On Ash Clouds and Oleanna

I am two performances through our six performance season of Oleanna. I still have not performed with my co-star.
It's a little ridiculous. By which I mean, of course, that it is COMPLETELY ridiculous.

We are a cast of two. Two people on the stage. One person is missing? and half the goddamn cast is gone.

On Monday CoStar flew to Australia for work. Of course he managed to get there just fine. The Ash Cloud only wanted to fuck my shit up, obviously. He was due back at midnight Tuesday. We organised to have a run through on Wednesday night, the night before we opened, so that we could erase the shambles that was last Sunday's rehearsal from our minds.

Mid-afternoon Wednesday we heard he would not be back for that night's rehearsal. The ash cloud was cancelling flights left right and centre. Our esteemed director took up the mantle, and a script, and read the lines for me.

CoStar thought he would be back mid-morning Thursday. So I arranged to take half the afternoon off work, to meet up at the performance site, to run the play before that evening's opening night.

I think you can see where this is going. Mid-morning Thursday we heard he would NOT be back for that evening's performance.
Still, we met in the afternoon, and it was decided that we couldn't just cancel. The director, thankfully a very skilled actor in his own right, would do as he had done and read the lines. We would have to offer refunds or rainchecks to another night. But it was the best we could do.

The performance ran without a hitch. Despite the moment when I skipped half a page of script. Oops. But most importantly, noone asked for their money back, or to attend on another night. The director is really just that good. It didn't matter that he had a small paperback in his hand 90% of the time.

Last night was the second performance. Again, CoStar was a no-show.
I'm being uncharitable. I'm sure he would have been there if he could. But the ash cloud ...

I woke this morning to news that he is in the country. He is IN THE COUNTRY. He has only missed 1/3 of the performances.

Now I'm just hanging out to hear what time we are meeting for a run through before tonight ...