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curtain calls/curtain cries

(This will be a two-parter. Mainly, because I’m still feeling a bit green and hazy and such.)

All right. It’s Monday, but let’s pretend it’s last Friday. The morning of our drama camp’s not-so-grand finale.

Now, curtain is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. But this is theatre, folks, so something has to go wrong.

It’s 10:08. We are (still) waiting for our keyboard player to arrive for the final run-through. We futz about, but cannot get the air conditioning to work. It’s growing downright tropical in the room and I’m starting to sweat through my “No Refunds” t-shirt. Droplets of moisture dance across the plastic-covered eye holes of my Macy’s bag.

It’s now 10:11 and we are also waiting for one no-show little girl. Rehearsal continues without her and the keyboard player, but my thoughts are pounding. My armpits are now a rainforest; my head, a jackhammer.

Strangely, right at this moment, I recall an old joke:

Seems a famous Revolutionary War general had an unusual habit. Believing that morale would fail if his troops saw him bleeding and thus wanting to hide his blood at all costs, he would call his assistant to him on the morning of battle, yelling:

“William …. bring me my RED pants!”

Well, on the morning of what he knows will be a decisive battle, the general looks out his window. Horrified at the vast ocean of enemy troops before him, realizing defeat is certain, in his loudest, tremblingest voice, he bellows:

“WILLIAM …. BRING ME MY BROWWNNN PANNNTS!”

Just then, the thick pounding in my head thins out to a high, pathetic whine: Where is my William? Where are my brown pants?

I snap, go kamikaze. Little Miss No-Show is out. But she has a line in the show. I need a Go-To Kid and pronto. I march up to one of the boys who is not beastly and practically bark at him:

“Jack, do you think you can do Jessica’s line?”

His eyes blaze.

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Tracey! I can do it!”

“Okay. Great. Uh, do you think you know the line?”

He says he does. He’s sure he does. I ask him to recite it for me. He’s not even close. I’m creeping ever closer to that brown pants moment. I feel another bark coming on, but it’s not Jack’s fault. Swiftly, I try to remix the bitter blend of words brewing in my head to something that will go down more smoothly, a bit of verbal hot chocolate with puffy marshmallows:

“Okaaay, Jack. We-elll, why don’t you try saying this instead?”

Bypassing that the line was completely wrong, I simply feed him the correct one, hoping I sound human. It’s a very short line, 5 words. We run the scene so he can try it. He gets it wrong. We run it again. Sweet Lord, it’s worse. The edges of his face redden and are quickly smushed under his pudgy, dough-boy hands. He stands there for a split second and then …..

We haaavvve a GUSHER!

It’s now 10:23. My Go-To Kid just might be gone, unless I can stop the gushing. Our pianist has finally arrived, but is now waiting for us, surveying this gentle scene of calm and control. And all the other kids, watching poor Jack blub, suddenly become like a pack of hunting hounds excitedly surrounding the fallen prey. I swear they smell blood, because they rush me, clamoring like the good, compassionate, Christian kiddies that they are:

“Can I have that line?!”

“Mrs. Tracey, I can do it!”

“No, I wanna have it!”

“Give it to meeeeee!!”

ARRRGGGHH!!

WILLIAMM …… BRRINNGG MEEE MY BROWWNN PANNTS!!

to be continued …..

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stage fright

Ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdearohdear.

Tomorrow is the draahhhma camp finale — our little musicale production.

(The whole saga began here. Continued here. Induced traumatic flashback here. And fell flat here.)

But 30 sweaty hours, 16 wanna-be “actors,” 14 drama queens (of both sexes), 9 unruly boys, countless bossy parents, and 1 floor roller later, the day is finally here.

So I will sport my “No Refunds” t-shirt and plop a paper bag over my head. I will cut eye holes in a Macy’s bag this very evening and then cover them with clear plastic, so I can both see through the bag and vomit into it, if need be. I will offer no explanation, because I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

I will storm the gates of heaven and implore the God of theatre to make that little floor roller stop twiddling around on his arse. And tomorrow, I will tell that vexing boy what I’ve longed to tell him for two weeks now: that he is a beastly, beastly boy, that Jesus doesn’t like floor rollers and that if he puts his little arse on that floor one more time when he is not supposed to, he will KNOW MY WRATH!

But no matter what may go horribly awry, there’s always my secret favorite moment in the show and it’s a sure thing. I know I can count on The Kid. Because The Kid is unstoppable.

It happens during “Day by Day,”a melodically insipid little number that tries one’s patience. But The Kid is magic. Now it’s hard to stand out in such a tame, cotton candy chorus, unless, of course, you do what The Kid does. With unmatched gusto, he and his lungs are front and center:

“ooooooOOOOOOHHHHhhhhh, deeeeEEEEEAAAAaaaarrrr LooooOOOOORRRdddd, THREE THINGS I prrraaaAAAAAyy!!!

He wails, he moans, he positively yowls, all in brilliant, ear-splitting bedlam.

My Co-Director approached me about The Kid the other day.

“Should we tell The Kid to tone it down?”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “He’s the only one keeping that thing afloat.”

“He’s terrible,” she said.

“I know. That’s the beauty of it. It’s wildly entertaining.”

