I check out and show him three websites selling new ones but they seem expensive and could take a few days to arrive, which we don’t have. We return to the vintage clothes store with the black and white German expressionist chap to find him superseded by his partner, a busty platinum blonde in her sixties, owner and Queen bee. She must have caught my English accent on my entrance judging from the disdainful look she shoots me, whilst clearly engaged conversing with her previous customer. I mention we had messaged before about the Marilyn Monroe dress and she assumes the haughty air of a jilted lover. As proud as a parakeet on her perch, pecking at this and that around the gilded cage of her emporium. She eyes us suspiciously when we dare enquire about bullet bras. She pulls out a drawer of laundered and pressed white vintage underwear, brings it to the counter to look through. This is highly specialist. She has made underwear the subject of her exhaustive study.

“What sort of size are you after”? She asks. I tell her. “Well, they didn’t have double D’s in those days” she corrects me, “but I can work out which ones will fit. You’re not going to get an exact size. The whole measuring system has changed since then. You mustn’t expect her to be comfortable in it. It’s going to feel strange! We’re simply not used to wearing bullet bras these days”!

I’m beginning to wish we had just ordered the one on-line with exact bra size to fit. We buy a 1960’s one for $50 after haggling the price down from $55 but she’s really not happy since they are rare to find. I suddenly have the foresight to ask if it shouldn’t fit would it be possible to return it?

“As long as it’s returned by tomorrow morning,” she concedes.

We humour her and she finally defrosts enough to show us the pride of her collection. A rare padded push up bra from late 19^th century Paris. The earliest one she has ever known, a real museum piece and one she wouldn’t sell if she were offered three thousand dollars!

Bryant is delighted to have finally sorted the bra situation but I wonder how effective it will look?

That day too we finally find a suitable size period looking black handbag in the last thrift store we try for Sitwell, big enough to hold a book of her poetry. Everything was falling into place like a dream!

That night we get Rhianna to try on the bullet bra in case we need to return it tomorrow and she says it feels very strange. I see what she means as her breasts are squeezed into narrow pointy cotton cones that seem the wrong size, making them look smaller if anything and most uncomfortable! I decide we must return it! Bryant shudders at the thought of having to go back again to try to get a refund from our friendly, vintage platinum parakeet.

Bryant and I head out for a well-earned post rehearsal drink around 11pm at the trendy bar, ‘Polite Provisions’ to take stock of the situation. Over a beer or two we get down to details editing the play and ensuring he has all the cuts we have implemented so he can email them to the actors that evening. I meet a charming group of blonde Californian girls at the adjacent table on a girl’s night out who berate us for working so late on a Friday night. I explain that we have just come from rehearsals and this is urgent script editing work. I talk to the nearest one next to me, a tall dark-eyed beauty who tells me she is an artist and that her last relationship was with an Englishman, long distance but she is now single. She takes an interest in the play and I give them all fliers, hoping they can make it and to see them again. Sadly this proves not to be the case.

On Saturday we rehearse 12- 5pm. Randy gives me a lift since he is perhaps nearest to me out of everyone. He seems more rested after looking pretty shattered last night after the week’s rehearsals. He is working full-time, up early each morning around six and into the office and rehearsing this play evenings and I learn that he is also busy working on another fringe play at the same time to be performed at the same theatre, thankfully not on the same days. In fact it is miraculous how the other performance dates don’t clash with mine in any way. It turns out it is another 1950’s Hollywood play, Ray’s Last Case by Tim West, about Raymond Chandler and his last great work, The Long Goodbye, apparently written while he lived in San Diego, in a house overlooking the ocean at La Jolla.

He is playing Christopher Marlowe, Chandler’s fictional detective, a shadowy Humphrey Bogart figure. The only problem is his tech rehearsal is on Monday night when we are due to give our Press Preview on the Tenth Avenue Arts Center Rooftop.

This is a blow since I feel the best section to show off the play is that in scene 3 where Cukor makes a fool of himself pretending to be a film star running round the couch as Sitwell and Monroe seek revenge in making fun of him. Doubly disappointing since this is the very scene that was to remain stubbornly flat in the final production and somehow missed being tackled properly and so never achieved its full potential or made sense for that matter. Instead we chose an extract from scene 2 between the two women, where Monroe effectively unmasks Sitwell by stealing her hat from her and demanding her trademark rings to try on.

I miss Sunday’s rehearsal to go to Ocean Beach and as they are still taking over the sixty minutes time slot to get through the play, Bryant is forced to make further cuts to the script. Monday morning I am sent the edited version of the script for my approval.

It is not easy selecting any part to lose and the edits they have made are on the whole excellent, which I accept graciously, though I am a little wounded that we have to sacrifice some nice comedic moments.

The Press Preview is taking place on Monday evening on the rooftop of Tenth Avenue Theatre where my play is to be staged in the main stage during the run of the Festival. It starts at 6.30pm and we are told to be there by 5.30pm in order to get ready. Each company has a strict two-minute time slot in which to perform an extract from their upcoming shows to give a flavour and whet the appetite of the critics and the other performers.

Two minutes sounded Draconian at first and almost impossible to convey the complexities and sweep of one’s piece within such a tight parameter. Whereas for some of the acts, like dance and clowning, it is perfect. But in fact it was the ideal length to indicate whether one wanted to expose oneself to any further torment of the potential full show or not.

Bryant had sent me an image of a rather cheap looking blonde wig for Monroe the other day and I replied as much asking if there was much of a choice as I would be happy to advise. But with time running out, he is sourcing a wig in Chula Vista this morning then meeting Loie at 1.30pm to run lines with her and he suggests I ask her if she wouldn’t mind giving me a lift downtown with her for the Preview around 5pm, which is clearly a mistake. Loie is surprisingly flustered and nervous, when she arrives around 5.15pm dressed in full black costume and make-up and tells me she doesn’t like leaving late as it just has a knock on effect. This translates into her driving and I’m glad when we safely reach our destination and can be free of her palpable agitation.

She is concerned about finding somewhere to park when we get there. She needn’t have worried. We get a place opposite just before the theatre and park up.

As we climb the stairs to the fourth floor we enter a large room, with every available space taken with other performers and their props, all busy getting changed and made up into their costumes for the roof top preview. I see the Haste Theatre girls in different costumes and many others I’ve yet to meet. For the first time I am made aware we are part of a much larger festival and the atmosphere is bustling and exciting.

Luckily Bryant had the foresight to rent an office space at the theatre to store our couch and costumes in and I feel a great sense of privilege to step over the groundlings on the floor, open the office door and disappear, closing it behind us on the din.

Bryant arrives with Monroe’s costume freshly laundered and pressed and with the biggest crinoline so that when worn, her dress now resembles something found on the top of an iced wedding cake. In his other hand he proudly carries his morning’s trophy, the platinum Monroe wig held aloft by the neck of its model head like an Olympic torch. Strangely un-giving in its construction, rather than flames, it resembles more of a giant whipped vanilla ice cream cone. It is so immense it almost feels like it ought to have separate billing.

When I climb to the top of the stairs up five floors the door opens out onto a large rooftop. There are chairs put out in rows and it is clear it is not going to be easy to make one’s voice heard over the open air without microphones.

I see the attractive blonde, who I first spotted on-line when I was looking for actresses to play Marilyn Monroe, but was told that she would be too busy working at the fringe festival. We didn’t get off to the best start. I asked what time we were down to perform only to be told our company was not down on her long list of artists that night.

“What do you mean, we are not down”? I asked pointedly.

“You’re not down on the list”.

“Well, why not? We filled out the on-line form that was sent round”

I was incensed, having spent the best part of a day on the Internet last week meticulously filling out preview and admin listings for my play, posting on every site.

“Oh yes, we’ve talked before haven’t we”? She said.

“No. I’ve not heard a thing from you,” I say.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ve emailed each other.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we haven’t” I say.

I go and get my laptop out of my bag to prove it.

Another example of my lines come back to haunt me, when Cukor says in scene 3,

“I’m a very patient man, believe me, but you just crossed the line”.

I show her my email list. “Nothing whatsoever from you. Look,” I say. “What’s your email? I type in her name, nothing comes up.

I am in no mood to have any last-minute bureaucracy fuck ups over this one. I have an anxious seventy-six year old actress who has spent the last two weeks learning lines, rehearsing most evenings and driving me around searching for costume and props in her spare time, who has climbed five flights of stairs and is waiting patiently to perform. An actress who has bravely and graciously stepped in to the role of Marilyn at the last moment with less than a week to learn it and no Randy, since he is busy having his technical run with the other play he is performing in during the Festival. I have a stoic director who is giving up his time, driving in from Chula Vista every day and running round to hunt for costumes and props, taking all obstacles in his stride, who has hired a professional Stage Manager, Ryan, to oversee the smooth running of the show. I have flown over specially from the other side of the world in order to have my play receive its world première at the festival and here I am now faced with some stony faced, officious admin assistant telling me I’m not on the list! There is nothing she can do. Sorry.

I stare confounded at the sheer immovability of the woman and rather than waste my breath, go straight to seek out someone with more authority and a brain in charge, in order to solve the problem. I learn it should be quite possible to go on first or conversely last. I return and put this to her but she doesn’t think it possible to go first because she doubts they’ll be ready to start before the allotted time, despite slots being only two minutes long, meaning we would start just two minutes earlier! So she makes us wait right until the end of everyone else’s extracts some two and a half hours later.

It is down to me to convey this news to the actors and rest of the company and they take it in far better spirit than I received it. They sensibly see it as an opportunity to run lines in the office until nearer their slot. I am relieved but annoyed to have to make both my actors wait around unnecessarily for over three hours for a two-minute performance. Thank goodness we had the office where they could sit comfortably and relax. I suppose I feel responsible for the entire company and want them to have the best experience alongside me. I didn’t want to let anyone down.

Bryant, Ryan and I return to the roof to witness all the acts to get an overview of the competition and diversity of the fringe programme. It’s a lovely evening and there are some striking acts, noticeably the contemporary dance pieces, which work well in that large, open space because there are a lot of them.

The Haste Theatre girls, being firm favourites, are asked to MC and regulate any acts that dare drift over their two-minute time slot by dragging them off.

One of the first things I see is Victor Charlie a very strong dance troop with a theatre piece about a soldier separated from his wife in the Vietnam War. Six male dancers slow march on bearing a body on their shoulders wrapped in an American flag. This they then unfold and tighten as the dancer unfurls out of it to dance.

Another dance troupe all female tap dancers make a large loop around the space and put wooden crates down to tap dance on. I spot a small-wizened old man with wild white hair like Einstein pass in front of me who is Ray Jessle, a veteran Broadway songwriter who has recently caused an unlikely TV sensation with his comic songs on America’s Got Talent.

The Tin Shed Theatre from Wales are striking in costumes and voice with their show, Dr Frankenstein’s Travelling Freak Show, a wonderful dark Victorian style Music Hall take on the story with Justin, the mad white-faced despot, a cross between The Joker and something from the League of Gentlemen, asked to MC the second half of the evening.

There is a female Michael Jackson impersonator, in a gold jacket, who does an impressive dance to Thriller soundtrack to promote her one-woman show. A couple of acrobatic clowning acts, Beau and Aero, a charming swashbuckling airman and airwoman from the infancy of aviation with leather flying helmets with flaps and cream scarves who do wonderful physical gymnastics and Gene and Audrey, a strong thighed couple of gals who get lodged in folding chairs and balance on each other. I do remember thinking, I’m not quite sure where mine fits in to all this. There doesn’t appear to be too many plays!

When the other acts start asking me when we are going to be on, I tell them last, adding with a smirk, “We’re headlining”!

It occurs to me to ensure that she has in fact added us not just to her list but the actual running list. I ask to see one of the other assistants typed sheets. There in pencil, in handwritten swirls right at the end of the three-page list she has added the title of our show as ‘The Peacock and the Nightmare’.

By the time it is our turn after 8.30pm, the critics have thinned out and most of the audience of other performers, having done their previews, have long gone and darkness has descended.

As Loie and Rhianna come on to perform under the lights, they look wonderful in their costumes. They take their place and although it is difficult to cast their voices in the breezy summer air, they can be heard towards the front. It is over as soon as it’s begun, all that waiting for those two tantalising minutes.

I had given Ryan and Bryant a clutch of fliers to ensure we distribute them to everyone left on the roof. I shoot round as many Press and critics as I can. We can only hope that it has given a sufficient glimpse of the show to come.

Photo by Sue Brenner

Finest City Improv, El Cajon Boulevard and the Lafayette Hotel

Sunday 29th June

Dino is from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay and has only been in San Diego for a year and a half but has already ingratiated himself into the social and performing arts community in the city. He kindly offers me a lift back from Ocean Beach to North Park. As I step into his car, he removes the set of boulle from the seat and what looks to me like a tall hand drum, but is in fact a novelty water flask for his tea, which he calls tereré. The tea, yerba mate is a traditional Paraguay drink made of green herbs that he drinks from an ornamental animal horn cup called a guampa that he keeps in front of the gear stick.

As Technical Director and a teacher at Finest City Improv, Dino has to get back in time for the improv show at 8.30pm. Afterwards they are all going out for Birthday drinks to Arcade Bar Coin-Op which he tells me is free play on the last Sunday of each month.  He invites me to come along and see what its all about. As part of my saying yes to everything, I calculate this is the only last Sunday of the month I shall be here, and how silly I would be to pass on such a perfect opportunity, so accept his invitation.

He shows me into the office where I meet two of his associates, Chris and Kat. Chris is a quiet, unassuming, bearded chap who tells me he deals with the IT side of the business, but who actually turns out to be Assistant Artistic Director and a long time improv performer himself. I later discover he has a very interesting blog where he expostulates on the rules and practise of improv through his vast experience. http://www.00george.blogspot.com

He’s celebrating his 30^th Birthday that evening and asks if I’ll be joining them for a beer later?

Kat is sat typing in front of a large computer screen and is one of those big personalities, with, I sense, a quieter soul underneath. An attractive girl in her twenties and unmistakably Irish to look at, with pale freckled skin, large green eyes, wide smile and long black hair framing her face. I assume she is the office administrator but turns out to be Community Manager of the Training Programme and again an improv performer in her own right.

She amazes me later, caught up in conversation with us, suddenly sensing she has missed her cue, she flies from her swivel desk chair and charges behind a curtain to suddenly appear on stage as MC announcing unflustered with great projection “Whaa- hey! Ladies and gentlemen would you please put your hands together for the improvisation class the ………. “

A round of applause. She then reappears as if nothing had happened, sits back on her swivel chair and resumes typing!

