Trousers down, trousers up
By the time I show up at Glyndebourne for the start of Season 2019, the remarkable, intricate machinery of the Festival has already been rumbling along for about six weeks, since rehearsals began back in the chilly mornings of March. But it’s only now, in late April, that the costumes are ready to put in an appearance and the dressers have been summoned. Every year, when I step through the stage door on my first day back, it feels as if no time has passed at all, and everything in this backstage world of wonder feels intimately familiar. The whiff of flowers from the stage door desk. The cheery smiles from the security staff, the squeak of wheels on a double bass case, laughter echoing in the lift shaft.
The Circle Level kitchen stinks of instant coffee, and both the kettles are rattling furiously, belching steam. Shy spring sunlight is shining through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in the green room as, bleary-eyed and winter-worn, the dressers greet each other with hugs and high, giggly voices. I receive compliments on my new water flask, so we are off to a good start. Pretty soon, the team of eighteen women has gathered, and we have pulled together a motley collection of squashy armchairs and stools for a day of ‘dresser training’ - a reacquaintance with the various whys and wherefores of the job, and an introduction to the shows that we will be working on.
When people ask my colleague Blossom what the job of theatrical dresser entails, she replies, ‘trousers down, trousers up!’ And, well, yes, that pretty much covers it. We are essentially there to get the performers in and out of their costumes, particularly with the quick-changes, which can often feel a bit like a Formula One pit-stop when stage management are standing by, counting down the seconds as you fly through fiddly buttons and stiff catches in the light of your head-torch. The more pastoral elements of the position are not normally listed in the job description — but if you are able to stay calm, keep a clear head and form a bond of trust with the artists you’re working with, I’d say you’re off to a good start.
This morning, I am epically tired after a finishing a commission to a tight deadline, but Boss Lucy has brought in a pile of jam tarts and French Fancies, and I lurch through the morning of admin on a whizzing sugar rush, crumbs sparkling on my fingers.
We get a rundown on how not to make social media blunders when sharing opera-related content. Contracts and health-and-safety forms are exchanged, security pass-cards are handed out, and lockers are assigned.
When we break for lunch, I take my shiny new lanyard and head over to the Nether Wallop restaurant (a fancy turn of phrase for a kick in the groin?). I fill a little cardboard box from a selection of salads, and take it to a hidden corner in the gardens, where I lie down for a sunlit nap among the daisies and bluebells, feeling like a flower fairy.
The afternoon is all about Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, which is being directed by Richard Jones. Crammed into ‘the mothership’ — the top-floor rooms that comprise the headquarters of the Running Wardrobe department (so-called because we look after the costumes during the running of the show), we crowd around a computer monitor and watch a video recording of Jones giving a model-box presentation of his vision for the production. He reaches into a perfectly scaled down model of the set design and moves tiny pieces of scenery around, while his costume designer Nicky Gillibrand flaps costume drawings at the small assembled audience. I am blown away by the story — a soul is sold to the devil in a bid for the romantic dream! Maligned spirits! Drugs made from magical flowers!
We venture down to the costume store in the basement of the building to take a look at the costumes, dangling from black-painted float rails among a forest of moth traps. Beneath the harsh glare of fluorescent strip lights, the astonishing, painstaking work that’s gone into the costumes is plain to see. Not much is ready yet though, apart from some eye-popping codpieces for the dancers, which come complete with rampant pubic hair spilling out around the edges.
Next, we file upstairs and pass through a magical red door with a sign on it that reads, Silence. Stage. On the other side, is another world. I always feel a rush of goosebumps when I step onto the stage. This is where the real magic actually happens, and as we stand about in the wings, I can feel the atmosphere literally humming with it. A rehearsal is happening in the main stage area, so we creep around as quietly as we can, our shoes soft on the black hardwood, murmuring to each other in low voices. The ‘workers’ are up — strip lights that flood everything with bright luminosity, so we can clearly see what we are looking at. I crane my head back and stare up into the labyrinthe of rigging and flies high above our heads, and marvel at all the trussing, cables, ropes, and machinery that I don’t understand. Boss Lucy points out where our quick change booths will be set up in the wings, and this is where many of us will spend most of the duration of the show, camped out in our ‘backstage blacks’ so that we won’t show up amid the shadows and glitter-laced dust.
Finally, we slip through a secret door in the back of the kitchen to sneak into the auditorium, quietly tripping over empty seats and hidden steps in the dark as we peek at the rehearsal in progress. Faust himself, played by tenor Allan Clayton, is on the stage, dressed in a black T shirt, baggy jeans and trainers. He is already managing to imbue his wild eyes and even wilder hair with pathos and poignancy, while a répétiteur’s billiard-ball head bobs at a glossy, black grand piano in the pit. Meanwhile, the dressers are hissing in the shadows about when the next staff bus will leave, and a little while later, we slink out to catch it.