DIAMOND MEMORY: Stage Manager Prof. Freddie Hickling recalled his difficulty backstage Palacio de Bellas Artes on tour with the NDTC in Mexico City, Mexico | Reprinted from NDTC Newsletter IX - September, 1969
PARLEZ VOUSING EN (H)ESPANOL by Freddie Hickling
I was really asked to write a light article about various happenings back stage in Mexico, but somehow I just do not think than I can do it justice. I mean, how could anyone record with accuracy the feeling of George Carter, or myself for that matter, trying to talk Spanish in Jamaican…… “Senor, rojas focos (h)upstage right…” I mean to say, it is one thing to hear it but try and write it down noh! Well……
Poor George Carter! But what would we have done without him? All that energy, staying long hours at the theatre plotting lights during the day, doing the show at night, and then always offering a helping hand to everybody at all times. It was in Guadalajara that he really had a hard time. At the Bellas Artes in Mexico City there was always at least one person who could speak English, but in Guadalajara it was only George, me, the Almighty and Spanish! On top of that George had a little old man to deal with who didn’t know his hand parts from his elbow in Spanish let alone in English. This man, who was not a day under eighty, came hobbling in at about mid-day on the Thursday we were setting up in the Degollado Theatre. He had a little old navy blue beret cotch on one corner of his head and he start to buss heap o’ superannuated Spanish to the two of us. Not comprende-ing a word of the tongue George and I just stood up there and nodded……
Somebody had to do something – at least that’s what I decided. So I jump een. “Buenas dias” quoth I (always a good way to start a conversation I found; always put you on a good footing, it brings a smile of understanding from your listener and gives a whole heap of confidence to talk some more). “Como esta?” (still on terra firma) “Je suis le manager de la Stagero, et ici hombre est le maestro de la focos”. Well I somehow knew that something was not so right with the sentence, but I didn’t think that I had done so badly until I say the man stand up and stare at me as though I was mad. Then the stupid man gave me a little weal smile and shook his head – you know like when somebody doesn’t really understand what you are saying.
Then I decided the man must be foolish or something. I thought that maybe I was going too fast for him so I decided to slow down and deliver in my bosom, “am……the….STAGERO………MANAGERO……You know……MANAGERO de la STAGERO…….ETAGE” waving madly at the floor. “And he…….si, him”, nearly joking out George’s eye, “est la……la MAESTRO de la FOCOS………si, FOCOS” gesticulating madly at the lighting batten. “Ah, si, si, Buena” replied mine host with perspicacity and then launched forth into yet another volley of Espanol. “Raso clarto!” I contributed with a smile. “Que rasso clarto?” enquired my friend in perfect Spanish. “Oh ….buena, Buena” I offered laughing. And we all laughed in perfect understanding (!!!!????) So much for Mexican-Jamaican relations!
Fun and joke aside, that man gave George Carter a warm time. After spending three hours plotting the lights with the ‘help’ of an ‘interpreter’ provided by the theatre, George had to ask for an American girl to come and explain to the electrician – and the interpreter – exactly what he wanted. The lighting plotting barely finished, the show about to begin. When I was about to start the show I said to George “Ready George?” “Ready” was the reply. “Okay then” says I “House Lights out”. Out goes the house lights and I am waiting for Marjorie to start playing so I can put up the curtain. But no Marjorie and no music! So I poke my head outside only to see the Orchestra pit in pitch darkness. I race across the stage and bawl “George, George, the orchestra pit lights not on”. Hear George “No Man, no man they’re on! Well as I knew it I looked outside and I saw pitch darkness I looked up at him and said – “Now listen man. Don’t tell no *#%@@ that them is on, because I just look out through the %%&&## curtain and they not on. So stop the %$^&* and just turn them on”. Well at that patient George got rahtid and started to cuss me, although at the same time taking a peep to see whether the lights were off. Convinced he stopped cussing me in mid-sentence and turned madly to the maestro “Lawd man, beg you turn on the orchestra lights, quick quick.”
Remember now, the old man don’t understand and English at all. So he just looked up at George with a fixed and beady stare, and gave out some Spanish (that’s all that poor man could speak – Spanish). Anyhow George dashed over and turned on the lights himself. And so the show was able to start.
I don’t think I can write anymore for the simple reason that some of the other things that happened couldn’t really see the light of literature. But if you really want to hear them, come by one evening and we will focus on them – in English.
Note: *#%@@ refers to any of the forty shilling Jamaican expressions the reader may wish to name. now here is a real choice for you………………
Photo 1: Stage Manager Freddie Hickling, Mrs. Hickling, Ballet Mistress Yvonne DaCosta in front of the famous Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. Maria LaYacona Photography
Photo 2: The Company en-route to Mexico. Photo Gleaner Company