My introduction to Cambridge student theatre was, aptly, Shakespeare. In Freshers’ Week, I caught the home run of Romeo and Juliet upon its return from a month-long American stage tour; opportunities like this, I remember thinking, were why I applied to Cambridge. Almost two years on, I write to you from the lakeside cricket buzz of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – sleep-deprived, covered in bug bites, and immensely grateful to be here.
As idyllic as my Instagram story highlights may seem, taking a show on the road is no mean feat. Travelling through approximately 12 states in 24 days and performing a show as emotionally demanding as Macbeth almost daily – not to mention tech, dress, and constant re-blocking – is intense. Despite this, we found that the pace of tour life encouraged us to think on our feet, and adapting to new and often challenging venues made our performances more malleable. Without the burden of restrictive staging, we had room to focus solely on our characters, resulting in a show that is – bar some incredible sound and lighting design – fundamentally reliant on its performers.
“Without the burden of restrictive staging, we had room to focus solely on our characters”
Our tour began in Massachusetts, where we arrived at a small cinema in Salem and were greeted by a slither of a stage and frustratingly dampened acoustics. The carpeted floor meant no fake blood (and considerable carpet burns), so we re-choreographed the murder scenes to include snapped necks and clean blows to the head. It seemed every location offered a new challenge, even before our flight to Boston. During our Cambridge preview at Town and Gown, the pub’s volume forced us to press our ears to the stage doors to hear our entrances, and the large ballroom space at the University Arms required us to enter from behind the audience, where we sat in pitch-black silence for the show’s duration. We found tentative comfort in the disorder, and were unnerved by easier venues like the grand auditorium at Frostburg State.
It wasn’t just the venues that proved difficult: Salem saw us out with a bang when one of our witches broke her toe on a doorframe. With just hours before opening, our director was forced to learn the entire part on the floor of a cinema that reeked of buttered popcorn. Inexplicably, the show went off without a hitch, setting the tone for a run that would face its fare share of mishaps.
“Salem saw us out with a bang when one of our witches broke her toe on a doorframe”
Partial responsibility for this success must be given to the sheer amount of preparation we had for the run. In glaring contrast to the, at generous maximum, five weeks of rehearsals that are typical in Cambridge theatre, we received our parts back in March, and have been in on-and-off rehearsals ever since. By the end of the home run, we’ll have performed to 20 audiences; we know this play front-to-back and back-to-front, and that leaves a lot of room to get creative. Take a lunchtime performance at a high school in Harrisburg: at the behest of the staff, we performed the banquet scene to unsuspecting teenagers in their cafeteria. What really should have been a humiliation ritual felt electric, with our Macbeth playing into their uncomfortable laughter. He raised a toast to the audience with a milk carton stolen from a teenage girl (which she later asked him to sign), and Lady Macbeth exited to cries of “beat him!”
Outside of the show, the tour has been a process of opening myself up to new experiences, meeting new people, and learning as much about a place as you can in a few days. We rarely brought up politics (though it was often brought up to us), and were treated with exceptional kindness and civility everywhere we went. Our hosts were so gracious in welcoming us to their homes: more than willing to do our laundry, take us on hikes around local trails, and even, in one case, treat us to a Michelin Star lunch. In Salem, my hosts drove all the way to Boston to bring me some of their favourite gourmet chocolates, and I left Pennsylvania stacked with boxes of Thin Mints after my (admittedly dramatic) reaction to being served them for dessert.
“‘Without the barre,’ he told us, ‘you’re on your own out there. You’ve got to rely on yourself’”
Moving around so much has only brought us closer to one another. In Little Washington, Virginia, we accompanied our host to her weekly ballet class. Philip, the instructor, was full of wisdom. “Without the barre,” he told us, “you’re on your own out there. You’ve got to rely on yourself.” With minimal set, open roads, and only the show to guide us, you really have no choice but to lean on each other. Amid the Sour Patch sugar rushes of show days and the inevitable lull of hours on the road, we developed absurd inside jokes and a bond far stronger than our six months of friendship might suggest.
My tour experience was cut short by a family emergency and an early flight home. Six members of the cast drove me eight hours to Pittsburgh airport, and drove promptly back on no sleep and mostly-empty stomachs to perform the next show in my mum’s honour. CAST isn’t just about performing, it’s about community, whether you find it in the hosts, the audiences, or the cast members who make up our tour family – family in the loosest sense, we’re still not past discussions of a CAST orgy. The Cambridge American Stage Tour is student theatre at its scrappiest, sustained by the camaraderie of its cast and crew. If you’re the tentative fresher in the audience this year, get excited – this is what awaits.
Macbeth is showing at the ADC from Tuesday 7th to Saturday 11th October, at 7:45pm, with a matinee performances on the 9th.
