Well, we are just finishing up week four and slowly edging our way toward the halfway mark on our tour. It's certainly been a wild ride so far. We spent the past week or so in Warren, MI—also known as the "Land of the Strip Malls" (coined by my friend, Darren)—just north of Detroit, and I have to tell you something: the traffic here is horrendous. I maintain that the drivers still aren't worse than the ones in Memphis (it's pretty tough to reach that level of combined incompetence and rudeness), but the actual structure of the streets, the number of traffic lights, the frequent u-turns because you can never turn left at any of the intersections, and don't even get me started on the impossible number of cars on the road at any given time of day…it's all insane. And we actually got into a small accident the other day.
Just what we needed after the horrible Diesel-incident. We were driving in a six lane road, in very heavy traffic (is there any other kind here?) and the car to our left failed to check his blind spot when moving into our lane, moved over right into us and swiped the front left side of our car. We got it all sorted with the police and our boss—who is handling the insurance. Fortunately, we're covered for incidents like this one, and it wasn't our fault to begin with, so there's no need to worry. Personally, though, I was quite upset on Thor's behalf. He was such a pretty, shiny, 2013 car. (Thor is the name of our Dodge Avenger, in case you've forgotten.) And now he's all scraped up on the side. Poor guy.
Still, the good news was that no one got hurt, the insurance covered it, and we still made it to our last show of the day on time. I've definitely been learning to count my blessings on this trip.
There is some unfortunate news to report, however. I am very sorry to say that we will be losing one of our number: Due to family problems, Jack has to leave us about a week from now. We haven't pressed him for details, but he needs to be with his family right now. He will be sorely missed. I have truly felt that Jack is a "kindred spirit," as Anne of Green Gables would phrase it, and I will be keeping him and his family in my prayers, of course.
Meanwhile, we must deal with the reality of the fact that he won't be with us after Week 5, and Jenn and I will be training a new actor in his role—a new actor who has yet to be cast. I will certainly post again as soon as I know more about that situation. Whoever we get, he won't be Jack, of course, but I'm sure he will bring a new and equally good element to our little posse. Although as my Aunt would say, "There you go again, having expectations, Dorothy." I suppose I do ask for trouble with all my optimism, don't I? We'll see. One of these days, I'm going to be totally right. I just know it.
As for the show itself, there's never a dull moment in the theatre, and this is even more true with children's theatre. Partly because he is leaving this week, I think, Jack has let loose a little more within our show. This has meant in a couple of incidents, without warning, he's done something a little different that I wasn't expecting, making it extremely difficult for me not to break character and laugh on stage. Almost every performance now I have to go backstage and silently crack up. Don't worry, he hasn't tried to re-write the show or anything. Just little things like all of a sudden patting me on the head at one point in the show. (I nearly lost it.)
Another example, which wasn't entirely his fault, happened the other day after one of the audience interaction moments. At one point in the show I ask the kids to tell me what some of their favorite foods are. "Pizza" and "Macaroni and Cheese" are both mentioned at least once a day if not more. I select three kids, and then we incorporate their three foods into a couple of the lines later in the show. Jack was listing the three foods, the Beast accusing Madame de Terre of eating all of it, "All the Strawberries, every last waffle…" and then he goes on to add a moment later, "And let's not even mention the mashed potatoes!" Well, little Johnny B., who had suggested the mashed potatoes, was very concerned about having his food mentioned, and when Jack had just gotten done saying, "You ate all the strawberries, every last waffle! You didn't even hesitate!", the child piped up from his seat, "And mashed potatoes!" Well, of course, I saw it in Jack's eye, he was already laughing on the inside as he agreed with the kid, "And the mashed potatoes!" he nodded vigorously, gesturing to the kid, and when he turned back to me, I nearly lost it. We were both sniggering through our lines, doing our best not to let it show, particularly given that Madame de Terre is scared the Beast is going to devour her at the moment. It was hilarious, and we cracked up about it for the rest of the day. I'm sure I won't be able to help laughing the next time a kid says his favorite food is mashed potatoes.
But by far the most memorable instant occurred this past Thursday. It was an unusual day, as we had 4 performances instead of just 3, much to our chagrin. One of the schools had scheduled two performances back-to-back, meaning we would perform for half of the school first, and then the other half second.
Now, the number of students in an audience has varied widely since our first week on the road. We have performed for everything from 20 students to 600 at a time. So we were anticipating a very large school. As it turned out, we only had about 100-150 students in each group, a number which could easily have been combined. Of course, presumably they paid for two shows, so two shows they would get. Except there was one little problem: They started the first show over half an hour late.