I am taken through to the front of the new theatre that Dino tells me he helped to design and build in reclaimed wooden packing crates. I buy Dino and myself a beer at the little bar in the reception before the show starts and he gives me a quick guided tour of the Lafayette Hotel that the theatre has been built onto. It’s a surprising place with considerable connections to Hollywood. I am captivated by the framed magazine articles giving the history of the place on the walls and don’t quite have the time to read them all, much as I would like to.

Built in 1946 in the grand colonial style as Imig Manor by former Chevrolet dealer, entrepreneur and property developer, Larry Imig.

It was an expensive gamble due to cost $250, 000 that actually rose to $3 million as his ambitions and plans grew, built in North Park on the El Cajon Boulevard, the last leg of the old Highway 80, the trans continental roadway running from Savannah, Georgia on the East coast to San Diego on the West.

Originally the site occupied 2.5 acres and boasted 24 shops, 4 restaurants, a nightclub, an Olympic swimming pool and 250 guest rooms, suites, and apartments.

Advertised as “Southern Style on the Miracle Mile”. It attracted some of the top Hollywood stars of the day with its salubrious accommodation and setting, becoming a popular vacation resort and hideaway to stars like Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Ava Gardner. Bob Hope was the first person to sign the guest register.

However it failed to recoup its costs or make a profit and by 1949 hotelier, Conrad Hilton purchased the hotel paying off Imig’s outstanding debts. It continued to flourish in the 50’s but suffered a sharp decrease in occupancy by the 60’s when a new freeway, Interstate 8 was completed, redirecting traffic away from The Boulevard and the novelty soon faded.

Today the Lafayette Hotel, Swim Club and Bungalows is redesigned as a Californian boutique hotel, with a more relaxed contemporary feel but one that still conjures the same glamour as in the glory days of its historical past. http://www.lafayettehotelsd.com

A large neon gateway sign, “the BOULEVARD” was erected on a streamlined ‘T’ bar across the dual carriageway of El Cajon Boulevard in 1989 to celebrate the glory years of neon signage once to be found on businesses along this route from it’s heyday 1940’s to 1960’s.

It almost looks like it could have been a giant name badge from a 50’s Chevy and has acted as a rallying call for the revitalisation of the area’s local businesses ever since. This is exemplified in the work of El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association which has done much to develop and promote the image of the area and where much of this information can be found on their fascinating website. http://www.theboulevard.org/index.html

We go through a warren of corridors past rooms to the basement where there is a huge ballroom behind locked doors where Dino talks about the famous large clam shell that forms part of the original band stand for the big band dances of the 1940’s and there are black and white pictures of bands playing in front of it.

The ‘Mississippi Room’ as it was named, after a nearby street, was a big draw and continued to be popular after the hotel waned. It reinvented itself entirely as a DJ underground club the ‘ID Club’ in the 1980’s, when queues regularly formed round the block on a Monday night to dance to international new wave and house music records and many rare imports from Britain. Dino tells me it was here where a scene from the movie, Top Gun was filmed, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” around the famous circular bar.

It crosses my mind how wonderful it would be to open up this original basement ballroom and use it for the improv comedy nights but I suspect it’s too large and unwelcoming for intimate gigs.

I have an unfailing nostalgia for places that no longer exist to entertain the masses like old cinemas and theatres that never quite lose the magic of their original purpose. One of the most fascinating of these was the old State Theatre which was a futuristic designed cinema built on the Boulevard in 1940 with a distinctive neon pylon like ariel and curved pod box office, which would have been the jewel in the crown of San Diego’s historic theatres had it not been wantonly demolished as late as 1987! More pictures and background can be found on the website above.

I also learn the pioneering lady who used to manage this cinema also ran the Adams Theatre on Adams Avenue which has a similar Art Deco frontage with terazzo patterned sidewalk and curved box office entrance but is now home to a fabric store where I bought some voile during my first week for Sitwell’s medieval style hat!

Upstairs we go through a wonderful open palm court style dining room with a piano through the French windows on to the terrace.

It is just falling dusk as I take a photograph of the beautiful swimming pool and surrounding bungalows. It turns out this Olympic pool was designed by former Tarzan and five-time gold medal winner, Johnny Weissmuller. In the 1940’s San Diego native, Florence Chadwick trained here for her then record breaking swim across the English Channel.

We head back into the Improv Theatre for the start of the Sunday show. The room is set out cabaret style with tall circular tables and bar stools towards the back and lower tables and chairs towards the front. A glass framed door to enter. There are a few punters dotted around and we take our place towards the back of the room perched at one of the high tables.

Kat comes on to rouse the crowd and welcome to the stage a large mixed age group of fairly new improv students presenting their show, ‘About Science’. Their subjects are sourced from science journals, asking the audience to pick from a list of titles from which to improvise around. They gather for a chat, then perform a fairly rapid succession of sketches around the theme. It is quite addictive watching how the group manage to engage with one another, swap roles and hop so swiftly between mini scenarios. One girl in particular I notice is a little trigger happy and jumps in prematurely to most sketches that don’t yet feature her or ends them. This is a shame since the real art of improv, it seems to me, is judging that perfect moment when to cut short and when to leave well alone in order to allow something organic the opportunity to develop in front of you as it shifts and builds into an arc of a living drama.

It was fascinating to observe live improv like this having just run a special workshop on Improv at the Jack Studio Theatre earlier in the summer for part of our Write Now 5 new writing festival in London. I had found myself with the same difficult predicament of “playing God” and the difference it made to not rush the improvisers but allow space and time around the interactions to “frame” the drama. I had asked the participants to think up interesting questions to ask of the other characters so they were not reliant on building a scene from scratch as such but allowed a narrative to be drawn out or emerge from answers and subsequent questioning.

I decided to split the group into performers and observers. This proved invaluable in allowing those watching the chance to observe and interpret how the participants interacted not only through words but body posture, tone, volume, speed, and status on stage.

Then later, a given situation into which participants were slowly allowed to enter the scene in staggered times to allow relationships to establish before introducing more characters. A similar template was being played out in front of me here.

I suddenly had thoughts of how interesting it would be if I lived in San Diego to be a part of Finest City Improv and run some character improv workshops in tackling a simple scene and the myriad ways it could be reinterpreted by the variant choices made.

Of course, it’s a different situation and pressure in front of a live audience as they are essentially looking for light entertainment and expecting laughs, therefore that is what participants naturally tend to cater for. But if you can try and tell a story underneath the laughter, then drama is born.

This was achieved so brilliantly by the next double act. It was such a joy watching the chemistry between two consummate, polished performers, Matt Harris and Tommy Galan, who are obviously experienced in working closely together. Dino informs me one of them is a lawyer and both are relative newcomers to San Diego. Tommy is from Brooklyn and Matt from North Carolina and in fact they have only been performing together for about a year in their group, ‘Bicoastal’.

They were wonderfully intuitive with one another and committed to strong physical performances and rather than going straight for the obvious would constantly surprise the audience with a considered anarchic approach, even linking sketches by referencing characters and situations established earlier on with a though line arc of drama.

This to me was improv at its best with two thinking performers on their feet responding intelligently to one another in rapid characterisations and scenes growing out of their own drama, both completely in control of their technique but flexible enough to circumnavigate it to arrive at fearless and daring comedy theatre.

Finest City Improv was the brain child of Amy Lisewski in 2011, born out of years of study with The Second City and iO West in Los Angeles. During her regular commute from San Diego to Los Angeles for classes, it suddenly dawned on her instead of driving to another city why not start an improv studio in her own city open to everyone to learn the art of improv?

Working with influential performers and coaches, she began teaching all levels improv classes out of four different spaces in and around San Diego before the new theatre space was officially opened in December 2013.

They now have a current roster of over 80 students, 34 ensemble members, eight house teams, and countless guest teams and visiting artists. Shows are from Thursday to Sunday evenings and are well worth catching for an alternative comedy night out in this backdrop of San Diego history, where individuals and generations have left their mark as a glamorous playground location for public entertainment. http://www.finestcityimprov.com

After the show I accompany Dino, Chris and Kat to the Coin Slot Arcade in North Park which is a bar with an amusement arcade and computer games. Not a fan of computer games per sey, nevertheless as part of my saying yes to everything, I go along and actually really enjoy having a go on some of the games.

Kat sits at the bar and I offer to keep her company and have a drink while she eats and the others start gaming. I didn’t envy her choice from the menu of the least of American evils. But the redeeming feature is the wonderful selection of craft beers chalked up on the board. I ask a little background information on each before making my selection. I told Kat how I always go for the strangest sounding ones as a general rule of thumb and start with a dark red ale followed by an ‘Old Witches Brew’ which promises dark chocolate, coffee and smoke. I am not disappointed!

Kat tells me she’s only been at ‘City Improv’ a year and a bit but she loves it. It’s really changed her life round. She’s made so many new friends and its just a great place to hang out and has given her a ready social life.

She asks me about my plans after the Fringe is over and I mention the idea of going on to see San Francisco or the Santa Cruz Fringe Festival, though people tell me not to waste my time because there’s nothing there!

“Oh”, she says, “Well, I may be biased because I studied there, but it is a really pretty place with some nice old buildings and very picturesque”.

She is the first person to speak in praise of Santa Cruz, and makes me think perhaps I ought to see it!

I do love how drinking in America is not regulated by the stupid outdated drinking laws of Britain where you are shoved out onto the cold streets after 11pm with the post pub pall without so much as a “Thank you kindly, Sir” before they shut up shop in your face and lock the doors for another night!

Many regulars from the Improv place call in to wish Chris a Happy Birthday throughout the night and I see what a vital, warm community of performing artists it is and wish I were local enough to be a part of it on a regular basis.

Dino has been busy conquering an electronic hunting game where you have to shoot bison and wildlife in the Grand Canyon at the screen with dummy rifles but are out of the game soon as you shoot anything female! He encourages me to have a go, which is fun but laughable how quickly I am out after Dino’s long run. Then I have a go at a car race one but I’m really drawn to the old fashioned all American pinball machines where you flick levers as ball bearings are flung around flashing lights and bounce. Engrossed in my own distraction on the outskirts, slightly apart from the rest of the crowd, gathered round the central table, now the worse for wear.

It somehow chimes with the nostalgic feel of a daytrip back to the Fifties. With a juke box beat and the journey to Ocean Beach, serenaded by the Haste Girls in old fashioned bathing costumes singing “Lollipop” to the romance of the 40’s Hollywood set at the Lafayette Hotel and the good humour and energy of the Finest City Improv. To new friends made and the flashing coloured lights and sound effects, bleeping of machines and rolling balls of steel as they are repeatedly fired around an obstacle course of wire and pins before always returning back to glide through the arms of the two goal levers like gatekeepers to life itself.

It’s like I’m playing the game of my own life, mapped out before me. I can watch myself faring as a solo player, flicking those levers, keeping the ball animated and alive, jostled and bounced between smooth chrome nipples and wire tracked holes, for as long as possible before that bias slope inevitability calls time, sending your own ball drunkenly back towards you, swifter than you could plan to stop, as you watch it roll and drop through the gaping hole left undefended into the bowels of the unknown void in front of you as it disappears out of sight for the last time.

It is too late for buses and Dino walks out with me to ensure I can find the way back. I start to walk home following 30^th Avenue from North Park which I know intersects with Adams Ave by the ‘Polite Provisions’ bar near to my home. Of course, I naturally select the wrong way with my intuitive sense of no direction and after checking to ask people, turn and head back in the opposite direction! I pass unfamiliar shops and bars and follow the straight road home. I suddenly spot a black woman in her fifties, sat on the opposite side of the road, with what appears to be an entire stock of a charity shop or wardrobe set out on the sidewalk. It’s a surreal sight, nonchalantly surrounded by all her worldly goods, set out like a jumble stall. I continue on my path, before starting to berate myself for not taking the opportunity to go and speak with her and find out what her story is and what she is doing there.

I walk back and cross over the road but she is now oblivious to the world. Busy vigorously brushing out her long blonde wig with definite repeat strokes, like a proud mermaid, perched upon a rock in the perfect privacy of her nocturnal, moonlit idyll. It seems impolite to interrupt. It is as though I am being led by my subconscious through a dream I am only meant to observe. To break the spell by speaking would surely be wrong, yet the scene curiously captivates me. Is this her temporary abode or is this an outdoor clothes market?

“Is this a shop”? I ask.

“What”?

“Is this for sale”? I ask.

“What’s it to ya”? She challenges.

“I’m intrigued” I reply.

“Where’s that accent from?” she enquires.

“Can’t you guess”? I tease.

“I don’t know… somewhere foreign… China” she tries.

“No, try again”, I say, a little wounded.

“Britain?” She asks?

“Correct” I say.

“I knew it had to be one of those. Not from here, anyway”!

“What are you doing here”? I ask.

“I live here” she stated as if it were the stupidest question in the world.

“I mean, is this all yours?”

“Aha”.

“Is it for sale”?

“No, it’s mine”

“What do you do”?

“I’m a jewellery designer”!

“Really, what type of jewellery”? I ask in disbelief.

“African beads mostly. I used to sell them in Vegas. Las Vegas”.

I guess the Las Vegas jewellery trade is not what it once was.

I think if I remember she was wearing many layers of colourful beads around her neck and rings on all her fingers as a kind of model advertisement for her trade. It was as if she couldn’t have loaded any more decoration upon her. Vain and proud she sat like a cat, preening herself, content in her company in contempt of the outside world. And I suppose in her splendid isolation she was only as proud of her own individual appearance as was Sitwell or Monroe in their time and worlds. Indeed, it was perhaps all that she had left.

I realise now I must have been an unwanted threat. I should have sat down with her as her equal and talked openly rather than loitering guarded and apprehensive in front of her as though she were some exotic exhibit on display. In my naivety I saw a story and wanted to know all about why she was setting out her stall in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the night. It was as though she were a sooth sayer, one of those fictional characters that wouldn’t be there when you returned to find her. And I was left with a feeling that she might have held the key to some secret strange journey into another magical realist dimension that would open up through stepping over the threshold and passing through her coat rails or by trying on one of her garments.

However, it had been a long day of adventures and whatever world I missed by not pursuing this particular act, was tempered by my desire to enter another dimension by the more conventional means of sleep. I bade her goodnight and left her to her hairbrush, jewellery and clothes.

I was lucky enough to be able to leave the public domain and walk away to find the private sanctuary of my own room in my temporary home of my host American family.

Ocean Beach and the Haste Theatre Girls

Sunday 29th June

I finally manage to break free from the demands of the rehearsal room on Sunday when I decide I want to see Oyster Boy by Haste Theatre Company playing out in Ocean Beach on the north west coast of San Diego.

