The show I’m in opens on Friday. We have three more rehearsals before our first audience on Thursday and I’m not ready.
We’ve had four weeks to get this show on its feet and we should be ready but I feel like I've only had three since I lost a week to the flu and a snot filled head, lack of energy and issues with breathing. A total excuse, I know. Lots of theatre shows go up in less. I’m just trying to stop beating myself up because that’s not helping me feel ready at all. It’s just adding panic to the process, which is never helpful. Yes, I know all my lines. That's not the problem. I know them - I just don’t know where they come in the play. And I’m only slightly kidding here. It doesn’t help that this script is filled with lines that repeat and answers that lead in different directions, down different roads of inquiry. And that these repeated lines are not limited to a scene; they are peppered throughout the play. It’s a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series only we’re trying to get off the stage and you can’t go back and pick a different ending. Well, you can but really, that just makes the play longer. For years now, Mother and I assumed that Grandmother had issues with memory and that is why they had problems on stage during her production of Ages of God. Why they kept looping between acts, why there were large pauses as someone tried to figure out where they were and how to move forward. Grandmother, I was wrong. The plot is a Psychiatrist trying to find out if Nun who was found with dead baby killed said baby. I was wrong because the Psychiatrist, the part I’m playing, is the one who leads the questioning, who can bring things back on track when things get wonky, who should be able to get the play from point A to point B. And it’s not happening. Why? Because I ask who the father was, who knew she was pregnant, who killed the baby at least a million times, in slightly different ways throughout the play. It’s very confusing. Last night, the woman playing Mother Superior and I tried repeatedly to finish the two pages we’d dropped in act one. We - well, really it was me - answered several of her qualifying statements with the one sentence that would lead us into the missing scene. We covered the same ground over and over and over. It would have been entertaining to hear what our panicked brain was saying while our mouths were moving with dialog, “Um…. haven’t’ we been here” “Yes, but I don’t know how to get back out!” ”Me either!” At one point, towards the end of Act One, she paused. I’m not sure if it was dramatic effect or if she went up on a word. All I know is I saw the end of the Act in sight, knew what had to be said, and I said it, fast and quickly. I turned a ten-line back-and-forth dialog ending into my own personal mini monologue, said it quickly and got the hell off that stage. It’s good that we can find the humor in this right now. And again, I really mean me. I’m pretty sure the director and the producers are not as amused. I know the stage manager who has to follow the script sure isn’t entertained at all. But it’s a dark show and humor is the only thing keeping me from crying and napping. Brother deals with stressful emotional situations by napping. I always made fun of his ability to drop off into sleep when the world was falling apart around him but I’m following suit with this show. I managed two naps yesterday. Perhaps if I sleep with my script under my pillow, things will all make sense by Thursday… Or perhaps, the production staff will take my suggestion to heart and tape the shows road map up on the stage where the audience can’t see it. I’m pretty sure I can hide a frantic study of it while on stage looking like a smug and self-righteous Psychiatrist… So, um... coming to see the show? Sure won’t be boring…
1 Comment
Robert Coles
5/19/2014 03:40:53 am
You're doing better than you think! It's going to be an amazing show. I have faith. :)
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
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