{"id":1496,"date":"2019-10-07T10:31:43","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T14:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2019-10-22T10:15:27","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T14:15:27","slug":"twelfth-night-fall-2019-tour-entry-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/shakespeare\/twelfth-night-fall-2019-tour-entry-9\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTwelfth Night\u201d Fall 2019 Tour: Entry #9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week Nine: San Antonio, Texas<\/strong>
\nBy Kaffe Keating<\/p>\n

\u201cHow now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?\u201d<\/em>
\n– Olivia, Act 1, Scene 5<\/p>\n

Texas is hot. In London at this time of year it\u2019s usually getting cold on the street, and the little blasts of heat you get from the open door of a shop give you a brief reprieve from the chill. Here, it\u2019s the opposite; the sun beats down and you\u2019re grateful for the jets of cool, conditioned air which stream out of bars and caf\u00e9s and stores as you melt along. Then a bloke in jeans and cowboy boots walks past you, not a bead of sweat to be seen. The mind boggles.<\/p>\n

We sit on a sliding scale of heat-appreciation in this company. Claire, who will happily sit by the hotel pool under the midday sun for hours and who would surreptitiously turn off the fans in the sweltering rehearsal room in Brixton, and Katherine, who has been known to physically celebrate at the smallest sign of rain and the ensuing promise of a dip in temperature, are at opposing ends of the spectrum. I, along with Al and Jono, seem to sit more comfortably in the middle, although we\u2019re all avoiding having the air con on in our rooms overnight. Dries the throat, darling. Also, constantly moving from warm to hot air is bound to make us ill\u2026<\/p>\n

This week is slightly unusual in a really exciting way. Instead of doing all three of our performances on the university campus, we\u2019ll be performing for one night at the Empire Theatre, downtown in the heart of the city. This is the first time AFTLS will have had the opportunity to play this theatre and hopefully, if it goes well (and if it sells!), it could potentially become a permanent fixture of the tour in years to come.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>San Antonio is a gorgeous city. Home to the Alamo and several other old Spanish missions, there\u2019s a lot of history here. There\u2019s also the River Walk, a series of walkways on each side of the San Antonio River, which snakes through the city below street level. As cars pass over bridges above, you\u2019re free to wander along its man-made banks. There are, of course, sections which get quite touristy and the peace will occasionally be broken by a guide\u2019s amplified voice as they describe certain historical intricacies to the passengers of their tour boat, but if you wander a little further on there\u2019s a unique beauty to be enjoyed. A highlight for us was stumbling upon the Arneson River Theatre, where amphitheatre seating has been carved into the bank on one side of the river, and a stage laid out on the other. Conversation quickly turned to all the possibilities this could offer: \u201cYou could do The Tempest<\/em>, and actually have the first scene on a ship in the river!\u201d \u201cYeah, but you\u2019d have to watch out for tour boats though…\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re walking around, seeing the sights, when Katherine mentions that her legs are beginning to feel like lead, that she\u2019s feeling faint and that she\u2019s probably going to need to find somewhere with some air-con. It is very warm. We eventually duck into a comparatively frigid Starbucks, which seems to do the trick. We put the odd spell down to the heat, and the fact that we\u2019re all now beginning to feel the long-term fatigue of a job like this. Moving every week from city to city, from hotel room to hotel room, while being exciting and stimulating, is also tiring and physically draining, and unless we really look after ourselves we\u2019ll inevitably get run down.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the next day, the day of the show at the Empire, when Katherine gives us some bad news. She\u2019s been feeling feverish and she\u2019s got white spots on the back of her throat, the tell-tale signs of an infection. We all take turns shoving our heads in her mouth with our phone flashes on to take a good look, each providing our own amateur diagnosis as we do. The word \u2018Tonsillitis\u2019, the actor\u2019s nightmare, does the rounds. No wonder she was feeling terrible yesterday; for someone who isn\u2019t a fan of the heat, a bacteria-driven temperature in the Texas sun isn\u2019t going to be a fun experience.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all checking our own throats now (\u201cNo, but look at mine now, can you see any spots?\u201d), but a nasty cough Al\u2019s been fighting off and Claire\u2019s ruby tinge of sunburn (about which she is in firm denial) aside, the rest of us seem to be in the clear. For Katherine, simultaneously performing two meaty roles in a Shakespeare play with a throat infection is not ideal, but the show must go on. We pack into the car \u2013 Katherine bravely popping a few paracetamol and ibuprofen \u2013 and trundle down to the Empire to tech the show in the space.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re welcomed warmly by Rob and the other stage-hands at the Empire\u2019s stage door. They ask us if we need them to open the loading dock so we can bring in our set. We tell them we\u2019ll be fine, as we pop the trunk and lift out our blue wheelie suitcase full of umbrellas, hats and fake bits of garlic.<\/p>\n

The Empire is a lovely theatre. It marries the grandeur of a West End-style proscenium arch with the intimacy of a smaller auditorium. We learn we\u2019ve sold around 500 tickets, brilliant news, more than enough to make this space hum nicely with energy. Luckily, we don\u2019t have the task of filling the theatre next door, to which the Empire is connected by a short corridor: the aptly named \u2018Majestic\u2019. We\u2019re treated to being able to look around the bigger of the two brothers. It\u2019s massive, seating over 2,500 at maximum capacity, and decorated with incredible detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about that upper balcony, is that in use?\u201d one of us asks Rob, noticing the highest seating area, which is almost impossible to spot from the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not any more. It\u2019s the old segregation section.\u201d He replies, shaking his head slightly. We stare blankly at him, so he continues. \u201cIt\u2019s got its own entrance and doesn\u2019t connect to the rest of the auditorium. It\u2019s not been used since the 50s.\u201d A relic of past racism, threaded into the very design of the theatre. Here, then, this kind of discrimination was so far entrenched as to dictate the actual architecture of the building.<\/p>\n

Still, the journey that that realisation sends you on notwithstanding, it\u2019s a beautiful theatre. Here\u2019s a quick video Al made from both stages to give you an idea. If you look closely, you\u2019ll catch a view of the now defunct balcony in the top reaches of the Majestic.<\/p>\n