Sophie, I had contacted via email and then Skyped earlier in spring to find out about performing at the San Diego Fringe Festival, which she had done last year with her company to great acclaim. We had messaged each other and tried to meet during rehearsals as they were also at APA Studios but our times hadn’t coincided.

I set out at 10.30am and just miss a bus as it turns the corner as I emerge onto the main street and in my usual London mode, start to run for it. But being America, it is on the other side of the road and of course it departs before I can board. When I read the timetable I am appalled to discover the next one isn’t for a half hour. I decide to go and get a smoothie or fruit juice at Senor Mango’s to relax and calm down. Today is a special ‘Taste of Adams Avenue’ food fair and I am tempted to just stay in the area and treat myself to a wonderful culinary extravaganza! A beautiful blonde American girl in hot pants with the slimmest possible toned figure arrives with her floppy haired boyfriend. I ask if they are taking part in the ‘Taste of Adams Avenue’ and she says no but she wishes they were. I tell her I am here for the Fringe Festival and mention my show and ask if they are fans of Marilyn Monroe? “She is,” he says. “She’s got posters of her all over her bedroom!” I hand them a flier and hope I have at least two audience members interested in seeing my show.

We sit and watch as a guy starts to drive off having left his smoothie on the roof of his car until someone spoils the fun by alerting him through his open window.

At 11am I walk back over to catch the 11.05 bus and wait for at least ten minutes then as I board and ask for Broadway I’m told he is heading the other way, I’m on the wrong side of the road! I cross over to the other bus stop to find I’ve missed that bus as it left around 10.50am and the next one is not for another half hour. I suddenly lose the will to live and seriously contemplate staying put and doing the food fest. I walk to a different number bus stop and find there is a twenty-minute wait for the bus.

I am cursing and pacing when a large, jovial road sweeper in florescent orange waistcoat and trousers with a baseball cap starts sweeping up around me. “Service not too good on a Sunday, ha?”

“No shit” I replied.

“Yes, kind of feels like the Twilight Zone, doesn’t it?”

I tell him I missed a bus by thirty seconds then wait half an hour for the next one only to find its going in the wrong direction and then come here to find I missed the bus by fifteen minutes. He says “Look over there” I look, “Wave, you’re on Candid Camera” he laughs. “Are you in a hurry”? He asks.

“I was” I tell him, “But now I’m kind of loosing the will to live!”

“ Why don’t you just stay here”? he asks. “There’s the Taste of Adams Avenue food fair on today”

“I’m seriously considering it” I tell him.

The call of all those restaurants and taking the little trolley bus between them and the people I might meet here sounds very tempting. Yet I did tell Sophie from Haste Theatre that I would make their last show today at Ocean Beach Playhouse at 2pm.

“It could be worse” he says, “It could be raining. You’ve got a beautiful day to gather your thoughts.”

All my thoughts are on how my morning is fast disappearing!

“Well, have a good day“ he says, cheerfully.

“Yes, you too” I reply. He finishes sweeping up the litter and deposits his shovel and broom upside down on the back of his funny little refuse van and with a wave climbs in and pulls away.

Here’s a guy who clearly loves his job and has the right attitude to life. I do regret now not asking if I could take his photograph. He was a kindly character and cheered my spirits, turning round my frame of mind, for that I shall be most grateful.

Eventually a bus turns up and I head into town getting off outside Spreckels Theatre and pop in to see Todd who is busy working away fixing sixty five year old Art Deco style seats found in the basement onto raised platforms to make tears for the audience in the new Raw Space. “Get my haversack from the office” he tells me. I’ve come down without much idea where to get the 35 bus from. He takes out his laptop and googles bus travel for me.

“You’re going to have to get the trolley to Old Town in order to catch the 35 bus from there to get over to Ocean Beach. You’ll have to hurry! It could take you an hour and a half! There’s one leaving at 1pm. Go, now”, he shouts. Thank goodness I did. I take directions to find the trolley then get lost and ask someone. At the other end of Broadway is a station but it’s quite a wait and the trolley of course is late. Time is ticking and suddenly I feel like Harold Lloyd, caught up in a crazy race against the clock to get across town in one of his old black and white movies.

The first tram to arrive is not the one I want but I get it anyway since it goes to a station over the road from the Santa Fe Depot. I dash across to this wonderful old colonial style, imposing train station. It is built to last; an Arts and Craft cathedral of travel. It has oak arched doors and windows, parquetry floor, Edwardian Moorish style tiling and a vast double height vaulted arched ceiling, suspended with double rows of circular bronze ceiling lights on chains. It’s like something out of India and another era altogether.

It originally opened in 1915 to accomodate passengers to the Panama-California Exposition. Designed by San Francisco architects Bakewell and Brown as a “Monumental reminder” of California’s Spanish heritage to match the grand Colonial Revival architecture of the Exposition.

Santa Fe Depot

I run along to find the right platform and swipe in with my newly charged day pass. As the trolley arrives I climb aboard. It’s high up and I’m amazed to find it has an old fashioned air about it too, even thought they must be very new.

I’m clock watching with every stop as it’s ten to 1pm. After a while it trundles into the Old Town and I run off to try and find the bus station to catch a 35 bus to Ocean Beach. The bus station is divided either side of the tram lines and of course the bus stop I want is on the other side of the tracks. How on earth do I get there? I’m looking for a footbridge to get across without having to go right into the station. I ask a few random people. Luckily someone points out there is an underpass. It is now 1pm. I decide to run. I see the bus and dash for it, ensuring it doesn’t depart without me. “Is this the bus to Ocean Beach”? “Yes”. “What time do you leave”? “1pm”. It is that now. I swipe and sit. It’s quite busy with a real mix of passengers some old and chatty.

A loud-mouthed cynical old American is shouting across at someone about landlords and living in hostels, about how bad the beds are and making political swipes. Eventually I am compelled to look round and see it is actually a big Indian looking guy in the back seat shouting into a mobile. I wonder if there is actually anyone on the other end or whether he just uses this to vent off into. Quite clever as people wouldn’t immediately judge him to be quite the nutter I suspect he might be at first.

After about fifteen minutes of putting the world to rights I notice the call is ended. He must simply have been offloading to some poor mate of his. He gets off the bus at the next stop, turns back, looking furious.

The road takes me through outer city suburban sprawl, sand and ochre coloured villas perched high on hills, tall palms, then modest apartment blocks, small prefabs, a seaside community of yellow painted shacks and retail areas, all rather pedestrian and unprepossessing. Finally a glimpse of the ‘Ocean Playhouse’ sign and I know where to alight.

I walk down a street behind the theatre, which leads to the sea to get an overview of the place. No sooner do I get half way down, when I suddenly spot Sophie with the other Haste Theatre girls dressed in their distinctive old fashioned blue and white striped bathing costumes, lined up in front of what appears to be the other side of the theatre. A loud American blonde shrieks in a foghorn voice in front of me, and dashes over to greet Sophie, introducing her friends just as I am about to cross the street and meet her for the first time, ruining my entrance! I wait, then go over to say hello for the first time since we Skyped one another a few weeks back. She is charming and tiny with a head of wild red hair. She introduces me to Elly, a lovely tall blonde who stares into my eyes and smiles warmly as I shake her by the hand and wave at the others who are lined up fliering passers by. “How many of you are there”? I ask, a little overwhelmed. “Six” she says proudly. “Blimey”, I say. “That’s quite a troupe”!

They start singing acapella in harmony and I film them on my iphone. It is like being serenaded back in time to another more innocent and charming era with the smiles and hopes of six pretty, beguiling young women confidently setting out on the sea of life together. Who could fail but to be seduced by their brand of nostalgic charm?

I say I’ll see them later and walk further down towards the sea when I see a great long line of people queuing up along the pavement to buy beef burgers at a café. I dash back to inform the girls they would be better off targeting the queue than waiting for the odd random passer by to capture with their singing and marketing. They have vanished. I go inside and catch Elly, who gives me that amazing smile as I relay my findings. “Oh, I’ll tell the others but I think we’ve run out of time and are getting ready now, but thanks for telling us. They’ve always got a big queue there”. I tell her I’ll see her later. Another Haste girl, Jesse, with pretty eyes, asks if I’ll be staying around for a drink later?

I walk down to the seafront and hear an extraordinarily angry rendition from a young busker sat on the seawall putting his heart and soul into singing and attacking the strings of his guitar. I decide to video this too and am delighted when a string of beach goers start to pass between us. So there is a steady traffic of surfers with their boards, walkers, cyclists, skate boarders and runners etc but the cacophony of noise builds as the wind, motorbikes, cars and aircraft nearly drowned him out. Afterwards, he switches off, hangs his head down as though nothing had happened. But I know differently. I ask his name. “Patrick” he says disinterestedly, as he drops a few CD’s he’s recorded from his hands onto the floor. A guy sat next to him in a brown leather hoodie had tried to keep up on ukulele and another guy is laid out on his back asleep on the seawall. Perhaps they are travellers or locals. I was thrilled to be able to catch this on video.

The soft white sand is punctuated here and there by the highlight of red umbrellas and traffic cones, sun-bathers, seagulls and surfers in bikinis or shorts with their boards. It has a kind of shabby, hippy, drop out atmosphere about it not unlike Margate I suspect, though much less grand. I wish I had more time to assimilate the place before the show. I notice antique shops and centres along the high street along with the eateries, gift shops and bars. But I head back to buy a $10 ticket to see Oyster Boy. The Ocean Playhouse Theatre was probably built in the early 20^th century and has a faded splendour about it. The sort of seaside theatre that feels like it might once have been at the end of a pier and crawled back up the high street for safety. It is a good size auditorium with a raised stage swathed in black cloth and large Turkish carpets on the floor with fold away chairs in rows, draped in black. There are side wall benches with Indian silk cushions and small circular cabaret style tables. I decide to sit on here and catch up writing my journal. There is an audience of about thirty; not bad at all for a Sunday matinee in a hard to reach out of town venue. Music is playing while we are kept waiting some time for Haste Theatre.

When the lights come up and they enter it is like watching something that one’s grandparents may have enjoyed at a Vaudeville end of the pier show. Much charm and simplicity in physical movement and use of blue cloth for the sea and model boats on top, hiding behind red and white striped seaside tents, puppetry, singing and a child like sense of fun and frolics mixed with poignancy.

After the show I wait around and flier and meet a few of their acolytes, some of whom caught the troupe last year. A group of girls wait for them to emerge which takes an age. When they do they drift straight into the nearest pub, which is the pretty awful Irish pub directly opposite. It’s the usual barn of a place with sport TV’s and some World Cup match playing live where a cheer breaks out occasionally throughout the afternoon. I chat with Sophie and the others arrange themselves around a large central table so we join them.

I am convinced that two of the girls, Jesse and Elena, almost identical to one another on stage, wearing their hair in matching pig tails, must not only be sisters but perhaps twins?

“Well, one is British and the other is Italian!” I am informed. Now I see her off stage, Elena is obviously Italian with her raven mane of hair and those dark, soulful Italian eyes. Though she is perhaps the quietest and self contained of the girls. Valeria is more typically Italian, gregarious and gesturally warm offering hugs and voluptuous embraces. She is more completely transformed than anyone off stage, playing the father in Oyster Boy with short floppy black hair which must have been a wig. Her own hair is dyed a brilliant scarlet that is shocking in its wild vividness. My next guess is that Jesse must have Portuguese blood with her perfect almond eyes and strong curved nose very much a give away. Wrong again. She’s the English one!

Eventually we emerge and finally I get chatting to Elly and flirt as we make our way to the beach. She is sun kissed with freckles, has gold spun hair and sparkling sapphire blue eyes. She seems to have this curious hypnotic way of staring deep into one’s eyes where to look away would be an act of sabotage. She speaks with a beautiful cut glass English accent and is warm and engaging. “You must be a northerner?” I ask after her convincing northern accent in the play. “I used to live in Manchester and studied in Lancaster” she confesses. I tell her I’m from Whitby, which she reacts to with fondness as most people tend to do having holidayed there at one time or another. We get ahead of everyone and suddenly find ourselves on our own as we turn around to look for them.

Paul is the mysterious seventh member of Haste who is there in the background to keep them all in order. He is the roadie or their technical manager who deals with all their troubleshooting. Tall and lanky with a beard, in shorts and baseball cap, he feels like their slightly surly older brother who must have a tough job as the only male of the company keeping them all in line. I tease Elly that they must take turns in flirting with him to keep his interest.

Dino is a friendly, Latino looking improvisation performer who wears his long hair in a pony tail under his blue bandana and knows the girls from last year. He has a thick Hispanic accent, which the girls tease him over. He hangs out after the show like me and suggests a game of boulle on the beach, which he has in his car but then someone else suggests a game of Frisbee, which I leap at. I remove my shoes and socks and roll my trouser legs up “like a true Englishman” I say. This is my first step on an American beach and it feels great to finally have soft sand beneath my feet.

Elly takes out a red Frisbee from her bag and a small group of us are soon spread out over the beach throwing it to one another and enjoying the beach atmosphere. There is a pier of sorts which juts straight out into the sea. “Come on Whitby” Elly shouts when I miss the Frisbee embarrassingly and the only time I make the sea all holiday is when I have to retrieve someone’s  throw from the waves!

The sky becomes dramatic with a gathering cloud subduing the Californian sun over the sea. Our Frisbee group dwindles as others drift to the seawall and I go over to see who fancies something to eat. We agree it might be a good idea though no one is looking to spend much money. Pizza and beer are mentioned but having had the best pizza and beer two days running this week I really fancy some seafood, being by the sea. We split into two as some go to a pizza place and others a Mexican where I order an octopus seafood taco. I sit outside on a table with Jesse who is sweet and attentive and Anna, the last of the group I have yet to talk to. She is a petite blonde with a child like cheekiness and smile and speaks with a lilting Scottish accent as a song you don’t ever want to end. She strikes me as being a gentle peacekeeper type, though of course, I could be wrong! As I emerge from ordering I end by chance sitting opposite Elly.

As she emerges from ordering I solve something with a gesture to her ringed fourth finger and ask if she’s married? “Oh, yes”, she says “Many times!”

“No”, she admits “I just like wearing silver rings on my fingers”.

“Just stopping guys from hitting on you”? I ask, inquisitively.

She smiles. I really can’t explain my sudden elation.

Afterwards we find the others and split again to go in search of some frozen yogurt. We call in at some of the eclectic shops along the way selling all sorts of clothes and gifts and start trying on hats with Jesse and recommending which one’s I think would suit her. It has been lovely getting to meet and chat with all of the Haste Company in turn today and I feel like I know each of them a little.

