My Macau theater debut was a rousing success. At least in the sense that no one made any serious mistakes, everyone seemed to have a good time and no one got hurt.
We did three shows on the weekend – Friday to Sunday. I was originally expecting a matinee on Sunday, but apparently that's not the way they do things on the Portuguese side. Even though each show sold out, there are no current plans to extend the run. We had the theater for those nights only. Someone else will be in that space the rest of the week.
Maybe that's the best way to avoid papering the house. The longer the run, the more you need family and friends to boost attendance. If you are only there for a few nights, it is much easier to rely on the general public showing up.
From my point of view, I like the way we did things. There were few rehearsals, but everyone had other things to do. The actual performance itself took very little time out of our lives. The theater was big enough that it did not feel like we were staging in someone's living room, but small enough that no one was crippled with stage freight. Working with an actor who freezes on stage is never fun. It was all casual enough to make Shakespeare less stressful, but serious enough to do his words justice.
My one complaint was that it was all in Macau. I have nothing against Macau, but I live in Hong Kong. Most of the people involved, and probably most of the audience, live in Hong Kong. Right now, we have about four typhoons or soon to be typhoons swimming around the Pacific Ocean. None of them are ever going to hit Hong Kong, but they do affect the waters between Hong Kong and Macau. It is a quick ferry ride, but it feels longer when the waters are raging. Maybe next time we can do it on calm weather days.
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No hate, please. There's enough of that in the world already.