Me and Louise did a little shopping today for a chair I needed for my upcoming production at Unity Theatre of Floating (shameless plug – tickets still available).
I’d never bought a chair before which I guess would have been a monumental moment in my life, one to cherish like a child’s first step or a wedding speech from an emotional father or drunk friend. But not, it was not to be monumental for two reasons.
Reason one is that this chair isn’t for me, for use in real life, it’s a prop, albeit a very important prop, but not to be used regularly without the use of a studio theatre.
Secondly it’s a chair that appalls me with it’s hideousness. This is a chair that was probably used by an old man for years and years before he died, probably in the chair, leaving the stains on the cushion as his body eroded with time until he was eventually found by a neighbour wondering why there were forty bottles of milk outside the front door.
However despite these two elements I find myself warming more and more to it. Having sat in it I feel completely at home, it’s comfortable and as an added bonus because of it’s weird arms it is useful for keeping a cosy elbow but a well balanced cup of tea. I’ve also become intriuged more and more by the pattern. At first and from a distance it looked like someone had vomitted an array of brown and green together, but upon closer inspection the cloth tells a story, the story of a man being led around on a horse towards a church through a forest, a story of our times. The wood is polished and everything is sewn together rather than stapled. You just don’t get that from Ikea. You also don’t get a frill at the front, or moths underneath, or the reminicing smell that brings back memories of half smoked cigarettes, horlicks and loneliness.
Deep down I’d like to keep it after the production is over, maybe take up smoking a pipe too. However it’s not to be, noone else will touch it and it doesn’t fit with anything else I own. Still it may not be a monumental chair but it may be a chair that influences the purchase of every chair after it.