The Dastardly Uncle - Act 2

We spent the interval in the dressing room. The costume and make-up ladies, Mary and Jemima, fussed about us. They made small modifications to the costumes and refreshed the make-up, while Petra sat in the corner holding her head in her lap and prattled about how much fun she was having with her head not attached at the neck. Alicia did not end up with much modification to her costume and neither did I, but Giselle had the skirt of her dress replaced with a shorter one that showed her ankles, which I felt might have been not suited to the era of the play we had been bounced into taking part in.

As the interval ended, we could hear the announcement of the imminent commencement of the second act, but more immediately, I heard Clive, the instructing voice in my ear, telling me to follow the signs to the other side of the stage to be ready. Alicia evidently had similar instructions from the voice in her ear. Giselle also had instructions, but these directed her somewhere different.

As the curtain went up we got to see the scenery. The backdrop suggested that the audience were looking at a steep ravine and impression reinforced by the near side of the stage being a platform which indicated the edge of the precipice and a raised platform extending across the stage that represented a trestle rail-bridge across the chasm.

With the curtain fully open Mr Fanshaw, the dastardly uncle of the play's title, entered over the bridge pulling on a rope that after a few seconds dragged Giselle, in her role as Florence, stumbling onto the bridge with the end of the rope wrapped around her wrists.

The next section was Mr Fanshaw ranting about the fact that his plan, to prevent his wards from inheriting the fortune he currently administered, was on the brink of failing because he lost the advantage of surprise. His monologue, was liberally interrupted by my middle step-sister pulling on the rope that prevented her character, Florence, from escaping and her comments on the elements of the plan. It was difficult to determine how much of Florence's dialogue Giselle was making up and how much was being fed to her by a voice in her ear. I knew from the previous act that the dialogue into my ear was inconsistent in use of language, peppered with a mix of archaic and modern turns of phrase and that I and my sisters had rephrased various lines in both directions.

Having reminded the audience of the general plot, such as it was, Mr Fanshaw lamented the infrequency of trains on this line and dragged Giselle away, who had to catch up having dropped the rope that was supposedly tying her wrists. This amused the audience.

Clive, in my ear, told us that it was our turn to take the stage on the side of the ravine. The gist of our dialogue was that we had heard Mr Fanshaw and would stick around for his promised return to rescue Florence. We also concluded that in the time until the villain returned to enact whatever his plan was for Florence, there was little we could do except enjoy each others company. This took the form of romantic dialogue, kissing and hugging, which neither of us were averse to; Alicia is attractive and like my other step-sisters has crush on me.

The romantic interlude was interrupted by the sound of a distant train whistle and instructions in our ears to act as if we had spotted Mr Fanshaw and Florence returning.

As we hurried behind a section of the curtains that concealed the backstage from the audience, we were told that we should periodically peek around the part that resembled a tree to appear to be hiding their, but afraid of being spotted by Mr Fanshaw.

As Mr Fanshaw and Florence crossed the bridge again, her body was tightly wrapped in rope, but leaving her head and legs free. She was telling him that he would not get away with his evil scheme and that Dean and Debra (the characters played by me and Alicia) would soon be along to rescue her and let the authorities know about his plans and that he murdered the maid, Imogen (who had been played by my youngest step-sister Petra in the first act).

At about the middle of the stage Mr Fanshaw stopped and Giselle bumped into him. He picked her up, despite her struggles and laid her down across the supposed rails with her head towards the audience. She continued to spout defiant non-sense, while he tied her to the tracks. He then got out his pocket watch and snarled something about the 4:59 being late again, before crossing to our side of the stage and exiting where the train tracks seemed to disappear from the area depicted on stage.

There was a bit of business where we discussed what we should do, even though it was obvious to me that Dean should go out onto the tracks and untie Florence; Clive and the voice in Alicia's ear had us discuss this, with pauses to allow Giselle to scream for help without impacting the dialogue. I guess we were padding the running time.

Eventually, Dean and Debra decided to rescue Florence, which consisted of me walking out onto the fake trestle bridge and tugging at the ropes tying Giselle down. Clive did not give me much warning to get out of the way, when the stage train appeared on the other end of the tracks. I had little time to run along the tracks and leap aside onto the area representing the edge of the ravine; I could have leapt down to the area of the stage that represented the ravine itself, but seeing something large coming at me I panicked.

As I lay on the raised section of stage I heard screams form the audience and saw the curtains begin to close. It took me a while to notice why anyone had screamed; I was confident that my escape from the onrushing train had not been that close. Then I heard Giselle's voice asking for her head to be picked up so that she could see what had happened. Mary and Jemima, the costume and make-up ladies arrived to untie Giselle. This seemed to take no time at all. Then I was shocked to see them lift my step-sister's body into a wheel-chair, without her head or her feet. Mary wheeled most of Giselle away while Jemima picked up a detached pair of stockinged feet and called back, "We'll see you in the dressing room. Bring her head when you come!"

I finally found the motivation to get up. "Let's go," said Alicia with Giselle's smiling head cradled in an arm.

When we got back to the changing room, the make-up ladies took Giselle's head and handed it to her body, then had Alicia out of the costume she was in and unto another seemingly identical costume in preparation for the final act.

I noticed that Petra was not there and asked where she was. Giselle told me she had enjoyed her role in the first act enough that she had been persuaded by Mr Fanshaw to appear in the final act too, so he was preparing her for that.

It did not seem long before the call for act 3 was heard.