As it approaches half past seven I begin to get slightly concerned about getting back since it was such a marathon by public transport and feel I should start to leave. But Dino says he is driving back to Adams Avenue as he has an Improvisation Show tonight at ‘Finest City Improv’ would I like a lift? That’s fantastic as it means I can relax and enjoy the natural end to one of those days that will possibly stay with me forever; spent in such delightful company by the seaside of a little eccentric Californian beach town as the day slowly makes way for dusk.

Bar Fly Meets the Locals

Saturday 28^th June

I’m in the very hipster bar, ‘Polite Provisions’ on my own. I have my trusty notebook with me and now I’ve secured myself one of the premium marble topped tables, I feel no longer ‘Billy no mates’, stood hanging around the bar like a spare part. It is exactly as I thought it would be on my own when I contemplated coming in here again last night. I have just watched a pretty brunette barmaid or should I say, Cocktail waitress with immense skill and panache mix cocktails and serve them in front of me at the bar. Two cocktails of the same pink concoction in tall tapered glasses and something green in a shorter glass. Three shakers, two at first, one in each hand, shaking simultaneously! These people have to be ambidextrous! It is sheer joy to witness the efficiency and style of her actions. Having mixed and poured out into two glasses over ice, she places the steel shakers upside down while they are automatically rinsed. Taking black straws she withdraws them from the drink and sucks to taste for subtle quality control in a seamless act. She cuts and ducks slices of lime into her works of art and hands them over.

A man in a great polyester 70’s vintage shirt of burnt terracotta and yellow triangles sits at the bar awaiting a friend who joins him. Small groups stand around raised circular marble tables in the centre beside huge cast metal street lights of standing females in togas holding aloft glass globe lights with winged sphinks below. All the bar staff are dressed in 1920’s prohibition style costumes. The men in white shirts, waistcoats and flat caps with manicured moustaches the ladies in fitted black shirts and waistcoats, no moustaches. The atmosphere is buzzing. This is simply one of the coolest places I have ever hung out in. It is the type of place I dreamed of being in when I was a teenager, obsessed with the Edwardian era and the 1920’s.

Three beautiful girls who were stood at one of the circular tables have just joined me on the next table that became vacant. One, a stunning black girl with her mid-rift showing gossips in a squeaky American voice without ever once drawing breath!

“And I’m like, I’m standing right in front of you, how can you like, be saying that to me, you know? That was like, you know, I’m working on, blah, blah, blah, but now…”

She is so involved in blabbering with the other two that it seems fairly clear she is not interested in being hit on.

I seem to be causing more interest amongst the bar staff.

“Is everything okay here”? One bearded chap approaches me in his 20’s.

“What are you writing about”?

“It’s just a journal” I tell him.

“You prefer to write longhand”? he questions.

“When I don’t want to bring my laptop out with me” I answer.

“I know what you mean. I’ve started writing letters by hand” he says.

“Wow”! I find myself saying, “Good for you! It’s died out. You could be responsible for single handedly bringing it back!”

“I’ll do that” he promises. Someone needs to.

I’m considering leaving here after this drink. I’ve not managed to talk to anyone other than the barman and am feeling rather isolated. It’s Saturday night 11pm and I certainly don’t wish to return to my room until I’ve tried at least another drinking hole or two in the area whilst I’m here.

I cross over the road to ‘The Air Conditioned Lounge’ a bar with a large open window in the wall by day to hear thumping music inside and all boarded up so you can’t see in. Two attractive women just arriving get out of their car and walk towards it. I should have asked them what it was like inside but I had already decided to move on. I wander further up Adam’s Avenue to find other bars in the area. I pass a large pool place bar and some other dives and cafes before stumbling upon an open door pitch-dark room with a black curtain stage at the end. A melancholic young brunette in her twenties is singing folk, blue-grass country style songs of great beauty in an extraordinary voice. Three bearded guys playing guitars and a cello accompany the great vocal sound. I am compelled inside.

A fat guy in black shorts and T- shirt is sat on a folding stool outside facing the door, hunched over his Apple laptop. I loiter in case I was charged entry but no one spoke-up so I wander in to this dark room with an audience of perhaps twenty at most. You could hear a pin drop, they are respectable and receptive. The band starts harmonising with great skill. After two songs it’s all over and I hang around to find out what I’d just witnessed. It’s a small live music venue called Le Stats. I chat to the band at the front desk where there are CD’S for sale and mailing lists. I ask the young singer, Heather if she is playing the Fringe Festival? No, she hasn’t heard about it. I said it would be great for her to play there and to check it out for next year. I tell her about my play and she wishes me luck with it.

It turns out this was a special collaboration between the band, ‘Darlingside’ and Heather Maloney. She has started touring with them but recorded her own solo album and has been touring America since March. Heather is from Massachusetts and wants to tour Europe and Britain. I refrain from purchasing their many CD’s but I sign up for both emailing lists and as she said she’ll keep me in touch if she tours Europe.

I am suddenly reminded of the two blonde singer songwriter girls I met in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival at a talent show upstairs in the Pear Tree pub who were touring in a camper van and who’s CD I bought. I wander further.

There is a brightly lit café next door with people on laptops at separate tables.

I carry on further and cross the road to take a look at the Irish pub; Rosie O’Grady’s, which I’d heard, was rough. I couldn’t see clearly inside, as it was dark, crowded and loud. It didn’t immediately grab me, so I went next door to find a large windowed open wooden floor bar with bare tables, a good range of ales on tap and a more civilised clientele sat at tables. I made to go in but was met by a bartender who informed me they had already called last orders. I was genuinely disappointed, as this looked the best bet of the bunch.

Crossing back over the road I peer into a crowded small bar with a guy sat on the door who asks if I have any ID? I said “No. What sort of ID? I don’t carry any”.

“Passport?” he said.

“Passport!” I guffawed. “What makes you think I’d carry my passport round with me?”

“You’ll need ID if you try to go into any of the downtown bars to prove you’re over twenty one.”

“You’re very kind, “ I said, somewhat bewildered.

“I’ll let you in this one time” he said.

As I walked inside I saw he was not exactly doing me a huge favour. It was full of drunken idiots, people turning to stare at the over dressed outsider, music blaring and bar tenders ignoring me. Not exactly my kind of place. I surveyed the awful scene and decided I wasn’t interested in spending any money or time in here. “See you next time” I lied to the bouncer on the way out. Merely confirming my conviction that the only venues with a bouncer are never worthy of one’s patronage.

I walked back and found the pool place. The minute I walk in I’m approached by the straight talking barman who points at me and asks me what I’m drinking? “A beer!” I say, taken aback. “What kind of beer? ‘ he asks. “What do you have on tap?” I enquired. He lists quite a few. I ask for something ale like. I chose one and it’s excellent. I like the way he runs the place. A glass breaks and he’s there sweeping it up. A Mexican chant breaks out at the back and the place is in uproar. “Before me, above me, below me” is the rough translation. It’s the World Cup live and Mexico is playing. There are six TV’s in one wall behind the bar and one at either end in case you missed any sport. But still it doesn’t really feel like your typical ‘Sports bar’ somehow.

I take up position central stage at the bar, take out my notebook and continue writing in my journal. This time it causes more attention.

I meet a voluptuous Hispanic girl who works for the Navy full time and is at College studying PR in her spare time. She asks me what I’m writing about. I tell her it’s my journal I’m keeping as I’m bringing a play to the San Diego Fringe Festival. Has she heard about it? No. She doesn’t go out, always busy working then studying. But she likes theatre and takes a flier and says she might make it.

An older couple slightly the worse for wear, arguing, sit down to my right and before long he takes one look at my notebook and says “I think that’s incredible”

“What is”? I ask.

“That you can write like that”

“Oh, thank you very much,” I say.

I talk to a stunning brown-eyed blonde with great legs and lips, sat to my left. I ask if she’s heard of the Fringe? No she hasn’t but she’s grown up round here. She’s twenty-five and has been smoking marijuana for ten years since she was fifteen! “You know, the stereotype Californian culture?” She tells me she’s unemployed, between jobs right now and not proud of that fact. She’s unhappy right now and wants to get to the stage where she’s happy again. She is with a short Hispanic guy who is sat on her other side. She tells me who he is to her but I didn’t hear. She takes my flier with interest, reads it and puts it in her bag. I ask her if she’s artistic?

“You should have been here at the beginning of the month. All the street for two miles, every shop and café was given over to displaying art and music from artists”. She tells me.

She turns to inform her Hispanic friend about our conversation and he asks to see the flier, which she takes out of her bag to show him. He glances at it and puts it down. It is left on the bar.

I ask if she takes marijuana for relaxation, sexual or creative intentions. She thinks for a moment before replying “All of the above at different times”. She suddenly turns to me “Can I ask you something of a personal nature?” I thought she was about to ask my orientation or relationship status, “Have you smoked marijuana before?” She asks. “Why”? I ask, “Are you inviting me”? She smiles and confesses without actually closing the deal. I ask what her line is? She says promotion.

“I thought you might be a dancer” I find myself saying.

“I am a dancer of sorts,”… she confesses, “But a girl has to pay the bills, right?

I didn’t quite follow where this might be leading.

“I wasn’t sure what type of dancer you were asking?” she says. Suddenly a whole seedier side opens up as I think her bleached peroxide hair may be a clue to another type of dancing that involves a pole perhaps? What is the subtext in our exchange? Is this just some male fantasy conjecture?

She disappears for a long while.

A tall guy comes and orders a drink at the bar and asks me what I’m writing. He introduces himself as Simon from San Diego who is a teacher. What do you teach I ask?

“Maths and Spanish”.

“Quite a combo” I say.

“Yes” he said. “I know”.

“My brain is differently wired,” I tell him. “Programmed not to compute things like mathematics”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. I think everyone is capable of learning about anything given the right amount of application”. “I wish I was able to write like you,” he says.

“Well you can.” I say. “You just start and see where it takes you”.

A short girl comes up to me, introduces herself and asks most politely. “Hello. I was sat on the other side of you earlier at the bar and I could see you were busy writing so I daren’t interrupt you. But would it be all right if I asked you what you are writing about”?

“Of course” I say, touched by her sweet courtesy. “I’m writing my journal about my time here. I’ve brought a play over from London to the San Diego Fringe Festival.

“Really”? She says. “That’s amazing. What’s it about?”

It’s about Marilyn Monroe meeting with an eccentric English poet, Dr Edith Sitwell in Hollywood in 1953” I tell her.” Do you like theatre?”

“Oh yes”, she says “I love going to theatre and dance”.

I give her a flier and she appears delighted. I start to fear she may be hitting on me but she mentions something about her husband.

“Can I ask you for a hug?” She says out of the blue.

“Of course” I say, somewhat flabbergasted. We hug, she says goodbye and she is gone.

The brown-eyed blonde re enters with the short Hispanic sidekick and stands next to me. We exchange eye contact for a little too long and I fantasise there may be something between us. But before long she disappears again.

Another local, Steve, wanders up to the bar, swaying slightly in his drunken bliss. He asks me what I’m writing. Turns out he sells things. “What kind of things?” I ask, not prepared to let it rest there.

“Gardening equipment and such like” he says before drifting off.

The wily barman finally asks me if I’ve managed to write down everything that’s happened tonight and I say “Just about”. I tell him what I’m doing in San Diego. He picks up the postcard flier to read I gave to the blonde earlier, now stuck to the bar with beer. Without warning he starts quoting Shakespeare speeches from Julius Caesar to me. He is word perfect and flows as naturally as everyday conversation. He is captivatingly good and I strain to savour every word of this impromptu performance.

“I majored in Performing Arts about thirty five years ago. But you know, very few of the greatest actors are making a living from their art. I have responsibilities. I’m married with a family. I own and run this place.” He then quotes Macbeth speeches. “Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle turned toward mine hand?” He has clearly missed his vocation.

Who would have imagined when I walked through that door this no nonsense bar tender would end the evening by giving one of the best performances I’d see all Fringe in America. “I’m Ken by the way,” he says shaking me warmly by the hand as closing time comes at 2am and all the stragglers leave. I thank him for a great night and tell him I like the way he runs the place. I am the last one out.

Outside I meet the brown-eyed blonde waiting, still with her Hispanic sidekick in tow. I really should have asked if they were together. We exchange more small talk and I wait to see if anything is going to happen between us. But after a while we bid each other a fair goodnight, I kiss her on both cheeks, give her my card and tell her to drop me an email. I never hear from her again.

Rehearsals and Finding the Marilyn Dress

Tuesday 24^th June

The next day Rhianna arrives, the epitome of style in her navy open-topped coupe. She is like a breath of fresh air, a broad smile with dark, enquiring eyes. She is warm and engaging and has that old-fashioned kind of elegance that speaks of another era.

She says she has only read the play once but she can see there are a lot of layers to it and that its interesting being about the process of film making.

I say it’s going to be about finding the moments when she is acting as Marilyn Monroe and when she is revealing herself as Norma Jean. It’s about the gear changes between the two as well as capturing the iconic voice and physical movement.

She says she was discussing with a friend how playing Marilyn is like the equivalent of playing Hamlet. It’s the one great iconic role that every woman would like to play but there are so many layers to uncovering her. Because everybody thinks they know who she was. But she is different to every body. What she doesn’t tell me until much later in the run is that she has already played her twice before.

I ask her if she knows about the fringe and she says she played a French wife in a new short play last year and went to see a lot of other shows.

She seems happy to take part on the basis of Fringe ans I tell her that she’ll need to give as good as she gets with Loie and hold her own.

She strikes me as being quite English in her manner and in her accent at moments, one would be forgiven for thinking she wasn’t American at all.

I’ve finished telling her all about the script and asking if she had any questions and as k her if she has any? Bryant has failed to materialise but then the door bell rings and in he comes brandishing a box of sugary and pink iced donuts!

I sense a hiatus in proceedings so decide to relay to Bryant what we had just been discussing to alleviate the need for starting over repeating questions so we get straight down to brass tacks.

I ask her to write down her measurements for me on my little notepad since we shall be shopping for the dress and shoes soon as possible now she has confirmed she is on board.

There is a rehearsal the same evening at APA Studios and Rhianna agrees to attend. When we get there Bryant is informed that we are not in the usual room he has had for a few days but a smaller ”Office” space today. When we open the red door a broom falls out and a pile of mops and cleaning equipment are there. It is a deep tapered room full of equipment and a quick calculation tells me it would take more trouble to clear it than walk away. It was like a gym with weights, metal poles, racks, bars, filing cabinets, chairs, desks, clutter. We closed the door on it and felt immediately better. Knowing this was going to be Rhianna’s first encounter with the company, what would she think if she turned up to her first rehearsal and was faced with the prospect of rehearsing in a walk in broom cupboard?

We went back to the front desk and the young girls on there and asked if there was anything else available? No, the studios are pretty busy tonight.

