By Tarek Alvi
My knees cracked loudly as I slid off my chair and crouched in the darkness. The chair made a dull thump sound as its seat snapped back into a neutral position. When the theatre is silent, every little noise sounds like a cap gun being fired into a mausoleum, especially when it’s caused by your own actions. I imagined every head in the room turning to glare at the cause of the interruption of their immersion in the Senior School production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as I carefully crept down off the small platform in an awkward squatting position and semi-blindly reached for the off switch of the amp with my left hand, all the while keeping my right hand firmly against the surface of the volume antenna of the theremin. I fumbled around on the speaker until I felt the button, and after a small click, I could relax. This happened every single time I finished playing a piece, which occurred about 10 times total throughout those 105 minutes. Every single time that happened, my knees audibly conveyed their pain, and by the end of the show, I was vowing never to play the theremin for Dr. Newton ever again for the sake of my joints.
I originally got the role of thereminist in the play after volunteering to be the backstage manager in the tech crew, but seeing that nobody else was interested in playing the theremin, I decided to take up that spot as I didn’t want to miss such a good opportunity to play an instrument that I was interested in.
There were problems from the start. I tried to use some online tutorials to improve my technique, but the model that I used was too small for it to be very helpful, so I ended up fiddling with the controls until I figured it out. Dr. Newton also assigned me a few songs to master for the play by emailing me YouTube links. The first few were simple orchestral arrangements of songs that I’d heard before, but for some reason, the last few were progressively more difficult. The final link he sent me was accompanied by the encouraging message, “Maybe you could replicate what this guy is doing.” Clicking on the link, I found myself faced with a thereminist playing on a huge expensive model with very articulate hand movements. Further research found that he had been playing the theremin for longer than I’d been alive. Dr. Newton seemed to have very high expectations of me. Did I mention that he gave this role to me a month away from the performance? I had never even touched a theremin before!
One of the most daunting undertakings was actually incorporating the theremin into the physical set of the play in a clean fashion. It ended up involving borrowing a tall swivel chair from the Junior School, a large wooden box to put the theremin on, and a small amp that the theremin was supposed to be plugged into, but its original power cord was too short to reach the socket. Thus, the nest of extension cords coiled around the amp like a haphazard structure built by a robotic bird to protect its oddly cubic child. Despite all the brainpower that went into coordinating the volume of the instrument, the best strategy we could come up with for keeping the theremin quiet when it wasn’t being played was also the most uncomfortable for the actual thereminist, as described at the beginning of this narrative. But it worked, and that’s all that mattered.
When I practiced the theremin in the theatre, the room was comfortably warm with a lighting atmosphere that encouraged productivity, but more importantly, it was quiet. When I practiced at home, I plugged earbuds into the instrument to block out any excessive noise so that I could focus. The instrument itself is extremely sensitive to the point where the slightest movement can make the note jump an entire octave, so concentration is key. This information will be important to keep in mind when I describe the next step of the rehearsing process: communication with the tech crew.
The tech crew really runs the show, from the people backstage whisper-yelling at the actors because they missed their cue by 0.02 seconds to the people in the lights and sound booth who spend most of the show gaming, occasionally glancing up in annoyance and pressing a button on the console when they receive a command from the stage manager. The stage manager is the overlord of the whole circus, sitting in the shadows with meticulous notes on who goes where and what happens at what time.
But there needs to be a way for him to communicate all of these directions to the people who need to hear them. This is where the headsets came in. Each member of the tech crew received a pair of headsets to keep them in contact with each other and the stage manager. As the thereminist, I was considered part of the sound department, so I received a pair that I was forced to wear the entire time so that the stage manager could tell me my cues. The headsets were designed to relay instructions to people in an environment where nobody can see anybody else, such as a dark theatre. In an ideal world, all that you would hear while wearing a headset would be the mic check at the beginning of the play, then a series of commands received and acknowledged, situation reports from backstage during a costume change, and proactive thinking communicated during times of crisis. In an ideal world, that is. As anyone who has ever been in a public lobby of Call Of Duty knows, if you put a microphone in front of a child, they sure as hell will say the most out-of-pocket things they can possibly think of, knowing that someone is going to be hearing that on the other end. So while all the things that I previously mentioned did happen, a lot of jokes were had as well.
Let’s quickly recap:
1. The theremin is a very sensitive instrument that requires a lot of focus to play.
2. I have to wear a headset connected to the stage manager so he can tell me when to play.
3. That headset is also connected to the other members of the tech crew, some of whom are very prone to making jokes over the comms…
I think you can tell where this is going.
One of the things that I had to do as the thereminist was play a filler piece to entertain the audience while some of the cast members went backstage to change their costumes. This was supposed to take about 2-3 minutes (although during the dress rehearsal, it ended up being around 10 minutes because they got locked out of the changeroom, and nobody had a key). The first performance of the play went alright, even though I made a couple of mistakes due to nerves, but then again, everyone made mistakes due to nerves. I guess that also made it a learning experience which we all benefited from greatly. During the second performance, we were much more relaxed and free-flowing. I carried that mood into the filler piece of the performance. Everything was going fine until I heard the click of a mic over the headset.
“Jerry just farted in the light booth. For just $2 a day, you can save a Goran from further atrocities.”
The sound of muffled giggling entered my ears, and I refused to stop, despite the stage manager’s repeated commands of “clear comms, clear comms.” A confused mix of emotions bubbled up inside of me, sending my brain into a tailspin. Part of me wanted to jam my finger down on the talk button and yell at them, which was especially hard considering that I need both of my hands to play the theremin. Part of me tried to stop myself from laughing because I’d start making mistakes if my body started shaking. There was also a literal spotlight shining on me so part of me was trying to maintain a neutral facial expression, to no avail. I pushed on through the distractions, albeit with more slip-ups made than I’d have liked. When the laughing subsided, Goran mustered up the sheer audacity to say, “Hey Tarek, if you want to stop playing, just tell us through the comms, and we’ll turn off the spotlight.” The part of me that wanted to yell at him flared back up inside of me, but I tried to keep things cool on the outside. An eternity seemed to pass. Finally, after about 3 minutes, the backstage manager gave the all-clear, and I got the cue to stop. After turning off the theremin as quickly as I could, I began whispering all the things I wanted to say into my headset.
“Goran, I swear to God, bro, that was not cool, okay? Like, first you break the number one rule that I set down by telling a joke, not only distracting me but also making me laugh which is the last thing a thereminist wants to happen during a performance. Second, you just had to ask me if I wanted to stop by….”
Yadda yadda yadda.
Over the sound of the actors speaking, I heard a squeak slip out of someone’s mouth backstage. I couldn’t see anyone, but I’m pretty sure their faces were turning blue from holding in their reactions. Goran nearly managed to derail the entire performance, but on the surface, it still appeared to be running smoothly, and before we knew it, Puck was giving their final remarks on restoring amends and the cast was bowing. The audience was applauding, and Andrew Samworth was giving a speech. He thanked everyone but the tech crew, and although we were pretty miffed about that, we still congratulated each other over the comms.
It was a rickety ride behind the scenes, but against all odds, we had managed to pull it off.
The Howlander 