In Appomattox, I told you a story about how I had to wear a pregnancy pad, with a full skirt, on a set that the crew affectionately called 'Deathtrap'--metal platforms laid across each other, with holes in between that opened straight down to the concrete one floor below (and the stage managers had the nerve to chirpily tell us "watch your step!")
Well, the pregnancy pad wasn't so bad, but the bra they gave me was filled with BIRDSEED to emulate the look of a pregnant woman ('cause, you know, I am not neccessarily gifted enough with the breasticles to pass on my own), and, ladies and gentlemen, that sucker was HEAVY. My poor boobs felt like they'd been squished flat by the end of each performance (and trust me when I say that I am old enough to not need any help with sagging and flattening, thankyouverymuch). Between that, nearly falling to my doom on-stage, and being dripped on by blood-soaked horse carcasses hanging from the ceiling ('cause, you know, that IS what the Civil War was all about....right?), among too many other REAL annoyances and indignities to list during staging (did you know Philip Glass actually was adding music up until the week of opening?? And that he actually changed some of the music AFTER opening night?!? Did you know that the director was added after the first one precipitously quit? With six months' time to learn the entire show--that hadn't even been composed in entirety yet? AND THAT HE'D NEVER WORKED IN OPERA, MUCH LESS WITH MORE THAN SIX OR EIGHT PEOPLE ONSTAGE, BEFORE???--OK, OK, I'll stop), I can tell you that NONE of us were sorry to see it go.
We had enough in the chorus to say Grace over, as my friend Kathy puts it, what with Magic Flute, Tannhauser, Madama Butterfly, Macbeth, La Rondine, Magic Flute for Families (think 'Magic Flute Lite'--in English. Go ahead, learn the same opera in two different languages simultaneously and NOT go insane. I dare you.), and Rake's Progress, all either up and running or about to open, at the same time. So, what with frayed nerves and tattered nubs of sanity, it was only natural that we would come up with things to amuse each other and make the time pass--sort of like soldiers do in the trenches, I'm thinking.....
My brother, after listening to my ranting about Crappomattox (Problemattox? SlapAMuskOx? CrappyButtox? AppleMaalox?), gave me an utterly brilliant idea for the final performance. I only wish I'd had the stones to pull it off, but alas, I am not tenured, and even if I was, this would still be the kind of stunt that would have security escorting me out of the house after collecting my I.D....which is why I share it with you, so that it may live on in cyberspace if not in infamy....
He said, "You should get the biggest frozen turkey you can find, and shove it up under your dress. Then, in the final scene, you oughta straddle one of the traps, make a few moaning and screaming noises, and let'er rip!"
I could just see it...
MIZ SCARLETT, MIZ SCARLETT, I DUNNO NUFFIN 'BOUT BIRTHIN' NO BABIES!!!!
BLAMMO!
And, as it hit the concrete, it would have been interesting to know what the exact sound between 'shatter' and 'splat' sounded like....
At the final performance, we DID have 'un peu' bit o'fun at the opera's expense...in the 'flight from Richmond' scene, I have to push a rickety baby carriage onstage. I got in line to pick up the carriage...to find one of the props guys had stuck a disembodied hand into it, fingers pointing straight up, looking like something out of 'Rosemary's Baby' or the final scene in 'Carrie'.
Of course, I went on with it.
We had a pickup football game in the dressing room with the pregnancy pad.
And, although no turkeys were harmed in the making of this opera, I DID have a sin, a la Tannhauser, in honor of the composer, scrawled across my chest in red;
MINIMALISM.
And many many cocktails were consumed after the final show.
Hallelujah, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment