HOW BAD IS THIS? YOU’RE FEELING VERY TIRED THE MORNING AFTER A SHOW AND INSTEAD OF HAVING TO GET UP, SOMEONE TAKES YOUR BED FOR A DRIVE THROUGH THE NEW ENGLAND LEAVES. YOU HAVE YOUR FAVORITE CD on the stereo: The Academy of Ancient Music by Request; and Neville Marriner is revving up the best of Bach and Glück and Handel and blue suede Schubert as you float down the mighty roadsides of North America. You’re being driven through the heart of New England in a queen-sized bed in a big, wide bus. I tell you, sometimes this trip seems like a magic carpet ride. We’re traveling through deeply wooded country along the Mass Turnpike. Black slate cliffs plunge at crazy angles under the road. We’re barreling through acres of woodlands of cranberry colors and yellow trees and the bright bark of the birches. Sudden still ponds reflect the sodden gray sky, and everywhere the knitting colors of the woods are interspersed with the dark peaks of the evergreens. Sometimes we churn through deep channels of forest to emerge briefly into wide pastures, where patient brown cattle stand in the damp meadows. In the distance misty mounds of hills are laced with light rain. We squeeze through endless tollbooths, James Taylor songs in mind: “And so was the Turnpike from Stockridge to Boston.”11
An English sky is low and lowering as we pull into the third truck stop this morning. Someone needs the bathroom. There’s a huge, rusty semitrailer parked: MOBILE CHAPEL, it says on the side, TRANSPORT FOR CHRIST. He must be inside having breakfast, as it’s deserted. It’s starting to rain, slanting gray streaks across the windows, trying to snow already. Yoiks—it is snowing.
The Egg at Albany is ovoid. That’s a clever way to say “egg-shaped.” It was apparently built by Nelson Rockefeller to impress foreigners. It succeeds. This foreigner looks around for a huge cement Chicken theater nearby, but no luck. So clearly the Egg came first.
A gigantic egg is an unlikely shape to find sprouting among tall buildings on a hill above the Hudson. There were three Eggs in the world once and this is the last left standing. (You can’t make a Hamlet without breaking Eggs?) It is referred to in all our tour notes as a U.S. government facility. Makes it sound like a prison. The theater is ultramodern; high-tech heaven, with an elliptical freight elevator that leads directly to the back wall of the stage and a couple of perfectly round elevators. Inside, the loveliest plush red auditorium folds around the inside walls and reminds us that the womb is a soft egg as well as very comforting. This is the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre. I once met her in Barbados, a lovely lady, very jolly and very funny. How nice to have a theater named after you. The Eric Idle Theater. The Eric Idle Egg. The Old Yolks Home….
Our buses are parked deep in the bowels of the loading bay; with a constant scream of cars zooming through an underpass all day—no place to stay. John and I reconnoiter Albany, which has historic buildings from the seventeenth century. This is the state capital and there is a nice graystone, turreted, castellated building, a classic Greek columned gallery, and of course the mighty Hudson River. We go to Jack’s for oysters and clam chowder and then back into our routine:
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4:30 |
Onstage for sound check and rehearsal. (Today we restage “The Getty Song.”) | |
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5:30 |
Dinner for cast and crew. Salmon and scallops in the Ladies Chorus Room. (Sadly, no ladies, just the scent of former intrigue.) Ribaldry and ribbing, banter and teasing with Scott, Skip, Peter, Jen, John, etc. | |
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6:10 |
Nap for ten minutes. | |
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6:30 |
Weightlifting and exercises to pump up and wake up. | |
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7:00 |
Shower (bliss). | |
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7:10 |
Makeup. | |
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7:20 |
Larry Mah comes in at T minus ten to tape the radio mike to my back. | |
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7:25 |
Final wardrobe check. Silk Prada dressing gown on. Yeah, baby. | |
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Beginners, please! |