Sean points out that it’s been radio silence from me for a good two weeks. He’s right. I’ve been busy. He’s also managed to guilt me into writing this up, even though I’m STILL busy.
Last weekend – not the one that just passed, which I spent holed up in my room, but the one before – was play weekend. We had three shows.Compared to what I was used to during high school (eight-show Tommy run, anybody?) this seemed like nothing much. However, when it was Wednesday night, and we didn’t have our costumes, hadn’t even met the makeup/props crew, and, oh yeah, didn’t know all our lines, it seemed awfully daunting.
I had a lot of lines. I never once said them all correctly. But that’s okay, since I’m pretty sure the only person who got all her lines right was the Gravedigger. Guess how many times the Gravedigger speaks? That’s right. Once.
Mostly we were able to cover the mistakes pretty well, and often only the people on stage (and Dani, the director, in the front row with the prompting script, and Mars, the other director, going crazy up in the booth because the sound man was going WAIT WAIT WAIT I LOST MY PLACE WHAT’S THE NEXT EFFECT) knew that we had skipped, say, an entire page. Which we did. Twice. In the same performance. The first time we didn’t even realize it, the second time everyone did. See, when you stand on the stage staring at each other helplessly for 15 seconds, people notice. Bancroft eventually just went “…shall we SKATE?” because it was a skating scene. Martin said, “Yes! Eventually. But first! Don’t go near that church.” And we went on with the scene, having effectively covered everything that needed covering.
That was Friday. The second night was better.
My costume was unbelievable. It was this heinous blue-gray silky dress with lace, drop-waisted. It was also way, way too big in the chest. This was solved by an ENORMOUS bra, which I had to stuff with a hat and a scarf to fill out. I wore a brown coat over this, black heels, and pearls. I also had my hair curled and makeup that made me look old. It was pretty hilarious to watch people do a double-take either when I came on stage (if they knew me and what I looked like) or when I came out in street clothes (if they didn’t).
The best incident was on closing night, with Ramsey (actually called James, playing a man who believes he’s a wolf). He wore a kilt and a lab-coat, and high pink stripy socks. We have a scene together right before the one in which we had the incident, and during our scene I remember seeing that his kilt pin had come undone. But it’s a very loud, fast scene, and I quickly forgot about it. Plus, we went right back onstage for his death scene, so when did I have time to say anything?
Ramsey died.
Ramsey, in dying, flashed everyone.
The audience realized it first. We couldn’t figure out why the hell they were howling with laughter - wasn’t this supposed to be a sad scene? And then D’Arcy (played by Amit) looked down. He made a face, and, completely in character, flipped the kilt so that poor Ramsey’s red underwear was not exposed. The audience went wild. Onstage, we were all laughing, Kitty with her face in Bancroft’s chest, me with my head against her shoulder, Steiner behind his coat collar, and so on. It was hysterical. It took a solid minute to calm everyone down – and then Kitty, when she went to say her line, broke up again, and so in total everyone was standing on stage laughing for perhaps two minutes. We finally managed to continue, despite the fact that people’s voices kept shaking with contained laughter. We got through it, and got rousing applause when we all slunk offstage.
Guess which night the tech kids filmed the show?
Yeah.
After the show, we all helped break down the set and get it back up to IH. Then I got dragged up to DJ (Bancroft’s) apartment for drinking. Peer pressure, what? I had two cups of vodka and cola (Deej made it with the good vodka, and I actually did enjoy it) and a cowboy shot. They made me. They said all Americans had to have a cowboy shot. It was some kind of schnapps thing and Bailey’s. It was rather tasty, but I flat out refused to have more than one.
But the evening was not over! No, it was not even one o’clock am yet! We caught the second-last tram of the night up to Brunswick/Sydney road, and headed into the bar that we’d basically reserved for the afterparty. I had another drink (vodka again, because wine sends me to sleep and beer tastes like ew, but with raspberry cordial this time), and made friends. I saw Callan again, and talked with Ingrid, and Sara, and DJ, and lots of other people. At 3 am they kicked us out, and we all walked home together, fifty or more of us trailing down Royal Parade. It was 4:30 before I got to sleep.
The next day I dragged myself out of bed at around noon, and had some brunch. I ate with Evan, Nay, Callan, and Pam, and afterward the four of us hung around and swapped miserable puns and jokes for a while. What we were doing is letting the hangovers wear off before we got to work, and it actually went quite well. I wrote an essay that evening and the next day.
This past week and weekend has been a whirlwind of classes, birthday parties, essays, reading, and creative writing assignments. I’ve been very busy. My highlights so far are going on the Ferris wheel (last Wednesday) and taking a three-hour chunk of my day to spend with Victoria searching out the queer bookstore for class (today, and the store is called Hares and Hyenas, whaaaat?). It’s been kind of a long, lonely week – Sarah left for
Sometimes all you need to do is rant. And eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Anyway. I have to go to High Table dinner and actually sit at said High Table (the whole cast is sitting there tonight) so I have to go put on nicer pants and head out. Apparently they give us wine and every time Jane Munro – the Head of House – says “Harvard”, it’s a student tradition to take a drink. Because she won’t shut up about it. So that will be deeply entertaining.
Cheers!
Grace
