ECHO 6/12/05

New species of cat-like creature discovered in the Indonesian rain forest, never before seen by local population or recorded by scientists – Indonesian government is already planning to turn the rain forest into palm oil plantation and eradicate the habitat.

4 runs into panto – day begins like this: wake before dawn or perhaps with it just there where the trees part east and the clouds have broken low over the horizon; a thin sliver of pale silver is just there beyond the tree-line – leaving still either in the rain or else the pale winter sun with the Malverns not far west and either snow-capped or clipped by sun-up orange – into the theatre by 8.30am – the light bulbs are still warm around the mirrors in dressing room number 3 and there are the 5 headpieces and wigs (out of 6) that I regularly wear to be the Dame lined up in various states of repair from previous performance – straight into the application of the ‘face’: foundation, powder, green eye-shadow applied liberally and in a large pear shape about each eye, false eye-lashes on next, and then I draw fake eye-brows and lashes beneath the eye to give the camp expression of surprise and mockery, finally the cheeks are rouges into clownish red circles and the heart-shape ‘kiss’ is applied to the center of the lips – from then on we are into the performances (2 per day) and the first of my 7 costume changes – 40 minute turnaround between the two shows – the kids pile in and scream the place down – at the end of the day everything is wiped down, my ‘face’ is removed, the sweat dries on the body, make-up messed and smeared, and back to neutrality beneath waiting to pick ‘her’ up again tomorrow, to play havoc again and cause mini-riots in rows A to E and back.