Let's establish something: For all of our chaos and all of our flaws as a group, we have been pretty responsible about our timing. Schools are given a performance time and told to expect us half an hour before that time. This gives us time to set up, and—in theory—it gives the schools time to assemble their students. Most schools do not seem to understand, however, that having a 1:30 show slot does not mean they should begin filing their students in at 1:30. It means that we should begin the actual performance at 1:30. Very rarely does a show begin on time. It's fine, though. Our show is very well rehearsed, so we keep things pretty tight. The show itself is almost exactly 45 minutes, maybe closer to 47 if you want to be meticulous, and then afterwards we have the talkback, which we like to be about 10 minutes. When we start a few minutes late, this is usually where we dock the minutes, if we know we have to leave at a precise time to get to the next performance. Generally the schools are very understanding about this, as they know it is not our fault when we start late. As a matter of fact, it probably takes us all of 10 of those 30 minutes to be set up and ready to go. Although one time there were circumstances completely out of anyone's control: The fire alarm went off just as we were about to begin, and we had to evacuate the school. Didn't see that one coming.
But this particular school. Well. I'll skip over some of the reasons why things happened the way they did. It's not my place to judge the faculty at that school, or the way they handled a particular situation, but regardless, we started that first performance over half an hour late. We mentioned it to them before we started, worried that we wouldn't be able to complete both shows before school let out for the day, but the principal dismissed us with a wave of his hand. "Oh, don't worry. We built in about fifteen minutes of leeway time. It'll be fine." With a few dubious expressions exchanged amongst us, we went ahead with the performance and kept our cues as tight as we could. At the end, they had us skip the talkback entirely, and the principal apparently came up to Jenn and Jack while I was changing back into my first costume for the second show, and asked half-jokingly, half-hopefully, "So, do you guys have a 30 minute version?"
Oh dear.
As it happens, no, we don't have a 30 minute version of our 45 minute show. But heck if we were going to let that stop us. For secretly, we are all superheroes.
I'd like to state that I have never claimed to be particularly good at improvisation. It is a very intimidating form of theatre, to go out on stage without any real script, sometimes with people you don't even know very well, and to just do…and hope that whatever happens is good. I have known a handful of people who are very talented at this, and I envy them that skill. It is a very powerful one to have in your arsenal. At my university, there was an improv troupe, and I always remember some of them performing a game at our annual Shakespeare Under the Stars festival. The game is called Half Life. In Half Life, the actors (I have always seen it done with 2 actors) are given the name of a famous story or show, such as Hamlet, for instance, and a timer is selected from the audience. The game is to tell the story of Hamlet first in two minutes, which is already fast and silly, but then in one minute, 30 seconds, and finally 15 seconds. It usually ends with something akin to both actors throwing themselves to the ground and 'dying.' (Spoiler alert: pretty much everyone dies at the end of Hamlet.) The results are inevitably hilarious, and the actors usually end up laughing at themselves, too.
Personally, I've never played Half Life, only seen it done, and I couldn't help thinking back to those actors as we took the stage for the second time that day, frantically whispering to each other about which lines we could cut and where we could tighten things up. We began the show, as instructed, before all of the students had even entered the gym, and from then on it was completely up in the air what was going to happen. As Jenn described it later, "It was like my mouth was completely detached from my brain. I didn't even know how I was talking!" I think it's safe to say that that day all three of us perfected the art of speaking as quickly as possible while still being intelligible. There wasn't a single pause in any of the action. Lines were skipped. I cut an entire monologue, and Jenn and I got so confused at one point, we cut pretty much an entire scene, flinging ourselves offstage so Jack could enter. At one point, an entire class of students left during the show, presumably to get to the buses for the end of the day or something of that variety.
The end result was a hilarious, chaotic mess, but we're proud to say that we still managed to tell the story, and the kids still saw the Beast transform into Prince Charming, as well as Belle's joyful "Yes!" to his proposal of marriage. And of course, more importantly, they got to see the mother hobble onstage and ask the Prince (once he invited Madame de Terre to come and live with them, of course) whether he had "any more of those mashed potatoes." Now that's what I call a success.
Afterward, we hauled our exhausted, adrenaline-rushed selves to Olive Garden to celebrate success with endless pasta and 3:00-in-the-afternoon-I-don't-care-it's-5:00-somewhere cocktails. We toasted ourselves and laughed ourselves to tears over how in the world we managed to cut that show down to 30 minutes. Success, indeed.
Personally, I think it might be the most memorable performance of my career, including the time the dry ice in the witches' cauldron flooded the stage during Macbeth. And the time the fog machine set off the fire alarm during The Magic Flute.
I totally feel you on the whole improve is slightly terrifying notion. It's a skill I've yet to cultivate as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, your gifs were spot on in this post.
lol thank you darling. Jack thought they were entertaining as well.
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