There was nothing for it but to go outside to the loading bay at the back of the building where there was a raised concrete platform about four metres by two and set up there. But I could see there wasn’t room for the actors and us with our trestle table and laptop but the lower area below which backed onto an access road from the car park with the roar of the freeway we had come off below that. It was going to be an interesting first rehearsal. The young girls from the front desk helped us carry out chairs and tables, probably more out of pity than anything. What on earth was Rhianna going to think?

“What, you’re reduced to rehearsing in the parking lot”? Someone asked. “Oh no”, I said, defiantly, “We are in the loading bay, if you don’t mind”!

Rhianna was a good sport and soon we were blocking and going through scene one. I had tried to get the actors off book on Sunday so they could concentrate on moves and reaction and I prompted where necessary. Of course Rhianna was going to be script in hand but it was evident that Randy really hadn’t retained his lines and was cursing himself with “Fuck” every time he stumbled or forgot a line. Loie, who claimed to now have scenes one and two off book started to falter and blame the distraction of the constant din of traffic on the freeway below.

Word must have got round because it wasn’t long before Kevin appeared on the scene with his camera to take shots of his artists having to rehearse outside his Studios because they were so busy. The sun was sinking, lending that golden glow and the photos came out looking like a location shoot for a low-budget American indie movie. That night was our first meeting with our Stage Manager, Ryan who Bryant had met on a previous job. An angular, geeky young choirboy who I can see in collar and ruff! He has an angel face and is as camp as anyone I had ever met. He has the habit of twisting his arms around his elbows in front of him like a pair of ungainly wings. With sparkling blue eyes, a beaming smile and a nasal voice so garbled and fast, he gives the impression of being stuck in fast forward mode. He said he could be on book to prompt the actors if I liked to relieve me of the role. I agreed, only his voice is so slight and quick that he couldn’t make Loie hear her lines as he shouted them out to her over the noise of the traffic in the open air. He circled words on the script the actors struggled with using one of his many pencils that he carried around in a case with him for the purpose. He is friendly, diligent, business like and obliging. Apart from the constant distraction of traffic it was lovely to be outside rehearsing in the evening warmth of a San Diego summer’s night. We stumbled through scene one a couple of times before dusk descended.

A female security guard patrolled the car park and grounds around the studios. She passed by a couple of times then seemed to loiter behind us as she watched our rehearsal before summoning the nerve to speak. “I’m not too sure about this”. She stated.

We ignored her and carried on. “You know. I’m really not too sure about this. Have you got permission to be here?”

“Yes Kevin has cleared it”, replied Bryant defiantly!

I looked round with incredulity at her. “Why don’t you have a word with Kevin if it worries you?” I asked.

“I mean this kind of thing is better done inside maybe. You could be a threat out here”.

“The studios are full! There’s no room. That’s why we are out here”! Said Bryant.

“I mean it doesn’t look like you’re about to kill anyone”… she surmises, “but I’m not too sure.”

“Only the script” remarked Loie in perfect Sitwell mode.

“Kevin was just here taking photos, you could clear it with him” suggested Bryant.

“Well he’s not here anymore” She states.

“I guess you’re not doing any harm to no one.” “Maybe it’s okay. You carry on” she says and finally leaves one of the most dangerous group of thespians to run riot while rehearsing in the back loading bay of a car park this side of southern California.

We call it a night early around nine as it gets progressively dark.

Wed 25^th June

The next morning I have had the pleasure of thoroughly researching where we might obtain authentic ‘conical’ or ‘bullet bras’ on the internet to try to get the authentic Monroe busty look for our actress. Bryant picks me up again in his two door red sports type car with a broken wing mirror and doors that don’t lock. We go shopping round the thrift shops of North Park and Hillcrest district.

I’d researched a vintage shop on Facebook and messaged them about a Marilyn Monroe white dress. They said they’d be happy to loan us the dress for a hire fee thinking it was for my actress to wear to the première of a film and they would be prepared to show publicity for the film in their window.

But of course I was after a more formal white day dress for her to wear during the run of my play for her 1953 meeting with Sitwell. This was before she became famous for The Seven Year Itch (1955) scene with the iconic ivory halterneck Travilla cocktail dress flying up from warm draughts from a subway grate.

The owner is a tall, imposing European with a thick dramatic accent and manicured moustache, dressed from head to toe in black, like a lead in one of those early German Expressionist films.

“You will find it almost impossible to source a vintage white dress from the 50’s that has survived. In all the years I have been dealing I see very few. You see, being white they always get stained and show the dirt so everyone threw them away. You will be very lucky indeed! Why do you want a shirt dress anyway? It’s Marilyn Monroe she was always provocative.” The shop is a real treasure trove of all types of periods of dresses, hats, shoes and accessories, including handbags lined up in glossy lines on shelves. But they are all too expensive to contemplate for Sitwell in the show. We ask if we might leave a few fliers for the show in the shop?

We found another great vintage shop with an excellent collection of clothes and bags all rather expensive on our modest budget. The owner was a smartly dressed man in his fifties with one of those strange spun hairdos and a ready smile that reminded me of a 1950’s black and white TV quiz show host. His wife was an off stage voice from the back of the store through the magical bead curtain and would not be making an appearance today. When I enquired about a white period 1950’s shirt dress there was the usual drawing of breath and how difficult that was going to be to find before a “you might well be in luck” and the voice called her husband who disappeared momentarily to emerge carrying forth a white-ish dress for Marilyn. It was the first period shirt style dress we had seen but they wanted around $80 for it. It actually looked a little large anyway.

We asked if we might put up a poster for the show? “We get hit on all the time here because the area is so popular but we just can’t otherwise we’d be swamped” He said. “But I don’t mind if you’d like to leave some fliers over by the door”. We thank him and depart.

In another store we find two packets of new retro white arm gloves along with a lot of clothes for women and accessories including handbags but no white dress for Marilyn or black handbag for Edith. We called in new fashion shops to enquire about a white dress but they were all off the shoulder slinky numbers, very sexy and far too short.

We then drive to Hilllcrest and find one of the largest and untidiest of thrift shops with clothes hung on long rows of rungs covering much of the entire floor. We are searching for wide seamed turn up tweed style trousers for Cukor too. Suddenly Bryant finds an almost identical 50’s style ivory shirt dress like the one in the vintage shop but with an embroidered front with small pink flowers showing behind the cut out petals on the chest and a pleated full knee-length skirt. It’s perfect, looks like a good size and best of all is $6. “Let’s get it and let Rhianna try it on to see if it fits. We’re never going to find anything better than that” I said. I couldn’t believe our luck! I searched for a pair of size 7 white semi stilettos in vain. Upstairs I find a pair of old-fashioned yellow damask silk style cushions that might be of use on the sofa to give Cukor a bit of business playing with them. Bryant also finds a belt and “suspenders” or braces for Cukor. As we are about to pay for the items at the till, Bryant spots a wonderful large oval black cabochon white metal ring in the desk cabinet, absolutely perfect for Sitwell and says we’ll take that too. Still no black 50’s handbag for Sitwell despite searching carefully through the row of ones hung high above our heads from the ceiling.

It is, however a major victory to have scored finding the Marilyn’s dress. Let’s just hope it fits.

We drive on further to the most beautifully set out thrift store where everything is displayed in colour co-ordinated sections. So if you want something white you know where to go. It turns out to be the same store where Loie brought me to buy her black velvet top and I found two pairs of white shoes that are perfect in style but in size 8 and 8.5. I negotiate to return a pair if they don’t fit and hope we may be able to pad them with insets. So we leave with two pairs of white stilettos. It is gone six and we are due to meet for rehearsal at APA Studios at 7pm but we are in dire need of food and refreshment. We return to the LGBT pizza place on the corner where I had an amazing pizza yesterday with Bryant. It suddenly dawns on me the irony of a straight man, sat in a gay restaurant, carrying a bag bearing two pairs of women’s white stilettos, wearing a 50’s style panama hat, talking to a gay man about how delighted he is that he has finally found a dress for Marilyn, one of the biggest gay icons in the world and costume for Edith while our bearded waiter touches me reassuringly each time he takes an order. I marvel at the comfort I take in feminine things being a fish out of water in such surroundings. It must rank amongst the very best pizza I’ve ever had and amazing handcrafted beer! We just about have time to chill out and enjoy a great meal before we must race back onto the freeway for the second night of rehearsal with the new cast.

When we reach the studio Loie and Rhianna are already going through Scene 2 together under the supervision of Ryan. We are in an end studio room with a thudding pop soundtrack coming through from the dancers next door. The actors soldier on but it is distracting and noisy and not easy to concentrate on an emotional scene.

I am eager to see if Marilyn’s dress fits so she tries it on and it looks almost perfect. There is an open cut out section showing her back which doesn’t feel quite right for the period but I am not going to worry about this as it looks great. The shoes however are quite a bit bigger than her feet and I can get my finger between her back ankle and the back of the shoes proving there is too much gap to do anything about. Both pairs will have to be returned.

Loie is instantly delighted with her new shades and promptly hands me the old ones back in their case in jubilation. “Oh, I do like these” she says. “I quite fancy them myself, actually!”

We are told that unfortunately the room we are in has been booked at 8pm for a tap dancing class and we must vacate. So we decide to set up the tressle table in the common space between studios in front of the dispensing machine and do a table reading. We are now able to hear a loud bass coming from the opposite room which sounds like the door is left open its so loud. Not so.

Then the ladies, chatting loudly to one another outside their room finally enter and start tap dancing and click around making a din as they enter the hard studio floor. They continue to tap dance and make a racket for an hour, which combined with the music thumping out from the opposite studio which makes for another surreally farcical rehearsal and Loie kindly offers to continue rehearsals at her place which is nearer for all of us and not nearly so damn noisy and distracting. It is to be our last night at the Studios and Bryant cancels all the future bookings he made here.

Shopping For Fruit, Costume and Marilyn

Sunday 22^nd June. Late arising and Todd and Lee have already been to the local food market for groceries and brought me back a black cherry muffin to try. Lee kindly drives me back to show me round the market. It’s huge! I’m reminded of my local Farmer’s Market in south London, which is undoubtedly the best thing to happen to the place in years, and is perhaps as responsible as anything for finally putting Brockley on the London map!

The San Diego market is on both sides of a wide central street with market hawnings providing shelter from the sun. The variety on offer is wonderful. It tends to be more fruit than anything. A stall specialising in tomatoes catch our eye. Lee grows her own wonderful special varieties of them which she then puts on her windowsill to fully ripen and knows a good tomato when she she’s it. He hooks us in offering a taste as he cuts a slice out of the yellow tomato with a small knife s on his front tressle. They are sublime- much milder and sweeter than the usual red ones and a delicate flavour. I decide to buy some without enquiring the price. But as I pick up and examine them they are all very ripe, some overripe and somewhat scabby. I find two and he says he will add his biggest one for free which is slitting and past it. When I get to the weigh scales he says “Twelve dollars” I hesitate, thinking that sounds a little pricey but pay it. Christ, did I really just pay £8 for two tomatoes! I see a homemade yogurt stall and part with $10 for a large tub! We look at bread stalls selling exactly the same kind of dense tough bread that only lasts a day before it self destructs and turns into bricks all at $6 and $7 dollars which is about £4 and £5, the same in England. I want a bread that will last me four or five days at that price!

We walk further, I’ve not seen this many people in one place in San Diego before and there is a lively bustling atmosphere and I suddenly think this would be a great place to flier. I decide I will come here next Sunday to do exactly that!

I see a stall selling the most wonderful huge fresh French beans both green and red and get a bagful. A stall that just specialises in peaches and nectarines. Stacked on trays of formed packaging so each can sit individually. I start to collect peaches before I spot the nectarines on the other side and change my mind and go for those instead. At the rear end of the market is the take away food section and here is where it really differs from London.

There is a Mexican place specialising in fresh seafood with a bowl of oysters, shrimps, muscles and sea urchins, great barbed spikes removed and a woman working to scrub and scrape the urchins in a bowl of filthy brown water. I’ve seen people walking around holding these huge globe things like melons with spikes eating something out of them with a salad and now recognise it is in fact sea urchins!

At the end there is a wonderful stall specialising in homemade tapenades and dips. There is every possible combination of humus you can think of. Natural, garlic, chilli, olive, onion, and the most wonderful Mediterranean style mix of fennel, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, onion and aubergine imaginable. We buy a mixture of three for $10, which seems a bargain!

There are cheese stalls, more bread stalls where I find a mixed grain bread with a a label inside, ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ later Todd is tickled to find this inside the bread. “What, you mean they’re going to personally guarantee satisfaction to each customer?” “I’m sorry we are not satisfied with your bread. What are you going to do about it”?

“They come round and offer a door to door to service” I said.

“Until you are satisfied” Todd added sinisterly.

We have these little theatrical interludes and flights of fancy occasionally.

Loie had arranged to pick me up at 12 noon to go over her lines but I could see we wouldn’t comfortably make it back in time so I asked Lee to phone Todd to phone Bryant to phone Loie to let her know we wouldn’t be back before 12.30am

Loie arrived shortly after we got back and we set straight off to hunt for her costume around the Thrift shops. I was trying hard to find as many of the costumes and props as early on as possible this week then we could concentrate on the rehearsals next week. She wanted to show me a dress she had reserved at ‘Frock You’, the vintage shop I had recommended to me by a lady who worked in a thrift store.

There are great long tents of racks of clothes outside the store that are all on sale. But the minute I see what Loie has selected I know it’s wrong. It’s too Seventies and the material looks like polyester.

Loie spends a good deal of time trying on a variety of other things in our bid to find the impossible… a Medieval style black damask velvet robe floor length with little or no shape!

I find a full length robe in a lightweight black velvet which is perfect were it not for the fact that unfortunately it has a cream frontispiece and cuffs with a red and brown geometrical border running down its edge. Apart form that it was theatrical and rather splendid. If it had only had the red and brown border I would have taken it but it would require a seamstress to cover up the central front panel with black material, which might just look strange. But it was a perfect length for Loie and lent her a Pre-Raphaelite sort of air. I explained to the owner what we were after and she emerged from the store with a long black quilted button coat effect which was quite good but rather heavy fabric and a little too tight . Next we found an Edwardian looking black dress with a cream lace frontis panel which was the wrong period and just grabbed Loie’s waist making her look like a dowdy 1920’s Governess waiting to explode out of it.

While we were there I also enquired about a white 50’s shirt style dress for Marilyn and she showed me something which was yellow and close in age but not the style I was looking for.

