Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

— W. B. Yeats

Marty is going to be on stage for the first time in years.  He has a small part in Tokyo International Players production of Macbeth, which opens on October 13th.  I will be helping out with costumes and wardrobe, so hopefully I’ll still get a chance to watch the play.

I did see a scene, between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, acted out last night at the Improvazilla Mainstage Show and it was excellent.

I read my hundredth book of the year last week.  Last year I saw this milestone coming and picked what I thought was an appropriate book, but there was no planning this year.

As The Beast Sleeps, is a play by Northern Irish playwright Gary Mitchell.  I didn’t find it easy to read.  Not because of the writing or the language, which is wonderfully authentic, but because the play is set in loyalist North Belfast after the peace process.  The play deals with brutal in-fighting between members of the loyalist paramilitaries as they struggle to deal with the changing environment in Northern Ireland.

Living in Japan I can often forget about Northern Irish culture.  I don’t dwell on certain aspects of my childhood, but this play brought back memories of living in North Belfast, some of which I had buried.

My friend, Christiane Brew, was playing the part of “Her Ladyship” in The Dresser.  She had the quickest costume change in the show, when she had 5 and half minutes to get from her King Lear character of Cordelia back to her civilian 1940s costume.  She decided to record the change, so that people could see what goes on back stage.  You get to see me frown a lot, but the change went smoothly and she made her cue.

I messed up badly in rehearsal tonight.  I was singing a love song.  It’s a poignant song about lovers who thought that they would be better apart, but have come to the conclusion that they want to be together.  It doesn’t work if you burst out laughing when your scene partner looks at you.  We didn’t manage any type of sincere love, hopefully it will go better next time.

 

The Dresser opened last night at Black Stripe Theater. The play, by Ronald Harwood, tells the story of an aging actor’s personal assistant, who is struggling to keep the actor’s life together.  I have been responsible for costumes and wardrobe, which does mean I get to be the dresser at The Dresser.

It’s been a lot of work for everyone involved, but worth it, given how well the show went last night.  It’s the first time I’ve been a lead costumer and I was concerned about my fairly basic sewing skills.  I still get scared every time I have to cut fabric, sewing can mostly be undone, but cutting is permanent.  I was also surprised that I got nervous before the show.  I know that always happens when I have to perform, but it never occurred to me that being responsible for how actors looked would also feel like a type of performance.  Thankfully they all looked good and the costume changes happened as expected.

I enjoyed making the hats and head dresses.  My favourite is the wild flower crown, which looks surprisingly good for something made from materials bought from my local 100 円 ($1) store.

I’m getting fed up going to the dentist.  Today’s visit didn’t go well as the area around the root canal appears to be infected and there is a deep gum pocket.  I’m still waiting on the cap.  The dentist mentioned the possibility of having to remove the tooth, even though I had the expensive root canal treatment.  My next appointment is in just under 2 weeks.  It seems endless.

I have had a crack in one of my back molars for years.  This didn’t seem to be causing a problem but my dentist told me that it needed to be capped and not just filled.  At the start of that appointment my tooth wasn’t sore, but once the dentist had finished exploring with a drill that was no longer true.  He also wasn’t able to cap the tooth as he suspected I need a root canal treatment.

Having the root canal took two appointments with an endodontist as I apparently have tiny narrow bendy root canals that needed widened.  It was not a pleasant experience.  My mouth is small, my teeth are large, and my jaw doesn’t stay open wide enough.  It involved having a block jammed into my mouth to keep it open, and lots of drills and long pointing things.  The worst part is not the pain, it’s not knowing what is happening or how long it will take.  There are so many scary looking instruments and the smell of burning didn’t help.  The anesthetic also made me feel shaky and queasy.

Now I need to arrange more appointments to have the cap put on.  The endodentist suggested that I leave it for a week to give myself a break from mouth pain.

Underwear, when new, can be a bright glaring white.  I’m working on a costume that requires the underwear to look old and worn, and it was suggested that I dye it with tea.  This is not something I have done before so I bought a test garment, in the same fabric, and tried aging it yesterday afternoon.

I have read many online articles about this process and a chapter on dyeing materials in a text book.  All they really told me is that you use tea and water.  There is no way to know what colour the end product will look like, which is not good when you only have one costume and you can’t get another one if you mess up.  Everyone uses different tea, different amounts of tea, they are vague about the amount of water they use, or how long it will take.  Do you use salt in the water?  Does the garment need rinsed or washed first?  Do you add vinegar at the end?

I bought a black lipton tea and put four teabags and 3 litres of hot water in a large basin.  I added a teaspoon of salt.  I removed the tea bags after five minutes and then added the garment, which I had rinsed in warm water.  I let it steep in the solution for one hour and then removed it and rinsed it in warm water.  The garment certainly dyed but I didn’t like how it looked.  It’s much browner than I wanted and I think that the brown almost has a pinkish tinge to it.  The colour is also patchy, which makes me think that I will need to stir it during the dyeing process to try to get a more even colour.  Or I need a bigger container to dye it in, but I don’t think I have one.

Today I’m going to test strips of white cotton with a different tea solutions to see if I can get close to the colour I want.   I completely understand now why people use bottled dyes that mimic this process as at least then you will have clear instructions on how to use the product and a much clearer idea of the expected outcome.  I realise that my garment is not the same as a strip of cotton, but it’s the best I can do.

We took a day trip to Gunma Prefecture to visit a lavender park. I was really impressed with what frozen things do in summer.