Copyright Oggbashan July 2003 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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It was my first professional engagement as a lead soloist. I was playing The Wicked Squire in a new opera set in mid Nineteenth Century Cornwall. Actually the opera was not very good and had too many similarities with Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore to be taken seriously. It was the first opera by a composer who had established himself by writing film music. The composer had intended his opera to be melodramatic but it was very difficult for the performers to keep from laughing at some of the dialogue.
I was very nervous. This was my big break. If this opera were to be a flop then my career would have a bad start. I was so tense and wound up that I didn't notice just how impossible I was to work with. I criticised everybody else when my tenseness was the main problem. My only excuse was that I was young and heedless.
At the climax of the opera I have to descend to "Hell" in crimson smoke. As a stage trick it is fairly simple. I stand at the exact middle of the stage on a mark. I swirl my large black cloak around me. I stamp on the floor. A cloud of smoke rises, lit by crimson spotlights. I vanish, leaving my cloak strewn on the floor.
How does it work? I'm standing on a trapdoor. When I swirl my cloak around I hook it on two small hooks attached to black threads from above the stage. I let go of the cloak and drop my head inside it, stamping my foot. The stamp is a signal for the trapdoor to open. I drop through it into a canvas trunk like an runway windsock. I slide through the trunk which slows my fall and emerge on to a metre high foam mattress like those used for landings by high jumpers or pole vaulters. I then roll off the mattress and go to my dressing room to wait for the curtain call at the end of the opera. The smoke? That is jets of carbon dioxide (dry ice). The crimson spots make them look like flames.
My costume looks like a Victorian gentleman's evening dress but is skin tight Lycra zipped at the back. It appears as black trousers and jacket with a frilled shirt. It didn't get in the way as I slide down the canvas chute. I wear the voluminous cloak on stage so the limitations of my costume don't show.
I had practised the descent into "Hell" many times. It was important that it went right. If I messed it up, the whole point of the opera would be lost and with it the audience's belief that the drama is meaningful. I could wreck my career, the composer's opera and the work of all my colleagues in that one moment. It was a heavy responsibility for a first solo performance and I felt the load.
OK. I admit it. I was a pain to my co-stars, the chorus, the stagehands, everybody. I was scared stiff and couldn't relax. I had upset everybody.
Irene, the soprano, tried to calm me down.
"Drake, you must lighten up. You are too tense and it shows. You are ruining your performance and mine."
Irene kissed me lightly on the cheek.
"You are a dear boy, and you will be a good performer, but not as you have been the last few days. Go and get drunk with the boys, or find a nice chorus girl to give you a cuddle. Please?"
"Thank you for your concern, Irene," I said stiffly. "but I am sure I can manage."
I swept off just as if I was in character as the wicked squire. At that point I didn't realise that I had made up Irene's mind. She decided that I needed to be taught a lesson about tact, courtesy and team work. She went to see the stage manager and the seamstress.
I should have listened to Irene. I adored her, as did most of the cast and crew. She had realised early in her career that her voice would never allow her to be in the top few sopranos, so she concentrated on her stagecraft and her professional approach. She was an impeccable performer, never ill, never late, never demanding, and always willing to help others to learn. She was working constantly because producers could rely on her even if other soloists were being difficult. She was nearly old enough to be my mother but she treated me as an equal.
Next day was a run through of the final act including my descent. We would do the whole act non-stop. After a break for lunch the performance would be assessed with the producer, director and whole cast watching the video of how it would appear to the audience. The first assessment would be with the chorus and crew, then a separate one with the soloists, then a final joint review with all of us. Then we would repeat the act, trying to pick up where improvements had been suggested.
The run through was tense. My nervousness and irritability had affected everyone. As always, Irene was off-stage for my descent. She returns to the stage for the finale about ten minutes after my disappearance.
My descent was perfect. The cloak hooked up properly, the smoke rose, I dropped through the trapdoor. Then things changed. As I emerged from the canvas chute I passed straight into some silky black material until my feet hit the end and the material detached from the end of the chute.
As I hit the mattress I saw Irene's face above me. She pulled on a cord and the black material tightened closely around my neck. I wanted to protest but she slapped a piece of black duct tape over my mouth, stifling my words. I looked down. From feet to neck I was inside a black satin bag, now tightly tied around my neck.
Irene pulled on several other cords sewn at intervals down the sack. As she pulled on each one the bag tightened around me, lashing my arms and legs against my body. Within a few seconds of leaving the chute I was helplessly bound and gagged inside a black satin bag.
I heard a rumble of wheels. I turned my head towards the noise. Irene had brought a large wheeled wicker laundry basket alongside the metre high mattress. She opened the lid and pulled out rustling mountains of white taffeta petticoats. She pushed my bound body off the mattress into the laundry basket. I landed face down on more taffeta petticoats that cushioned my fall.
I wriggled as best I could to get my face clear. I had just turned my head towards the top of the basket when Irene appeared clutching the other petticoats. She dumped them on top of me, smothering me under them. From the varied perfumes coming from the petticoats I realised that these were dirty ones waiting to be washed. I felt the pressure as Irene pushed the petticoats down on me and closed the lid before bolting it in place.
Apart from the cords securing the satin bag, the petticoats were so tightly packed that I couldn't move at all. I felt and heard the basket being rumbled along the corridor towards the dressing rooms. A door opened and I was wheeled into a room. The door was shut.
"Drake," Irene said "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm leaving you in my dressing room until I'm ready to let you out. While you are waiting, you can think about what an absolute nuisance you have been to everyone today."
I couldn't reply. Even without the duct tape over my mouth, the petticoats were stuffed so tightly around me that my mouth would have been filled as soon as I opened it. I heard the door shut behind her.