Next Loie drove me to an excellent thrift store, that was beautifully set out and managed. We looked through the black dresses and found nothing then Loie started searching through black tops. I found a patterned black velvet cut shirt which was a rich fabric but it really had no shape to it at all and didn’t really show up on a photo I took. I asked Loie to if she wouldn’t mind trying it on, and I took a photo with my iphone. But then she found a lovely black velvet top with long flared sleeves in a gauze and velvet patterned fabric not unlike the medieval damask style I was after. It was wonderfully 1930’s looking. Loie said she already had a black skirt, which, if it was altered to hang lower down this would go with it to make a costume. The only problem was it was slightly too open at the neck for anything Sitwell would have worn and Loie asked a lady in the stall if she was a seamstress, how difficult would it be to take some material from the sleeves to reduce the size of the opening at the neck.

We had a difficult decision to make and I was aware we could drive round from shop to shop forever before coming to a decision. I decided to get it there and then so we could show it to Bryant and see what it looked like with her black skirt.

I was thrilled with this and the more I thought about it, I knew we would be hard pushed to find anything that would be visually as good on stage on our small budget.

The search for a black handbag is proving the most difficult as no one seems to have anything that is large and 50’s in style. I have seen enough 80’s handbags to last me a lifetime.

The walking sticks are also proving elusive.

We drive back to Loie’s to go over the script and she offers to try on the new top with her black skirt, Mary Jane black shoes and gold collar. As it turns out the gold collar can be placed perfectly to disguise the skin and so make it look as though it is more modest. I start to see the new Sitwell taking shape!

We have been talking in her car in an exaggeratedly English accent all afternoon and I’m starting to wonder what my own accent feels like anymore! She plays the CD I gave to her of Edith Sitwill reciting her poetry for the BBC and at Aldeburgh Festival in 1956 while she is driving to absorb the Sitwell idiom.

I go through her lines and she tells me off when I prompt her without asking. She is doing well and the lines are nearly perfect.

Our rehearsal is at 6-9pm and I want to leave her to give her time to rest or eat before then. She drops me off.

Bryant calls for me and drives me to APA studios. Loie arrives in her costume to show Bryant, who approves.

I talk through the crisis again and email the script straight over to an actress who is interested to read the part and she’ll take a look at it and call tomorrow around 12pm.

Mon 23^rd June

I’ve already been here a week! That seems crazy! I seem to have done so little! There is a feeling of suburban ennui as hot baked days quietly play out against a sleepy cul de sac, with perfectly kept plots of sand coloured homes with neat gardens and rubbish free pavements. As this is desert there are no neat lawns. They would fry under the baking sun! There is perhaps something of Stepford Wives about the place or Desperate Housewives; a half hour drive away from downtown San Diego. My hosts and their home is delightful. It’s situated in the area that used to be known as the Antiques district. And there are some surprisingly niche shops along the main road including one window I pass full of very specialist early 20^th Century horned radio speakers

I venture out at lunchtime to visit the small grocery store, ‘Leon Produce’ on the corner of the street up from Polite Provisions the very trendy bar that Lee had pointed out to me on the way back from the market. It is a wooden shack with an impressive mural outside down a large side wall illustrated with a woman carrying a basket of fruit on her head, a box of bananas in one hand and a slice of watermelon in the other!

This small esoteric store is owned by a short Mexican couple, who sit squeezed behind the counter like a pair of plump and contented pigeons. Faithful to their roots it is stocked with all manner of Mexican spices, dried chilli and peppers, exotic fruit, pineapples, melons, over ripe bananas, apples polished in their boxes and various tins and packets of foodstuffs that is foreign to me. I spot huge plastic containers of oversize milk that would never fit in fridge shelves. I make the mistake of buying fruit that I thought was a fixed price when I discover it is all sold by weight and soon get through the best part of 15 dollars for a pineapple, cantaloupe melon, bag of seedless red grapes, two tomatoes and a large carton of whole milk!

I noticed an interesting narrow smoothie bar called ‘Senor Mango’ on the walk up and that it was a hang out for attractive women. I thought I could make this a daily stop for me to come and work and enjoy a freshly squeezed fruit cocktail and meet some locals.

I reckon lunch time might be the best time. But I made it for around 5pm and it was quiet. I order a tall pineapple, mango and orange juice and am enamoured with its immediate exoticness. I notice the music pumping out will drowned any natural conversation.

A couple of San Diego Sheriffs called in their khaki short sleeved shirt and green trouser uniforms with shades and crew cuts. They are sat behind me but it’s too noisy for me to eavesdrop on their conversation.

A heavily tattooed guy perched on a high stool in front of me waiting for his smoothie. I imagine he’s from the tattooists just a few doors further up and this is his daily call. I nearly ask him how many customers a day he practices his art on but his gaze is firmly occupied like mine, studying the cute ass of a man’s girlfriend in hot pants stood outside. I wonder what kind of person suddenly calls by and decides they want a tattoo. It’s a revelation the amount of young women who are heavily tattooed across their chests and boobs like great black ornate plaques plastering their once beautiful skin. It is a huge fashion here and many girls have them on their upper arms sides or thighs!

He collects his smoothie and climbs into a black shiny small truck outside and pulls away from the kerb. The traffic in and out of this little oasis is great for a sleepy street off Adams Avenue, 30^th Street. An old man deposits his empty plastic cup and departs. A couple sat when I came in, do likewise. A Mother and two children come and go then another more Mexican looking family with weathered faces and their two children order sandwiches and fruit juices. Business it seems is booming! The music is turned down to a background noise and the air conditioning fan above the door blows noisily.

Pineapples and pink grapefruit line the top of the steel and glass cabinet piled with melons, oranges, apples, papaya, mangoes and bananas. A fringe of straw thatch caps the counter to the low ceiling and two large paddle fans are motionless over light fittings on the ceiling. Behind the counter girls chop up onions and salad ingredients with large knives. The plastic tapered containers from the juicers stand waiting to be filled as the noise of blasting fruit to smooth liquidity can be heard. The walls are painted a viridian green with yellow and white stripes which I guess may be the colours of Mexico? It has an easy going atmosphere and a steady flow of clientele. The forty five different choices of the menu are proudly painted along the wall in green and red lettering on a white background plaque.

They have no wi-fi access alas! So I will not be able to sit and do my emails. But I can continue this American blog which takes some keeping up with!

Bryant has failed to materialise. He has been stuck in a Bank all day trying to sort out the paypal funds from our fund raising campaign.

But we still need to make a difficult decision regarding the Marilyn actress and though she said she would call at 12 midday, we have not heard back from her.

I think this is a great little hang out and I could get used to being here. Though I may have to graduate to the trendy corner bar and enquire if they have internet access! I’ve been here an hour and I think as it gets closer to eating time it may well quieten off.

I return home to Lee who excitedly relays the news that the Marilyn actress has finally rung and is interested in the script and would like to meet with me tomorrow morning to talk it through. “So, are you going to call her to fix up a meeting now”? Lee asks, putting the phone in my hand!

I phone her to invite her over for coffee and fill in the background information about the play and the character’s meeting. I am honest and clear about the set up- being fringe and wanting a decent actor that the others actors can play against and bounce off. I tell her I think it’s a great part and I’m looking for a more experienced actor who can handle it. She say’s she likes the script and would love to meet up with me and talk some more about it tomorrow.

I phone Bryant about meeting her together with me here at the house tomorrow for coffee at 10.30am and he mentions the idea of bringing over some donuts!

“As long as there are no iced ones” I say!

 

Saturday in San Diego

Saturday 21^st June

Badly in need of a distraction, I finally make it downtown to San Diego City centre. I was going to catch the bus in but Lee kindly offered to give me a lift since she was driving in to drop something off at Spreckels Theatre for Todd. Spreckels is a magnificently built 1,463 seat theatre that opened in 1912, first as a vaudeville house; then as a movie palace of the motion picture hey-days; and then again as a live theatre venue.

This history of the building is extraordinary and I recommend consulting the website to read the background to what was described at its opening as “one of the most beautiful theatres in the world”. I was so tickled by the quote below I simply had to include it here to give an idea of the scale of the place. Some extraordinary artists have performed here over the years including, Caruso, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Katherine Hepburn and Judy Garland.

“Even by today’s engineering standards the Spreckels Theatre Building was deemed a modern structure from the very beginning, meeting 85 percent of the current state of the art design standards. The elegant auditorium was completely open without any pillars or columns obstructing the sightlines. Servicing for the backstage was outstanding. It was designed to drive trucks onto the stage through large double doors on either side from two streets to unload baggage, sets, lights, and hanging stock. This unique feature allowed a production of Ben Hur in 1923 to stage the horse drawn chariot race. This left delighted audiences wild eyed and spellbound. They watched the teams of horses thundering through the double stage doors from 1st Street, galloping across the stage and out the opposite door on 2nd Street, careening around the back of the theatre, and skidding back in through the 1st Street doors again, and again.”

However for the Fringe, the auditorium is so vast that temporary seating has been erected on the stage itself to create a more intimate space. There can’t be too many fringe shows that would meet the demand for 1,500 seats! Elsewhere at the side of the building Todd is working hard against the clock to turn a derelict cavernous room of paint peeling ceiling and walls into another new performance area, the ‘Raw Space’.

Next door is a strange abandoned hairdressers with a large black marble tile floor with four central divisions for wash basins in black- a very expensive façade- all for show and now empty. There are two narrow rooms behind which volunteers are slowly sweeping with large brooms what looks like years of accumulated dust. Todd introduces me to a beautiful girl named Christa, who seems the epitome of an American cheerleader with tight curly blonde hair and a surfeit of enthusiasm. “I’m excited about everything”. She is in charge of organising the volunteers and I can’t think of a better, more infectious personality for the role. “We’ve got over a hundred and forty now “ she informs us “which is awesome”. I’m overwhelmed by her energy and have to slope away and find a quiet corner in order to rebalance my English reserve!

I get caught up in a ramshackle shopping mall’s outdoor terrace where a young Hispanic girl seduces me with a sample of cold pink tea. It might not take much you think, however, it is beautiful and refreshing oolong tea infused with strawberry and fruits, raisins with a lovely long aftertaste. I try another one or two now under the influence of a gorgeous Asian girl behind the stall who’s eyes are drawing me deeper under her spell as the other one drifts off plying some other poor, unsuspecting passer by with her pink potion. I decide it would make a lovely present for my hosts and wander over into the store to try some more before making a final decision. I am given Monkey Picked Oolong to taste which grows at the highest altitude hence the ancient Buddhist Monks had to train monkeys to climb to the top of trees in order to gather the youngest leaves. Whereas now they merely rely on monkeys for customers to part with $30 dollars for 250 grammes! However, I was too impressed not to purchase the Strawberry Blush Rose Oolong as a delightful afternoon drink in these oh so hot baked afternoons in the desert sun.

I make my way towards the sea, hopeful to hit a beach and see the real Californian way of life. What I hit are roads, and tower block hotels that seem to rear up stealing most of the sea frontage and screening the sea from me. They look impenetrable and I am forced to keep walking right on a board walk via tramlines and by a tiny formal square park that is dedicated to John F Kennedy. I’m glad to sit down under the shade of trees on a park bench and hide from the sun for a while. I cross the tram tracks and go down the side of a huge hotel to find an area of wooden beach hut shops selling, clothing, gifts, surf gear and frozen yogurts. I fancy the idea of an ice cream and I catch a glimpse of a way through towards greenery and unusual knarled trees to the sea. A board walk that runs along the entire sea front opens out before me. I walk along piers and island like promontories in the wild, white heat of the afternoon sun.

I write in the shadow of a ginormous Navy battleship named MIDWAY with huge jutting side launches. Two bearded guys in army green T shirts, wearing green knapsacks and baseball caps, open up a park bin and fish out a plastic bottle and aluminium drink cans, crush them and collect in a large black plastic sack one carries on his back. They make an efficient team. One dips in giving his findings to the other then another guy joins them as they walk to the next bin repeating the process.

A dreamy romantic saxophonist plays along to a cheesy pop backing track. Tourist couples and families are a constant flow in front on the promenade.

Some overweight woman in a shirt with new green florescent trainers goes past. Two impossibly beautiful young women- one a blonde in a cream lace top and shorts is a vision. Short Hispanic couples and Japanese hang around the bench I go for, an old woman in a large straw hat and bare feet. Time stands still. Yachts are sailing off the bay and speed boats criss-cross leaving trails. Tanned young girls with their mothers walk by and cyclists in rickshaws playing loud music are busy peddling couples along the seafront. There is a huge coloured sculpture towering above me  from the famous black and white photograph of World War II of the couple kissing taken after Victory was announced. People are posing for photographs and nearby on raised steps, a multiple bronze statue tribute to Bob Hope with his broadcasts playing.

Exhausted from my walk in the afternoon heat, I decide it’s time to call it a day and catch a bus back home. I can’t really make head nor tail of the bus timetable but see the number I want and know I can catch the right route from here. I’m sat next to a smartly dressed older black guy with white side whiskers, curved glasses and panama hat. He is wearing a white shirt, red paisley tie, suit and full length black wool coat on a sweltering day, which should have given me a clue. He has a black folder next to him and a pile of magazine cuttings. He scribbles notes in pencil on loose sheets in his folder whilst talking under his breath in a top secret, spy like running commentary, which has me hooked. In a vain attempt to try and capture this monologue, I listen intently, writing as fast as my pen will allow me.

“Government scams, violation bugs. How do they think we should deal with the problem of cancer? Asking what should they do but they don’t seem to have an answer to it. All why I asked them, what should they do with the public, how should they proceed? Ask them. Go, ask them, go”!

I felt his gaze and comments shift focus on me as he moved his binder so I could sit next to him.

“You think you’re going to steal it? Well you’re not. Who do you think you are anyway? You’re not exactly what the cat dragged in, but you’re not too far off from it. You have a response to what they are doing. What do you think? Are you going to ask? No. Shoot a guard, there is no gut response to what you’re doing and the national guard and the state guard and the situation you’re making”.

All whilst shuffling a black binder full of papers he has written on. He now takes out a pair of scissors and gingerly trims the edge off the magazine papers whilst conducting a running commentary to himself. I wish I had tried to engage with him now but I was too busy recording what he was already spouting to dare interrupt.

The other nutter is a short white haired old guy with jeans, wearing a child’s grey elephant hat with ears that hang down either side and a strangely threatening phallic trunk protruding as he advances towards you like a dalek. He carries a huge red filthy haversack on his back, which I suspect is his home. He’s animated and keen to interact with a family crowd. I watch as they all slowly manage to extricate themselves from him to congregate again a safe distance away under the trees.

