TT 22 - Excitement at the Fat Cat Vegetarian Cafe

Gabriel Lamb is charming the ladies at the Fat Cat Vegetarian Cafe. He is leaning against the doorpost, his actor's coat draping expensively behind him, blowing cigarette smoke out into the street and filtering charm back in through the open doorway. Roz, who favours stripey tights, T-bar shoes and brightly coloured jumpers, fares slightly worse in the onslaught than Sal, who favours women.

"So, what's your play going to be about?" says Roz, whose metabolic rate is cracking on at such a pace she could have a deep fried Mars Bar with her mid-morning coffee and still not break her 1200 calorie limit.
"Well, it's a comedy, really" says Gabriel, and gives Roz a smile to warm her hands on, which is just as well, since he is letting in a cruel draught through the open door.
"Oh...!" says Roz excitedly, and her arms lift slightly at her side as though she wants to say 'yippee!'
"It's about a man who's paid to cry."
"Oh, quite dark then." Says Roz, and the arms come back down again and the eyes widen.
"Um..?" Gabriel draws down the corners of his mouth and stares out across the street into the leaf strewn church yard, "well, I suppose it is, really. Well, perhaps more 'magic realism'."

Gabriel finishes his cigarette and finally closes the door with a tinkle of the bell. He joins them at the large round wooden table in the geranium filled bay window. "He starts off as a lad on street corners," He says, suddenly animated, as though his mind has just ignited with the idea and he is sharing it for the very first time. "People pay him to cry for their own griefs. It's set in the Edwardian era, in the east-end of London, so they're too stoic to cry for themselves, you see." And Roz does see.
"Then the first world war comes along, and of course, business is booming. He ends up in Vaudeville. At first he's the warm up act for The Great Rolando, the renowned sentimental tenor, but soon he's top of the bill, a household name."
"So what happens then?" Sal, who has been pretending to busy herself with the coloured chalks and the menu board is hooked.
"Well, it all goes a bit wrong. After the war, he ends up in the circus. A freak show. I haven't decided how it ends yet. Perhaps it is a tragedy after all."

"Is it an allegory?" Asks Roz.
"Not an allegory, exactly. Although it is...there are symbolic resonances. It's going to be very visual! Increasingly visual, as we go from street to theatre to circus."
"Sort of hard to stage." Says Roz, who has a tendency to innocently drop these teeny-weeny remarks that turn out to be horribly incisive.
"Well, the staging will be ambitious." Gabriel says, picking up a pepper grinder from the table and fiddling with it for a while. "But I like the idea of going back to the spectacular." He puts the pepper down. He's caught up with Roz's comment and he needs both hands free. "I want to stage it like an old fashioned Music Hall, or Cabaret. Dancers, acrobats. I'd love to actually use limelights. Pump the smell of greaspaint into the crowd." His hands intuitively cup with the sheer plenitudinous viscerality of it all.

"You know, the more I think about it, the more I think it is a tragedy." Gabriel Lamb decides. "Here's this character, trapped inside a performance, the performance of other people's emotions. And the more he martyrs himself the more they clap and cheer."
"Oh yes, that's very good!" Says Roz.
"Very clever!" Agrees Sal.