Catch Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/-t87lTj-
or read his transcript below:
ALWAYS HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN
I am high above a hardwood theatre stage on a catwalk, stepping gingerly on aluminum slats, trying not to look down. Some thirty or so feet down is where I’ll be performing in a few days.
When I reach a point above Center Stage, I drop the coil of thick rope from my shoulder to toe level. This is where my work begins.
I test the stability of the metal to which I will affix one end of the rope. I grin, thinking that what I am doing now is the equivalent of a jumper packing his own parachute, trusting no-one.
Once I double and triple-knot the rope, I shove the other end between the slats and allow it to fall full-length to the performance floor below. I now have a swinging vine that even Tarzan would find safe. I hope.
I make my way down ladder rungs till I’m on the stage. I walk toward the rope, glancing out at the empty theatre seats which will soon be filled with audience, an audience watching me swinging from the rope.
I pull a twelve-foot ladder over, lift the the wrought-iron chandelier stage prop, and ascend. A second round of double and triple-knotting the rope, and suddenly the chandelier is a swinging part of the set.
One more test. I grab hold of the chandelier, wrap my legs over its top, and swing loose, hoping against hope that the entire contraption will hold fast. Knowing, in my extreme youth and foolishness, that should it snap, I will fall a dozen feet to the stage, landing on my spine and perhaps taking a sharp right toward permanent injury.
It works.
I transfer my shaking body to the ladder and make my way to the floor, knowing that I’ve done something that nobody else would be trusted to do. I can now play the scene as if I’m light as air, as accomplished as a trapeze artist.
Weeks later, when the comedy plays before a live audience, I swing upon the chandelier high above the actors who are pretending to be fighting among themselves. I alone am safe from harm, as if I impulsively jumped high up and grabbed a wrought-iron fixture to escape the melee.
All the audience knows is that something funny and seemingly spontaneous has happened. And that’s show biz.
In later years, when Q says to Bond, “Always have an escape plan,” I’ll recall how I backtimed a stunt, turning it into an escape hatch, while never allowing anyone to see me sweat and strain.
To this day, whenever I paint myself into a corner, I stomp on the feeling of panic and say to myself, “There’s always a way out.”
It’s just up to me to find it
© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.