I ask a random lady directions to Horton Plaza as I find the bus I want goes from there and terminates near my host’s home. But she had only just arrived in San Diego and is not that familiar with the place. It turns out she wants the same bus as me. She comes and sits next to me and seems as though she wants to talk, asking me if I am visiting here. Then when I tell he I am bringing a play over about Marilyn Monroe her eyes light up. She has just watched her in a film with Jane Russell, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I tell her my play is set at the same time she filmed it, 1953 and give her a flier. She says she may try and come. Isn’t film remarkable the way it captures time so although Monroe has been dead for fifty two years, she remains timeless and always relevant so you can relate to someone through the shared power of film.

The lady tells me she is from St Louis, and I say, “As in the Judy Garland film?” She said it was a pleasure to meet me then on the bus chatted further.

“I would imagine they got on quite well.” She said. “I think the older woman would be like a Mother figure to Marilyn and she would look up to her”. As I told her about Sitwell’s struggle as a female poet she said, “and I think they shared a struggle as Edith tried to find her way and Marilyn was always wanting better roles”.

Her powers of perception were quite uncanny.

As I got on the bus the driver was teasing me as I didn’t know the coinage and he said, “It’s okay, I was in your country and thought I was surrounded by a group of maniacs who didn’t seem to know what they were about, I’m sure it’s the same for you!”

I found the right money and fed it into the meter. “Is that it? No ticket” I asked?

“No. We charge extra for those” he joked.

“Stay there and I’ll have a chat with you” he said and started quizzing me, genuinely interested in what I was doing here with the play and the Fringe. He told me how he had gone over to the UK a couple of times, the first when he was twenty one hitchhiking and put up a sign saying ‘Kent’.

“I got a ride from a truck driver who was just a couple of years older than me from Swindon in Wiltshire and I ended up going all over the country driving with him through every little back water where there were sheep holding up the traffic all over the road and everything. I stayed in the spare room at his for two weeks. I’ve been back to see him a couple of times since and met his family as we stayed in touch”.

We have taken on board a couple of passengers in wheelchairs. The driver couldn’t be more charming. He puts down the ramp for them to wheel up and gets out of his cab to raise the bus seats, making room for them and puts their brake clamps on their wheels, all while being cheery, patient and chatty with them.

He asked if I’d been following the World Cup. Since the bus had to take a diversion to avoid the crowds as LA was playing San Diego at the stadium in town. He said he was listening to the British football commentary because “It’s so much more entertaining than ours. The words they use and the way they phrase things, just cracks me up.”

“He made a real nuisance of himself in that last game scoring five goals”.

I gave him a flier and said come and see the show!

“So is this your first play you’ve had produced?” he asks.

“No. I took a one man show to Edinburgh a couple of years ago“. I told him.

“What, just you on your own?” he asked.

“Yes” I replied.

“That’s amazing” he says. The other day I had a twenty four year old comedian from north California who was doing Edinburgh, performing at a club and he did most of his act for me right here in the bus, by the time I dropped him off.”

“I only wish I’d had the nerve to do it years ago when I was twenty four” I said.

“Well, never too late to have a happy childhood, right”?

“I envy you” he said, “You’re living the dream. That’s what we tell one another every morning when we take out our bus”, laughing to himself, “We’re living the dream, man… living the dream!”

He is an exemplary human being and I feel quite humbled witnessing his care and compassion with people. His daily journey may be one of the same but the way in which he conducts it and himself, make all our journeys the richer for it.

I think about his approach to his job contrasted with the surly, ignorant London bus drivers who refuse to engage or help anyone with information about buses or places and would certainly never get out of their cabs in order to help anyone, disabled or elderly.

“Here’s the stop you wanted” he calls out to me. I ask his name, “Karl” he replies. I shake him by the hand. “Well, enjoy your stay and listen, sincere congratulations again”. He says, “Best of luck to you. I think what you’re doing is really something special.”

As I alight, I almost start to believe it and I think exactly the same of him.

 

Taste of American Theatre and Crisis Over Marilyn

For the rest of the week there are no rehearsals until Sunday evening and Loie wastes no time in inviting me to see my first American piece of theatre the very next day. “I’ve booked a ticket to see the new show at The Old Globe Theatre tomorrow afternoon at 2pm if you’d like to join me? It’s called Dog and Pony. I haven’t a clue what it’s about, so don’t ask me. But I thought you might be interested in seeing it”?

I am trying to say yes to everything while I’m here in order to get the most out of my adventure and jump at the prospect.

Loie picks me up in her shiny white car and we drive onto multi-lane freeways and take impossibly tight exit bends off at speed as I nervously cling to the seat until we reach Balboa Park. At the traffic lights she reaches for a swig of her huge take away coffee whereupon it suddenly implodes in her hand, spurting tepid coffee all over my lap, hers and the car. “Oh, for Christ sake’s” “How the hell did that happen? It just collapsed in my hand”! She apologises profusely. Fortunately, my light tan jeans prove a lucky camouflage, as close in colour to your average American skinny latte as one could wish for. Loie, on the other hand, was not quite so lucky in white pants. I mop up the spillage with a kitchen roll she has handy in the car.

Balboa Park is beautiful. A lush, formal 19^th century landscaped garden of twelve hundred acres, dating back to 1835 and one of the oldest and largest recreational public parks in the Untied States. Named after the Spanish maritime explorer, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, it contains museums, several theaters, and the world-famous San Diego Zoo. It has wonderful cream coloured colonial style buildings which Loie tells me are now museums but were originally built for an International Exposition.

The park hosted the 1915–16 Panama–California Exposition and the 1935–36 California Pacific International Exposition in the days when nations would compete to outdo one another in celebration of their industrial and civic pride, leaving such architectural landmarks ever since Paxton’s ‘Crystal Palace’ from the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

The Old Globe is not unlike Shakespeare’s Globe on London’s Bankside from the outside. A similar sized circular timber construction with panel plaster work although painted a sandy brown colour. But I understand it is quite different inside, more of a traditional proscenium arch theatre with comfortable seating for 581 and not open to the elements but covered. It was built for the 1935 Exposition but the original theatre was burnt down in an arsonist fire in the late Seventies and had to be rebuilt from scratch, though some of the out buildings survived.

We go to the box office where Loie shouts through the window “Do you have a ticket going in the cheap seats near to me?” I pay $35 dollars and manage to get a seat but one next to Loie. “Are you on your own”? She asks a sweet old lady sat next to her. “Would you mind moving up one so we could sit together?” The lady, a little dazed, quietly agrees and I wait for her to move before entering the row. “Thank you”. I sit down and find out the show is a musical and my heart sinks a little. “You didn’t tell me it was a musical Loie!” “Oh, yes, it’s a musical” she confirms.

We are not in the Old Globe Theatre itself but the new ‘Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre’.

“Oh, they keep changing the name of the place every year to the person who donates the most money” Loie sighs. “It’s like some ridiculous competition”.

The theatre is in the round, on four sides and the minute I walk in to the auditorium I am taken straight back to the old Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where I went to see many a show as a youth in my formative years growing up on the north-east coast in the late eighties and early nineties.

There is a toy dog and pony on stage. As the show opens the recorded musical soundtrack is played as flashing spots light up these two props alternately for what feels like forever. What have I let myself in for?

Actually it turns out to be a very slick, knowing, self referential comedy about a screenwriting partnership between a self-centred middle-aged family man and a thirty something single woman. The whole will they/won’t they game is the entire premise and it is spun out for every possible joke or nuance. It feels more suited to a screenplay than a theatre show and I later read that’s exactly what it had been before they adapted it. Although there is some terrific singing and performances in it, particularly from the women, it didn’t add up to anything very much and one didn’t really care about what happened to any of them by the end. If I had to sum it up in a single word, I would say it was ‘smug’ and so clever it was in distinct danger of disappearing up it’s own backside at any given moment.

Heidi Blickenstaff, playing Jane, Andy’s wife and the ridiculous Bonnie, his lady friend was excellent as was Nicole Parker, sassy and elegant as screenwriter, Mags. Beth Leavel, playing the compulsory Jewish mother of both main protagonists must surely be the nearest successor the American stage has to a comedy legend like Carol Burnett or a fully functioning Liza Minelli.

As we leave the theatre I take the opportunity to exit flier the audience for my show. I head out quickly and take up position some way from the theatre so I don’t get reprimanded. It soon becomes clear that I needn’t have rushed as white haired couples in their eighties, clinging to one another for support slowly emerge from the theatre staggering towards me. I hand some fliers to Loie and we embark on a two prong attack. She is like a sprightly teenager in comparison with them.  I approach most and they seem interested and take them, though whether any of them will ever be able to make the trip downtown or live long enough into July to catch my show, is perhaps questionable.

I would imagine the main concern for San Diego theatres would be to ensure the future development of its next couple of generations of theatre audiences in order to survive.

As we walk back through the park I see a photographer conducting a couple by a huge fountain who are dressed as bride and groom and I wonder if they are actors or the real thing as they stand ankle deep in the fountain. The wind blows her white dress into extravagant poses and I’m struck my the sheer beauty of one of those serendipitous moments as water is sent spurting high behind them caught in the afternoon sunshine.

Friday evening I arrange to go and see Bryant in a play he is acting in produced by Teatro Mascara Magica, Journey of the Skeletons by Max Branscomb.

It is in the Shank Theatre at La Jolla Playhouse and I ask if Lee would like to go. It is a drive out in the canyon on a University campus and I would never have found it without her. There is a disorganised lady sat outside at a trestle table fumbling around checking names off a list and another sat next to her tearing little red tickets off a large roll as a growing queue of audience members form as it gets closer to the opening time. We get there to find Bryant has added us to the guest list and we go in to find a very spacious barn of an auditorium with bold set design of a circular section with a live band of traditional musicians behind stage left and the other side a raised crows nest like platform high above an altar like food offering area stage left.

The audience just keep coming and soon the seats are all taken and people stand around like lost mourners at a wake. Additional chairs are carried in to create a whole new front row in order to accommodate them. The audience is largely of Mexican and Hispanic origin, since the piece is a celebration of their ancient culture and many must be family members coming to support the large cast.

It’s a bawdy, comedic romp around the rituals and practises of ancient Mayans and Aztecs, Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, one of North America’s oldest celebrations in a belief of the afterlife dating back over 4,000 years. Bryant plays a slightly rotund Calavera (Skeleton) and Angele. It is like an old-fashioned Abbott and Costello slapstick routine and his physical buffoonery and energy is hilarious. This is matched by the wonderful Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Underworld, Aztec God of Death wearing the most extraordinary feather headdress costume extending four feet in width and his sidekick, Colmillos, a jaguar, prowling the underworld in search of spirits to torment. After the show the cast encourage the audience to come onto the stage and pose for photographs with them. They are deservedly proud of the rich and wonderful costumes and I take some photos of Lee posing with the feather headdress actors.

Bryant mentioned to me that Mariel was also in the play and she seems more comfortably cast in this play as Ximena, a young Mexican daughter.

The play I really should have made an effort to see and missed was The Mother Fucker With the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Our Stage manager for our show, Ryan, was apparently working on this production at Cygnet Theatre until it finished at the end of the week. Loie had said she had already seen it and it was excellent. Bryant also said it was terrific and I intended to catch it before it came off. But there was a rather serious problem looming within our production that was occupying my attention and had to be addressed otherwise we might not have a show to première at all.

It was becoming apparent that our Marilyn, sweet as she was, just did not have the breadth of acting experience or scope to be able to carry such a demanding leading role for a world première. She also seemed unable to modulate her striking voice into the famous Monroe breathy delivery that was required. What was to be done at this late stage in rehearsals with only a week and a half to go?

Having talked it over, we decided there was nothing for it but to try to begin the search for another Marilyn. I was sent an email with options of various local actors. Some of whom were already in productions and wouldn’t be available to rehearse on weekends but only week nights. Others that were young women who had been in a few local musical theatre shows, so could sing and dance perhaps and may have the physicality but who was to say any of them would actually be any better actors in this challenging role since no one had seen their work?

The irony of my play being about Marilyn wanting to break out of the same dumb blonde light weight roles and stretch her acting ability in a demanding part was not lost on me.

As I type, the two cats have caught a small scarlet crowned bird. The ginger one has it firmly in its mouth and is prowling around the terrace looking for a careful place in which to deposit it. As he finally finds a corner the bird springs to life and flutters. The cat takes its head firmly in its mouth and holds it tight then wanders off. When I next look it’s the other tortoiseshell cat that has it in its mouth. It clearly wants to play with it. As it put up its paws and on its hind legs toyed with it, encouraging it to spring back into life. Disappointed when it shows no further signs of life, it deposits it, unceremoniously and walks away. Trying again a few times. The other ginger cat then pounces upon it, tosses it in the air and takes a mouthful of feathers before they both lose interest and its left an offering nearly at my feet! The cruel game is over!

Meeting the American Director and Cast

Next morning I awaken to streaming sunshine through the blinds and heat. I chat with Lee and she gives me a guided tour of her garden. The house is built around a central brick terrace on three sides joined by a sloping wooden roof that extends over half of the courtyard offering shade. Here there is a huge circular slatted wooden garden table and chairs and to the left in the open part a coffee table with iron chairs and chaise then a raised decked area in the far corner with matching metal glass top table and chairs. The garden backs on to the edge of a canyon valley with a freeway running down below and distant hills beyond. The view is obstructed by a huge palm to the left and a frond like laburnum style tree to the right with a yellow flower that Lee informs me is a “Californian Pepper Tree, which is a weed and boy, do they sting!” There is a constant steady hum of traffic passing below. A glossy-leaved orange tree flourishes just below the decking with fruit, an avocado tree next to it and a blood orange tree to the left which has stopped yielding fruit for this season, much to Lee’s regret. “Pink champagne to the left and lemonade to the right” she says wryly.

I ask if I may pick some oranges from the tree. Lee says she would be delighted and shows me where the steps are kept and tells me about a very handy instrument I may find helpful for collecting them from higher branches. It consists of a long wooden handle with a rusty wire claw and mini basket for an orange to fall into. I get the steps out and set to work and soon collect around a dozen large oranges and can’t wait to taste one.

There is always something special about home-grown produce and to taste oranges that have been hand-picked straight from the tree is a real treat. Certainly not something I could do back in London! An orange a day forms my daily morning diet for the next week.

I explore the local shops and am deflated to find a very ordinary deserted store selling overpriced tinned goods largely with a cartel of “Castle Rock” produce including wine. The half-hearted hand painted sign in green lettering over the fascia reads “Fiesta”. I take the one shopping trolley as a sign of optimism then become increasingly disillusioned on the way round by everything when I discover their milk is on the sell by date and wonder how long goods have been stacked here. I find a pack of sultana bran flakes cereals and desperately search in vain for anything else before I push the trolley ceremoniously back to its base where the sad-faced assistant gives me the one item look, bags it and takes the money. I slink next door to a liquor store to buy a box of craft beers, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a carton of in date milk.

