I’m sitting sidestage at the National Theatre in St Kilda waiting for the show to begin in under an hour. Facebook refuses to allow me to log in (I blame Vodafone mobile internet) so as a result, words.

Words, words, words.

It’s extraordinary to me how much quite expensive theatre worker time is spent waiting. But sometimes there’s just not much to do.

The show is the National’s own ballet school semester performance. It’s a chance for the kiddly-winks young and old to show to their parents what they’ve been working on. This particular recital includes a glorified class, followed by the third act of Swan Lake, and closes on a medley of movie musical numbers.

Swan Lake was interesting because the first rehearsal I saw was out of costume and I was basically lost. When I saw it in costume, however, something clicked and I suddenly understood what was going on.

Removed from the context of the story, of course, it still wasn’t the clearest narrative, but it was still a remarkably different show. I suspect if I had the knowledge and training to understand the differences in the dances it would’ve been as clear as day, but I’m not a dancer or really a dance appreciator so it went over my head.

But production design I do get. Costumes can and did tell the story when the performance couldn’t, for my uncouth and untrained eye.

With that thought, it’s about time I did some work.