Читать книгу The Gap Year(s) - Nathy Gaffney - Страница 10

Anonymous with show business, this saying actually originated in the 19th century in circuses. The understanding being that, if during a performance a wild beast got loose or an acrobat plummeted to an unfortunate end, the band would play merrily on so as to distract the audience from any potential disaster and prevent panic. And it goes even further, as…

“It is a point of honor not to let the other players down by deserting them when no understudy is available.” (Cambridge Idioms Dictionary. 2006)

All showbiz people also know this edict to be true.

My first professional role out of acting school (which is a huge deal) was in 1984. I was twenty years old and performing in a production of Love for Love – a Restoration comedy by William Congreve – for the Royal Queensland Theatre Company. This was when I first experienced the true meaning of that later statement.

I was playing Miss Prue – a silly, awkward country girl with an ample bosom and an amply bawdy personality to match. I came complete with a corset so tight I could rest my chin in my cleavage and red frizzy hair reminiscent of Nicole Kidman in BMX Bandits, and it happened partway through the first act in a scene with the character of Tattle – the aptly named, gossiping, vain philanderer – when he was lustfully wrestling me on a chaise lounge in an attempt to gain access to my bountiful bust. In the rough and tumble of our romantic encounter, while doing my best to resist his ardent advances, I snagged a fingernail on a screwhead sticking out of the lounge, ripping off my entire nail.

Whilst I was aware of the searing pain, the thespian’s mantra played on in my subconscious – The show must go on! – and the expectant and delighted faces I could see in the front few rows of the audience, who in that moment were relying on me to keep them suspended in disbelief, kept me focused on the task at hand. Shrieking while the amorous Tattle ravaged my plump bosom,

I dared to peek down momentarily at my finger to check out the damage, only to see blood covering my hand and dripping all over the satin upholstery.

Thank god for our self-administering wonder-drug, Adrenalin! No sooner did I spot the blood than I shoved my hand into the folds of my costume and finished the scene one-handed (and white-faced). Having witnessed the unscripted bloodletting from the wings, the stage manager was standing by to assist me once I rushed offstage at the end of the scene, where I promptly fainted into his arms. Diva moment complete.

There is something heroic about continuing on with a course of action when all about you is in chaos and ruin, and following my marriage break-up, I was digging really deep to ‘get to the end of the scene’ (in this case, the separation and ‘what comes next’ phase).

And whilst I wasn’t bleeding like a stuck pig or losing fingernails, I was haemorrhaging money (I didn’t have).

As an actor, I knew my chosen profession (although whether it chose me, I cannot be sure, given that she was a fickle mistress at best) was not one you went into for the love of a regular income stream.

It’s no surprise that, away from the glamour of red carpets and photo shoots, the vast majority of working Australian actors struggle to make ends meet. According to Actors Equity (the entertainment industry union), onen four live below the poverty line. The union’s figures estimate that just five percent of Aussie performers bank the average annual wage of $82,500 (as of 2018). While many actors supplement their acting income with non industry related jobs – everything from waitressing, gigs in retail, hospitality, aged care, and tele-sales to name but a few – I had been fortunate enough to create not one but two businesses over the years, which generally allowed me to pursue my passion.

My two business partnerships during my marriage provided entertainment for corporate and special events. We wrote, produced, and performed mini (30-40 minute ) musical comedy productions to entertain and reward those who had been dulled by the standard conference offerings of a speaker followed by a presentation followed by death by PowerPoint. I loved the creative combination of writing, producing, and performing shows, as well as the control it afforded me over when, where, and how I worked. Not to mention the glamour factor: With Sydney’s top drag queens designing our costumes and wigs, it was sequins, corsets, and false lashes at 50 paces (and until the global financial crisis had hit in 2008, the money and the travel hadn’t been bad, either).

Our shows were the showbiz cherry on top of the cake for corporate events. Exquisitely costumed, fully scripted and choreographed, extravagant and lavish, with acts like ‘The Super Supremes’, ‘Le Bond Femme – Shaken Not Stirred’, and ‘Queens of Country Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, and Kasey Chambers’.

They were a slick blend of musical tribute, comedy, and parody – part Vegas and part Broadway with a little bit of Saturday Night Live sprinkled on top – and we had at one time enjoyed ten years of being the darlings of the special events industry, delighting corporate audiences throughout Australia and Asia.

Sadly, in the push for austerity measures that followed the GFC, we were now seen as a ‘nice to have’, not a ‘need to have’, and as with many non-essentials at the time, demand for our full-scale productions began to wane in favour of cheaper entertainment offerings… bands, DJ’s, and the odd Australia’s Got Talent runner-up. We fared better than many, but by the time of my separation from Andy, business was struggling and my regular income stream had slowed to little more than a trickle.

I tried for as long as I could to ignore the fact that my meagre, post-separation financial resources were running out. But things were grim (and not in the fairy tale sense of the word). I’d never noticed the part on the bill that says “If you are experiencing financial difficulties, please call this number to make payment arrangements.” Even as a thespian, I’d always been a pay-thebills-on-time kinda gal, and now I was having to make that call to the power service providers in order to beg for a payment plan just to keep the lights on. It was humiliating… and, quite frankly, not part of the plan.