The heat is extraordinary. I work at my laptop at the large circular table which becomes my habit during my stay while I breakfast. In London I tend to keep the grey and wet days for writing and computer work so part of me feels it’s just too sunny to be on a laptop.

I’m excited about attending my first rehearsal this evening and meeting my director and cast. Bryant, my director will pick me up from the house around 5pm and drive me over to the APA Studios, Academy of Performing Arts- San Diego where we are to rehearse the production with the kind permission of Kevin, the Festival Director.

Bryant arrives, a charming, baby-faced, portly chap of Mexican heritage who lives with his boyfriend in Chula Vista, the second largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area and the seventh largest city in Southern California.  He has the slow measured gait of a young Alfred Hitchcock, which might be a promising sign in his line of work.

I liked him immediately when we Skyped one other and chatted about the play a month previously and am thrilled he is as excited about the production as I am. He has worked in the theatre for around twenty years. Training as an actor then taking up directing around fifteen years ago. He loves the script and has worked hard in researching, casting and discovering the piece since I emailed it to him some weeks ago. He is looking forward to directing it for the Festival and says it’s a real honour. I am touched because I feel the same. We discuss the piece and his approach as we start to tentatively discover the parameters of our relationship in this cross-cultural international collaboration. He drives me onto the freeway on four or five lane roads, we are speeding towards my unknown journey past palms through canyons to meet with the actors who are to play my characters in the world première of my play.

Loie, the wonderful larger than life Septuagenarian playing Dr. Edith Sitwell, is a straight talking, working class, Jewish Chicago dame who shoots from the hip and takes no prisoners. She confesses to me that she has found parallels from her own life in this character. Though they are from completely different worlds it soon becomes clear that Loie is impatient, imperious and autocratic like her character.

The moment of our meeting I see her approach and greet her warmly with “Ah, Marilyn! “No,” she replies, taken aback, beaming and in her wonderful Chicago drawl, “I’m playing Sitwell. You were close… But no cigar!”

There is something immensely likeable about her and her workmanlike dedication, research and commitment to the role.

She has found and read Sitwell’s autobiography, Taken Care Of, a curious mismatch of earlier sketches from her writing rather cobbled together during the last year of her life into a most unsatisfactory book. But it tells me Loie is serious about her role and I couldn’t be more pleased. It is a hell of an ask for any American actress to find and sustain that very old-fashioned Aristocratic English accent and bearing in today’s world. Fortunately, at seventy-six, Loie is a sprightly, youthful minded, vital woman with boundless energy for her age. Yet brings that wonderful maturity, knowledge and life experience that one simply can’t fake on stage.

“This is the biggest part I’ve ever had. It’s a real challenge but I’m loving it.” It is wonderful to see how the simple act of giving someone a role can galvanise them into action and bring riches never thought possible.

“I spend all my money on travelling,” she confesses. “Clothes or trinkets don’t interest me. I’m lame. I have one hip lower than the other and I’ve lost a lot of weight recently. I have numbness in my hand and I have to wear a splint, as it gets painful”.

“I tell you, old age is no bundle of laughs. You get to my age and everything starts to fall apart”!

A statuesque tanned guy with a wonderful sculptured imposing head and smile, overhearing my greeting to Loie, comes up to introduce himself to me. “Hi I’m Randy” shaking my hand firmly, “And I’m playing Marilyn”! He wears curved shades and one of those hands free earpieces giving the impression he may secretly be wired to some Federal security service giving him instructions. He is to play Hollywood director, George Cukor, who became firm friends with Edith Sitwell when he invited her to Hollywood in 1953 to adapt her book, Fanfare For Elizabeth about Elizabeth I, into a blockbuster film for him to direct for Columbia pictures. He had a difficult relationship with Marilyn towards the end of her life when he directed two of her last films. The troubled Let’s Make Love (1960) and the downright tragic Something’s Got To Give (1962) and when it did, she was fired from the production and famously killed in obscure circumstances a few weeks later at the start of August of that year.

The girl playing Marilyn is a very young, petite, Hispanic beauty named Mariel, with long brunette hair, a radiant smile and a fairly pronounced Mexican accent. She is sweet and welcoming to me and excited to be involved and tells me how much she likes the play.

Randy is a peaceful presence, reticent and more self-contained than Loie, which is not particularly difficult.

It was as if she had been storing up all the unanswered questions she had about Sitwell and the play for weeks and now I’m finally here, she interrogates me first hand, cornering me like a cat toying with its prey. Though she’d never heard of her before my play, she knows Sitwell, how she behaves and was correcting me on what she would and would never do! She has made Dame Edith Sitwell her own. It was both overwhelming and consoling at the same time. This level of immersion is only to be admired and I found reflections with the English actress who played her in the rehearsed reading we did for the Women in the Arts Festival at the Tristan Bates Theatre in December of 2013. She too had confessed to me that there were many parallels between Edith and her own private life that she was drawing on or identifying with.

As Bryant told me, he asked her to play Sitwell because he thought, “Who else could capture her but Loie? She is Sitwell”, laughing in his infectious manner. It turns out he has worked with both Loie and Randy on previous productions. When I give her the shades to don and the medieval style velvet hat, she suddenly takes on a different persona and looks quite frightening.

“If you and I get on,” she says, “perhaps you might like to do some sightseeing together? We might go for a drive into the desert. Would that be something you might be interested in? The desert at sundown really is something special, you ought to see while you’re here. How long are you here for? Do you drive? Well, I have a car!” I am touched and would certainly like the company. She talks ten to the dozen and my mind drifts off into its own dimension.

We find out the studio is not available until an hour after we are booked in. So we get a coffee round the corner, and in the absence of rehearsal room decide to sit outside round a table and commence our meeting. Bryant has brought his camera and in a repeat of Kevin the previous night, is in ebullient mood, caught up in the novelty of the foreign playwright’s arrival and the team’s first meeting, we are soon posing for photos and even videoing our thoughts on the play for publicity. Later we move inside to the Academy of Performing Arts where girls of all ages are busy dancing and stretching to music in the various studios. We have a lovely large studio space though we bring in a trestle table to sit round to do a table read of the script. I am soon in stitches listening to their reading of my own play, having not heard it read for the first time since December. My smiles are genuine. I am in another country on the other side of the world where strangers are cherishing my words and bringing them into life for the San Diego International Fringe Festival.

Preparing for the American Adventure

My feet haven’t touched ground since I won a place courtesy of Kobo, to the three-day Literary Conference, Writing in a Digital Age at The Literary Consultancy in Farringdon over the weekend of Friday 13th June. Only very rarely does it feels as if the Universe is moving to support one in one’s endeavours. Though when it does, it seems to make such perfect sense as things slot beautifully and seamlessly into place you wonder why life can’t be like this every day. Such was my fortune in just being able to fit in this conference before I fly out to America on Monday for the world première of my play, The Peacock and the Nightingale.

I had randomly stumbled across the competition by Kobo through Twitter, as one so often does when on the internet as one things leads on to another. I never seem to win anything but I always have a go, so when I saw a literary conference and it was the weekend before I fly out I thought, its bloomin’ close but what the hell? Imagine my surprise when I received an email out of the blue to say Congratulations you have come second in line for the free ticket and if the winner didn’t take it, it would be offered to me. This is not unlike winning second place in a beauty contest, nice to be acknowledged but no great shakes in the grand scheme of things. I replied that I would be delighted to accept if the winner couldn’t make it. I then received an email asking if I would be able to make all three days. I replied that except for Friday morning when I teach my creative writing class, I could. I was gobsmacked to learn I had then been awarded the funded place. I subsequently learnt from the director that the winner had applied ironically from America, then decided it was rather expensive to pop over for the weekend!

I wasn’t sure what to expect and I came hot foot from teaching Grey Matters, the charming group of older ladies in the village hall of Hayes in Kent, one of those sleepy chocolate box English villages straight out of a Miss Marple TV special. They never fail to impress me in their ability to write engaging, taut short stories in a page and a half to order. We had recently read Salt Water, Andrew Motion’s collection of poetry and long prose story of his retracing of Keats steps in his final voyage aboard a schooner set sail for Italy. I had introduced the idea of writing a story of a longer duration about a personal journey, contrasting it with an earlier one, made by another person or themselves. This was to enter for a short story competition of two thousand two hundred words to be read on Radio 4. I shall await with interest to see if any of them get selected. We also started reading George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London that I had read some years previously and thought would be inspiring as a personal anecdote about a journey into poverty in two countries. I suppose I was looking for inspiration too for my own travelogue and journey I was about to undertake to America for the first time. I had always said I didn’t want to go to America unless I had something to take. Now I had no excuse. Here was the perfect moment. And I looked forward to it with enormous anticipation!

As I venture to find a loo, I bump into two amiable chaps enjoying a drink or two at the rear cabin of the plane as though it were some clandestine, colonial cocktail bar. The main plane is in complete darkness with all window blinds down, passengers asleep and lights off to give the impression it is night. But in fact, since we are flying on a polar route it will remain light through until we land. Here the window blind is up, sunlight streaming in, offering a strangely welcoming oasis of daylight normality. One man in a pink shirt, clearly a few under his belt, nonchalantly leans against the window. He is an English Officer, with that unmistakable gentlemanly charm, a Colonel in the British Navy, having led a force, the Royal Medical Core into Afghanistan last year. He is now going over to San Diego for five days Naval training. He tells me it is the second largest port and Navy base in America’s Pacific, the largest being Norfolk, Virginia on the east coast. The other chap, an American Army Corporal, is returning from Afghanistan on ten days holiday leave to San Diego to see his wife. They are clearly enjoying a spirited social, exchanging anecdotes from different sides of the ranks. Upon asking what it’s like out there he said “Flies everywhere. When you’re trying to eat a meal you’re constantly waving your hands in front of your mouth and face as you eat flies along with food. And when you have to dig a hole and take a shit you have to hold up material as a shield around you”.

He’s going to take his wife to Temecula Vineyard Country around half an hour outside San Diego city and in real mountainous region with vineyards set in a valley. He was saying there is this great restaurant sat at the top of the mountain, his favourite restaurant and hotel where you can sleep off the alcohol afterwards. Upon asking what I was doing in America I told him about the Fringe Festival and my play’s world première and he is going to try to come and see it.

I was met at the airport by Todd, who was holding a sign with my name printed on it, the black and white photograph of Edith Sitwell and Marilyn Monroe and Peacock and the Nightingale with the San Diego International Fringe Festival logo. He was holding his mobile in front of him trying to take my picture as I came right up to him. His face told me had been waiting an hour for my arrival as they kept us queuing up to painfully make our way, one at a time through the most bureaucratic customs in the world.

I couldn’t believe such pathetic petty punishment metered out after a twelve-hour flight! We were delayed an hour by two passengers who failed to materialise and then missed our allotted runway take off time. Never have I been asked for my fingerprints to be taken on an electronic reader in order to visit a country. I would question if this is even legal or an infringement of one’s personal rights? Anyone would imagine we were guilty unless proven innocent! “Why are you visiting America?” (I’m seriously beginning to wonder! ) “How long are you staying for”? (Not as long as you’re taking to get us through these gates) “Have you anything to declare?” (Other than your incompetence to clear a plane load of passengers within an hour…. No) “Wait while we take a blood sample and swab for anything of a terrorist nature” Okay, I made the latter up. Still. Jesus! Welcome to America!

Todd is a warm and jovial character, who clearly has a passion for all things theatrical. Concerned he’ll never be able to find his car or work out the new payment system since the airport was “made over” recently. We locate it and he drives me past impossibly tall palm trees on the freeway to their house in the north of San Diego. Meeting his wife, Lee, tall and elegant, with a shock of white hair, busy in the kitchen at the stove, wooden spoon in hand stirring some vast enamel cauldron. Presiding over a major culinary enterprise, she shakes my hand with her spare left hand, declaiming a running commentary on progress. It felt as though I had stumbled in at the critical hour of the strategic head quarters of some presidential banquet.

The atmosphere is congenial, intelligent and engaging and I remarked what a good team they made as they consulted one another on cooking times and division of work like surgeons deliberating the course of a particularly taxing surgical operation. “You’re in charge of croutons and cheese”! “Its looking good, nearly ready!” It feels like everything Lee says should be followed by an exclamation mark!

It turned out to be the most delicious French onion soup I shall probably ever taste.

They make such perfect hosts and patrons, ideal adoptive American Uncle and Aunt. One may be forgiven for thinking that their sole interest in life was for the nurturing of others. They have hosted so many students over the years and I learnt I am sharing a house with a delightful young Russian couple. Max, a head of golden curls and a beard to match with piercing blue eyes; a true gentle revolutionary and his girlfriend, Anna, a high cheek boned dark-eyed beauty with the natural elegance of an Audrey Hepburn, accompanied by their terrier, Betty. There is also a young Japanese girl, Magumi, who I have yet to meet.

The house has a lovely colonial feel about it. My room is pine panelled and cosy with chintz pelmets over the wooden blinds and a large five branched wooden fan over the ceiling light. Dominating the room is a huge, loose oil painting of a townscape in the style of the Fauves in oranges and greens.

At my exclamation of admiration they proceed to show me their wonderful collection of paintings by Dillingham; an art professor that they had given by a friend, the artist’s daughter who had amassed and catalogued her father’s studio then divided his work up between friends. “I feel so blessed” Lee remarked, “that our house has become the final resting place for all this wonderful art”!

I said it’s a real Bohemian household in the best sense of that word and I couldn’t possibly have wished for a better environment in which to experience my first trip to America.

Kevin, Director of the San Diego International Fringe Festival, who lives not far away comes over to the house to meet me looking tired but wide-eyed with the biggest zoom lens camera I’ve ever seen. Unassuming and friendly, always with an eye to a photo opportunity, he comes to get some shots as my arrival is clearly news. He said my play would form the first cross-cultural International Exchange Programme of the Fringe Festival. I feel extremely proud and honoured that my play is going to be produced here.

This was the first time we’d met following our initial Skype meeting back in March. We soon got swapping ideas and in his search for international partners, I pitched off the top of my head the idea of inviting a relationship between the Jack Studio Theatre and the San Diego Fringe as part of our annual Write Now Festival of new writing.

I found myself saying they could launch a script writing competition in San Diego with a final reading panel in London and select a new play to be produced in London at the Brockley Jack. We could invite an American guest director over to direct it! And actors? Or use British actors and then we bring the winning play of our Write Now competition over to San Diego?

Many exciting ideas flung into the melting pot. My first night in America and jet lagged but excited I was glad to get to bed and get a great night’s sleep.