Holiday Broken, Part Two

So as my semester is winding down, I check in with my friend to see how she's doing. She's in Batten-Down-The-Hatches / Full Speed Ahead / Damn the Torpedoes / Somehow, Somehow It Will All Work Out Mode. This, as you can imagine, is not a good place to be. So she asks again if I can do the show. I tell her, I have three problems:

1. The show goes up during exam time, and, this being my first semester teaching, I don't know what my exam responsibilities will be.


2. My wineshop work schedule has me working in the evenings, especially on Fridays when I work until 9:30 p.m +


3. I have a reading of my play in D.C. on the Monday of the first weekend of the show. No show on that day, but there is a show the day before that may conflict with the rehearsal for the reading, whose time I have yet to learn.

"Never mind all that, never mind all that," says my friend. "We can work it out. Can you come to a rehearsal? Just come to a rehearsal. Just come to at least give our lead the chance to work the scene. We go up in a week and we haven't even had a chance to do that."

So there I am, that Sunday, papers to grade in hand, at a rehearsal.

Now let me tell you, if you don't know, being in a show is an event, a ritual event. There's a whole rhythm to it where you meet everyone for the first time, read through the script, wait for when you can work your scenes, get to know your scene partners, hang out with the rest of the cast while you're waiting, feel the mounting nerves as you realize you still don't have your lines and time is drawing near, you all get into costume for the first time, you see the set come up around you ... it's a whole thing, you know?

To walk in from nowhere a week before opening is like having been dropped through a time warp. To my mind, the whole process is just starting, while everyone else is walking around me in full costume and makeup, with a built set, doing final runs of the show. In addition, I already know almost all the adults in the cast, so there isn't even a period of introduction, just "Hey, Clinton." "Hi, Clinton." "Hey. Glad you could make it." "Hey, thanks for doing this." In fact -- and I just realized this right now -- it feels eerily like those famous dreams where someone comes up to you, says you're late, and pushes you onstage for a show you don't know in a part you haven't studied.

Except I know this show, and it turns out I remember the part as well.

I ask someone for a script, sit for ten minutes, and am surprised to find the whole scene come back to me. Well, it's not that large a scene and it's got a pretty strong rhythm, but I would've sworn I hadn't retained that much of it. Wrong.

While I'm refreshing myself on lines, I hear for the first time about Ira.

"Hey, Clinton. Thanks for doing this. So, are you doing this? And what about Ira?"

"Who's Ira?"

Ira is, apparently, a co-worker of a member of the cast. He's Black, and he was at yesterday's rehearsal. What is this? Is this a hook I see before me ... off of which I am? I gather up my papers and ask my friend if she's safe in the arms of Ira.

"No, no, no," she says. "First off Ira doesn't know the part. He's only been to one rehearsal, yesterday. He said he was interested, but he hasn't said he would do it. He also said he would be here today and he's already an hour and a half late. Plus, Ira can't sing. Please do the part just for today. If/When Ira shows. We'll work it out."

So onstage I go in my street clothes with this lanky, fifteen-year-old kid, with a tossel of red hair, in full costume, whom I met last year when he wasn't the lead, but is now. And he's good. He's got a bundle of energy and is having a great time. When the scene's on, he's trying very hard to be in the scene. But when the scene's over he's bouncing around shadow boxing, Elvis posing, joking, laughing. He's cute. It's like playing with a puppy.

Afterwards my friend comes up to me. "That was great," she says, her entire sentence sounding like one, big sigh of relief. "Let's talk."

I inform her that I've learned that as an adjunct faculty my exam responsibilities are nill, so that's not a problem, but what about Ira? Well ... Ira, it turns out, was finally reached. He had to move or had to help someone move or something like that and couldn't show. He'd be here tomorrow. Could I be here as well to help Ira through the part if he shows, and to go through it again if he doesn't?

"Sure," I say, and, papers in hand, I trundle out the door into the unseasonably warm evening, pretty sure that I'm going to end up doing this show.