She squinched her brow at me. Maybe I seemed inconsistent, not my usual stickler for standards. But, look, The Kid is not going to sing that song any better any time soon. Clearly, he is crazy for it in a way that no one else is. And if a child is howling, crying out to his Lord, who am I to try to quench the Holy Spirit? I don’t need that trouble. Besides, without The Kid and his beautiful braying, a dreary song gets only drearier, becoming the ultimate, awful sugar crash.

So maybe there’s a time for standards and a time for relaxing those standards for something silly and grand:

The happy little accident of The Kid being a kid. The sheer comic whimsy of it all.

So when that song comes and he does his thing, I’m sure I’ll smile and secretly say, “Good for you, Kid.”

I might even take the bag off my head.

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a tale told by an idiot

You know how sometimes you’re in the park watching “Macbeth” at the Shakespeare Festival? You’re outside. It’s just a lovely evening. Someone has thoughtfully procured tickets to the theatre as a birthday present for you. And you know how you sit in your seat, tapping your toe, waiting impatiently for the show to start? Never mind that the old man next to you is really very large and apparently sleepy and starting to snore before the show even begins. You wish him sweet dreams, poppy, as long as he doesn’t topple over onto you.

Because you are laser focused on that stage.

And then you know how the show finally starts, with a thrill, with a rush? You’re engrossed. Nothing can distract you. Not even that vague smell of pastrami or some other cured meat wafting from the general direction of Sleepy Old Man.

And you know how the story unfolds and Macbeth murders Duncan, the king, and is plagued by memories of the ghastly deed and mocked by his horrible shrew wife and it’s all very intense and you’re rapt with attention, even though people around you are reciting the lines along with the actors, which you’re only doing in your head, thinking this somehow makes you the better person?

Minor irritations, truly. You are edge-of-your-seat enthralled.

And then you know how sometimes ALL the seals at the nearby zoo start barking and bellowing in dreadful, insistent unison?

Oh, you know how it goes. Macbeth is wigging out:

“How is’t with me, when every noise appalls me?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

Macbeth sees blood, only blood:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR AR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR!!!

“No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red!”

ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!

And you know how you’re trying to stifle the rising waves of laughter, because the juxtaposition is just too much, but this is the Old Globe Theatre, after all, and you’re allegedly an adult and someone was brave enough to risk taking you out in public and you’re still allegedly an adult — you’re a year older, for Pete’s sake — and you owe it to him to behave like one?

Then you glance at him and he is shaking, head bowed. Laughing. And you, grownup that you are, poke him and he looks at you, helpless to stop, and you’re toast. You’re gone. Laughing. Trying to be quiet, but laughing, nonetheless.

And you hear the ripples spreading across the ampitheatre, joining with Macbeth and that mighty marine chorus until the sound is simultaneously thus:

“WAKE DUNCAN WITH THY KNOCKING! I WOULD THOU COULDST!”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

TEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE TEE HEE HEE!!!

So there you are, giggling with the other grownups, watching Macbeth’s tragedy become Macbeth’s comedy — if just for a moment — and you chuckle even more because it IS the thinnest of lines separating those two sides of the mask and isn’t that why you love the theatre, after all?

That crazy, sublime, maddening, transcendent theatre.

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I might start drinking

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Lazy, lazy blogger. What with all the celebratin’, I needed a break. Plus, I’ve got a case of the draahhhma camp blues. Our little show is Friday and, well, it could be rough.

Here’s what’s been scene and heard around camp lately:

— Another entitlement conversation with a parent that ended with “Fancy wants a bigger part. She’s very good. What can WE do about it?”

(Fancy is NOT very good. Fancy is adorable, but spooks when spoken to, never speaks above a whisper and WEEEE are not going to do ANYTHING about it!)

— The parent of Little Girl With Floozy Makeup grilling me about whether “the camp is good enough for her daughter.” Turn that question around, Mummy.

— My rapid transformation into the Simon Cowell of Kiddie Drama.

— One little girl telling me she has to stand still during the dance numbers because she has “way too many boo boos on my toes.”

— Needing to remind one little boy EVERY DAY to fight the urge to lie down in the middle of a song.

— Having one girl who has a new suggestion every five minutes — “She should wear red” “What if we all twirled like this?” “How about if we’re all barefoot?” “I could choreograph that part, if you want.” I guess what she really wants to do is direct.

— Having one little boy who follows me around constantly. Conversations go like this:

“Mrs. Tracey, look at my hair!”

His hair is perfectly normal.

“Wow!” I say. “It’s pretty neat.”

“Yeah.”

OR

“Mrs. Tracey, I found this on the floor!”

It’s the chewed lid of a pen.

“Can I keep it?!”

“Oh, it looks a little chewed up, hon. Just throw it away, please.”

He appears to go to the trash can. I’m distracted by other things. Later:

“Brandon, what’s that in your mouth?”

“It’s that thing I found on the floor. I like it. I decided to keep it.”

OR

“Mrs. Tracey, feel my heartbeat.”

I do, gingerly. It’s beating like a normal heart.

“Wow! Feel that.”

“I just ran really, really fast.”

He didn’t.

“You did? Good for you.”

“Yeah.”

OR

“Mrs. Tracey, do you see my shoe?”

“Yes, ” I say, waiting for what’s coming next.

Nothing does.

So I’m a little tired. As is this post. You know the feeling. 😉